The Vital Force Archive

Susan Patterson recalls the Thursday night before the 11th Annual T'ai Chi Chih Teachers Conference, when 44 arriving teachers filled the San Diego Center for Justin Stone's first visit there and his talk on the purpose of spiritual practice.

Timothy Steutz announces GREAT! (GRatitude Ecstasy And Transformation) as the 1997 conference theme, urges reluctant teachers to attend, and hopes to offer scholarship money to those facing financial difficulty.

Asked at the summer teacher conference why his movements differ from Justin's, Steve Ridley traces his training, his lower and slower stances, and his spiraling-down revision of Pulling Taffy Variation A.

Justin Stone links T'ien t'ai and Zen use of holding fast and letting go to stopping the conceptualizing mind, recounting a Zen Master answering a Latvian woman's question about war by holding up five fingers.

Twenty teachers, among them Justin Stone, Hope Ridley and Loretta Shiver, send short notes on the 1996 San Diego Teachers' Conference, praising Susan Patterson's committee, the group practices, Steve Ridley's breathing workshop and Sister Antonia's candlelight ceremony.

Carmen Brocklehurst uses the Japanese swordsman who was told hard work would double his training time to show how beginners' stiff shoulders loosen only when the chi is finally felt.

Two short pyramid poems from the conference: Doug Harned finds tides and trees in the food line, and Eugene L. Box greets morning meditation, group practice and unconditional love with gratitude.

Justin Stone describes breath as fire and traces how breathing slows as thought becomes one-pointed and then no-pointed, so that deep immersion requires consciously reconstructing one's surroundings afterward.

Vickie Brodie of Burlingame recalls Sunday morning conference practice outdoors beside a fountain, with the sound of moving water making it a time she carries in her heart.

Jim Lestor coordinated the post-conference Seijaku training with Ed and Noel Altman, and took from Ed's instruction not to anticipate resistance but accept it and move through it a lesson for daily life.

Sky Woman describes a practice circle in prose poem form, standing close without touching while chi connects the group as one wave, one flower, one breath rising and falling together.

Steve Ridley offers short contemplations on relationships, the root addiction of identifying as a mind-body-personality, discerning which involvements nourish or devitalize us, surrender, chi, and the motivation to practice daily.

The mission statement for the 1996 Annual Teacher's Conference in San Diego, credited to Chris Enders for the idea and Sajila Bhatti for the words, calls teachers to refine their movements and renew their commitment.

A. Rae Miller's pyramid poem describes light enveloping every movement, a blueness rich enough to taste, and the assurance that all is as it has been and we are all one.

Brief notes on seven 1996 conference workshops, from Steve Ridley on refining moves and Corinn Coyde's paired Pulling Taffy practice to Carmen Brocklehurst on corporate insurance liability and Lia Ridley's top-rated dance session.

Teacher news from four states: Don Fiore's fourth graders in Phoenix, Marianne Merritt's classes for prisoners and staff at a California prison, a Navajo elders falls prevention fair, and Ralph Garn's seated group.

Summaries of four conference sessions: Justin Stone commenting on loose wrists and elbows close to the body as six teachers demonstrated, Elissa Maguire's hamstring and shoulder stretches, Sole Breathing, and a teaching panel.

Sr. Anita Germain recounts her June visit to Le Chambon and Tence, where Florence Okie had taught T'ai Chi Chih in French, and the villagers who hoped to come to the States for accreditation.

Justin Stone recounts telling a Ramakrishna nun that her longing to escape the world for the ashram was a delusion, then poses a koan about one Mind and Consciousness.

A roundup of the conference talent night, with Gene Box and Jan Arrott singing, Darrel Astin's Tao humor, and Joanne Sultar forgetting the words to "Gotta Get It Perfect."

Pamela Butler, a recreation director at Liberty Commons, expected karate kicks and resisted scheduling a class, then watched Ralph Garn teach seniors in Manlius and arranged an eight-week course.

Steve Ridley describes each person as an energetic event within a larger ocean of Consciousness-Energy, and T'ai Chi Chih practice as the means of constructively altering our vibrational resonance toward enlightened living.

Ilse Meyer's account of Sister Antonia leading a second year of the Lichter Tanz rededication, with teachers forming circles within circles and passing candle flame from longest-teaching to newest.

John J. Barbour's pyramid poem moves from feet sinking into the planet and arms as tree branches to endless energy and total rest at the center of all, printed on a bookmark in the conference packet in his memory.

Steve Ridley admits that the Vital Force contributions signed Yogi Pranananda, Ho Hu Tzu, M. T. Kupper and T. Hart Guy were all his own, and explains why he is dropping the pseudonyms.

Tori Fiori led conference attendees in a Native American blessing drawn from the closing portion of the four-hour Eagle Ceremony, using chant, tone and the pointing of an Eagle feather before the candlelight dance ritual.

Ralph Garn's pyramid poem traces an inner chamber where right and left intertwine, Yang feeds Yin, and a cyclone of energy showers down until stillness brings buried cobwebs into the healing sun.

Three letters: Ellen Tatge urges teachers to offer Justin Stone's new T'ai Chi Chih book to students, Penny Navis-Schmidt asks what the Teachers Association is for, and Anita Germain praises the journal's chi.

Mark Jones of Denver contributes four short lines urging readers to step lightly and do what gives joy, madly dancing in the simple sea of consciousness.

Mark Maloney's pyramid poem watches swallows wing west above pine needles while waves keep a steady heartbeat, calling the ground holy and the poet's tongue dumb before the land.