The Vital Force Archive

Vicki Brodie recounts the Denver conference, where Sr. Antonia Cooper explained she teaches neither Taoism nor Catholicism in class, Sr. Alice Holden told "Prinderella and the Cince," and Donna Moore led a chant.

Justin Stone previews his October talk, recalling the interest his Monterey Peninsula College evening course drew from people asking whether to lie for the boss, and quoting the Lotus Sutra.

Pyramid poems from Tori Fiore on finding a calm center in turbulence and from Holly Davis on the range of teachers' ages, learning to teach and watching Justin and Steve move.

Justin Stone argues that spiritual change requires physical change, citing Krishnamurti's and Gopi Krishna's bodily agony and Rinzai's abrupt transformation as evidence of Prana, or Chi, at work.

Gail P. Collins recalls her first TCC Conference in Colorado, the honest sharing at meals and between sessions, being in Justin Stone's presence, and closes with her poem of the same name.

Carmen Brocklehurst distinguishes T'ai Chi Chih from T'ai Chi Ch'uan, insisting Justin Stone's movements are not a watered-down martial form but original creations built on yin and yang, and urging teachers to tell beginners so.

Donna Bundock of Tijeras, New Mexico offers a pyramid poem in which the spirit within awakens, chi flows, and a light glows from within in rejoicing.

Steve Ridley pairs two short poems on silent stillness and a river's song with a note on yin-yang dynamics, closing with Swami Chetanananda's words on letting go of worry.

Anita Germain of White Bear Lake, Minnesota marks the conference in a five-line pyramid poem of mountain tops, surrender to internal oneness, and clouds of chi coming home.

Hope H. Burla, a T'ai Chi Chih teacher and martial arts student, objects to the idea that the two practices are mutually exclusive and argues that martial arts builds inner balance, focus and self-respect.

Justin Stone defines the spiritual as identification with the Real, using Yogi Vasistha's counsel to ignore the taster and the thing tasted and rest in the tasting only.

Sr. Antonia Cooper describes how she and Meara Joy Norice created the Saturday night candle ritual in Denver, with a flower mandala, Justin passing the light, and 125 teachers moving together.

Steve Ridley offers four brief contemplations: the body reconstituted every seven years and what abides witnessing it, seekers of higher reality, honoring circulating chi outside formal practice, and inner balance attracting outer harmony.

Lia Ridley recounts her reluctance and then her gratitude after serving as Program Chairperson for the 1995 TCC Teachers' Conference in Colorado, and the realization about meeting each moment that followed.

Sr. Antonia Cooper, OSF writes that the bamboo tree holds both strength and surrender, and that living with these pulls has shown her yang and yin coexist rather than oppose.

Denise M. Clark writes to Justin Stone about twenty years of systemic lupus, scleroderma and polymyositis, the 1993 medication flare-up that kept her bedridden, and her accreditation less than a year after her first class.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts the 10th Annual Teachers' Conference at Regis University in Denver, where roughly 130 teachers from Alaska to New Zealand met, Lia emceed, and Sr. Antonia Cooper led a candlelight ceremony.

Anne Doering's pyramid poems, written for Justin, link the joy of simple moves with a suspended spine like strung pearls, healing chi, gratitude, and pain that comes from resistance.

Vicki Brodie recounts a squirrel that came within three feet of her outdoor morning practice, stood on its hind legs and moved a front paw in and out as it watched.

Carol Glinski's notes from her first conference since accreditation, collecting advice from Justin and Steve on teaching flow before mechanics, leaving ego aside, and living in cosmic rhythm.

Janie Dick describes practicing and meditating beside a lake while traveling home from Conference, and the wordless merging she felt when a passing fisherman greeted her.

Paula Favorito practised each morning at 7:30 on the beach across from her Victorian inn in Cape May, with ocean waves for music, when fifteen playful dolphins appeared offshore.

Short responses from teachers at the 10th Annual Teachers' Conference in Denver, including the candlelight ceremony, talent night, Justin Stone's "Cosmic Rhythm" talk, Seijaku training, and Amy Hackenberg's jarring return to Chicago.

Ralph Garn's post-conference notes on teacher camaraderie, Justin Stone's revised Seijaku, and the hard/soft, holding fast and letting go rhythm he took home with him.

Nancy Kennedy, accredited in May 1995, practised TCC mentally through an hour-long MRI and the nurse's screen registered the change, then watched a nursing home patient with dementia and her own mother in Florida grow quiet during practice.

Rich Axline recounts arriving at the Teachers' Conference expecting to know only classmates from his San Diego teacher training, then finding strangers' faces familiar and naming the gathering his T'ai Chi Chih family.

Justin Stone contrasts Buddhist cause and effect with cyclic events like the plum blossom pushing through February snow, and names steady T'ai Chi Chih and Seijaku practice as the way to enter the Tao.

Hope Ridley's conference notes on adapting TCC for seniors, wheelchair users, cardiac and arthritis students, including skipping taffies, one-arm Pulley, mental practice, class fees and bringing focus back to the t'an t'ien before standing.

Patty Campbell OSF rose earlier each spring morning to practice with her bedroom window open, using the chirping of newborn fledglings as her music, and closes with a poem on hunger for life.

Susan Patterson describes opening a T'ai Chi Chih studio in San Diego in July 1995, driven by demand from California nurses, and the monthly teacher gatherings it now hosts.