The Vital Force Archive

Teacher notes from Steve Ridley, Pam Towne, Margaret Weber, Theda Gillespie and Lillian Susumi, including Towne's shift to teaching softness before form and Gillespie's classes at Rio Caliente during the Mexico City earthquake.

Justin Stone illustrates softness with the tongue outlasting the teeth, water wearing away stone, and bamboo bending while the oak cracks, then warns that trying to be soft creates tension.

Christeen McLain-Curran recounts Fargo listeners mishearing T'ai Chi as "typing" and "tongue-in-cheek," plus her blood pressure readings showing drops across eight classes and a Parkinson's support group demonstration.

Lucy Hocking recounts a year of persistence that led from one contact's referral to eight weekly classes at a California corporation, then dwindling attendance after management changes, plus her own recovery from cancer surgery.

Steve Ridley responds to the September 1985 editor's note on "Meditation in Motion," arguing that rapid repetitions give only a surface buzz while slower movement vibrates chi on deeper levels.

After her father's death, Jean Katus received a note from Justin Stone about trees shedding leaves in autumn, and found in T'ai Chi Chih a way to hold sorrow and joy together.

Cathleen Rickard urges teachers to keep T'ai Chi Chih pure: advertise it by Justin Stone's name, flag any added movements, and hold to harmony, balance and Joy rather than other motives.

Steve Ridley recommends the Great Circle Meditation as a sitting complement after the movements, describing the deep peacefulness it produced when Justin Stone led it at the Teachers' Conference.

Amira Bramson passes along the holiday postcard Bruce made for her to send to her T'ai Chi Chih students, signing off with "Love and Chi."

Steve Ridley recounts how, during his 1977 Los Angeles teacher training, he dreamed of leading the group through the movements and woke to strong surges of circulating vital-force.

Jeanne Carlson-Linscott describes crushing her shoulder, collar bone and seven ribs in a motorcycle accident a week after accreditation, doing one-handed and mental T'ai Chi Chih in hospital and leaving in six days.

Judy E. Freeman, who manages court records for over twenty clerks in San Francisco, writes to teacher Lucy Hocking about arriving grouchy and leaving happy, and the arthritis relief she and her 78-year-old mother found.

Two dated pyramid poems by Steve Ridley, one finding peace and freedom in Rocking Motion, the other tracing the path from competent form through softness to directing the Vital Force.