The Vital Force Archive

Justin Stone traces his study of spiritual healing from the Japanese Healing Church to Chinese and Indian teachers, arguing that illness is imbalanced Chi and that the best healing is self-healing.

Transcribed from the CD Justin Stone Speaks, Justin Stone names the signs of progress: tingling fingers, the sense that the Chi moves by itself, and practice done entirely in the mind.

April Leffler, who has taught at Widener University since 2008, reports what her PE Director said would persuade a college to hire a TCC teacher, plus class formats and credit arrangements elsewhere.

Eliza Fulton treats the final pause after practice as a living silence that heals body and mind, noting that "silent" and "listen" are anagrams and urging us to rest from mental activity.

Margery Erickson's poem, echoing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," pictures teachers caring for parents and grandchildren, teaching when they can, and saving coins in a jar for next year's conference.

Lisa Otero recounts the 2016 Seattle teacher conference discussions on whether to stay in the rest position or release upright between movements, and Sandy McAlister's guidance to compromise.

Lucinda Kutsko recounts teaching an after-school TCC enrichment class to eight first and second graders, from snack-time chaos and taped Xs on the floor to their surprisingly poised family performance.

Alice M. Holden links St. Dominic's standing prayer to the standing pause between movements, and Stephen Thompson recounts Sandy McAlister's impromptu 2016 conference discussion on whether to rise or stay down in rest.

Tamara Zujewskyj writes for the four Canadians who attended the Seattle conference, describing the daily group practices, the shared Chi, and presentations by Sandy, Pam, and Daniel on teaching teachers and the evolution of the form.

Sandy McAlister reports the decision to alternate teacher conferences with combined community conferences, announces the June 2017 Boulder teacher conference, and describes three $200 Foundation grants for promoting TCC.

Tom Rothenberger recounts leaving Dan Pienciak's Seijaku course in Seattle, then applying no anticipation and letting go on a crowded light rail and a delayed flight home.

Daniel Pienciak questions whether the stance between movements is really rest, describing the closing posture as the moment yin and yang Chi reintegrate, and the interior release that follows.

Dixie Adeniran, a live-in caregiver for an elder, describes breaking her T'ai Chi Chih practice into fragments between eyedrops, showers and compression hose, finding serenity in the midst of activity.

Pam Towne recalls Justin Stone's prediction that some event would bring T'ai Chi Chih into mainstream awareness, and asks students and teachers to recruit candidates, reach younger and more diverse classes, and use the referral form.

Lisa Vander Vliet met Trudi at her parents' senior living community and discovered the 84-year-old had taught herself T'ai Chi Chih from Carmen Brocklehurst's YouTube video, practicing alone for five years.

The 2017 Teacher Conference Committee announce the June 15-18 gathering at Boulder's Millennium Harvest House Hotel, with coordinator Marie Dotts describing community as a tapestry of interdependent threads.

Christine Moore recounts how hip tendonitis and a knee injury from a bipartite patella forced her to postpone accreditation, and how seated and mental practice healed her instead.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst takes the 2016 teacher conference theme of Letting Go back to the open hands of Rocking Motion, argues that teh or inner sincerity is the easy way to let go, and closes with Pyramid Poems from conference participants.

Carol Mockovak describes the free summer practice she and Vanjie Bratt have led since 2005 on the Mississippi riverbank at St. Paul's Hidden Falls Regional Park, which inspired a participant's poem.

Eliza Fulton adapts a yoga strap trick for teaching the weight shift, holding a belt across the kidneys so students feel the hip flexors open and close as they yin and yang.

Joy DeHarpporte's poetic account of an August practice beside the Mississippi, led by Vanjie and Carol, where a soaring eagle, breeze and silence turn shared movement into communion.

Carol Nelson-Selby draws on neuroscience findings about body movement changing the brain to argue that TCC hand gestures, from Pulling Taffy's welcoming palm to the rising hand of Daughter in the Valley, are universally self-affirming.

Adabelle Rychtarik collected testimonials from her South Carolina students, who credit TCC with better balance, easier rising from low chairs, and calm during long hospital vigils with a loved one.

Lisa Stroyan, one month into teaching, watches a student discover she can feel her feet standing but not moving, and answers the question of how T'ai Chi Chih feels with images of sand, carousels and waterfalls.

Margery Erickson marks nineteen years of teaching since her accreditation course, held in her family's home weaving studio, and traces her sense of being grounded and centered back to that week after a Seijaku-Meditation retreat.

Donna Deffenbaugh's poem moves through cold water, mossy spruce, ancient hemlock, granite peaks and frozen lava floes, arriving at no destination but the arrival of being here.

Mary Wichmann collects three student comments from her summer practices in a church memorial garden, including thanks for teaching a woman in a wheelchair and Lorraine's dawn practice with waking birds.