The Vital Force Archive
Forty years of The Vital Force (1985-2025), the journal of the T’ai Chi Chih community. Search for a word, a teacher, a movement or a place, or browse by category and topic.
November 2010
The November 2010 issue carries two pieces by Justin Stone, It’s Not For Nothing and Cosmic Rhythm, alongside Sandy McAlister’s Acceptance, on leaving the Mormon church and later working with Sister Antonia. Pam Towne calls Seijaku integral rather than optional, several writers muse on softness, and teachers report from the gratitude-themed conference at Lied Lodge.
Pam Towne calls Seijaku an integral part of T'ai Chi Chih rather than an optional extra, describing how its holding fast and letting go carried her through divorce and her parents' deaths, and pointing teachers toward 2011 accreditations.
Pam Towne
Oceanside, CA
Amy Tyksinski recounts losing control of a high school T'ai Chi Chih class, abandoning her flexible, entertaining approach for strict structure, and the candid end-of-term survey answers her chattiest student wrote.
Amy Tyksinski
Albuquerque, NM
May Swanson recounts eight years of donated teaching at The Wellness Community in Phoenix and the Veterans Hospital, including a dying student who sat through class and felt the energy.
May Swanson
Phoenix, AZ
Written at the New Jersey Intensive Training in April 2010, Dorene Krause describes the 19 movements as 19 chances to let go, inviting the Chi, softening into each weight shift, and settling into centered stillness.
Dorene Krause
Midland Park, NJ