The Vital Force Archive

After seeing gentle exercise everywhere on a 2008 trip to China, Richard M. Lukesh joined Margaret O'Connor's class, watched his blood sugar drop twenty points, and finished a long-stalled poetry book.

Michael S. Isaacs practices reluctantly during a flight delay and finds effortless flow by Around the Platter, followed by Seth Ambrose's account of recovering from a suicide attempt and craniotomy with TCC.

Sandy McAlister has students play Around the Platter deliberately too large, then too small, then let go into the effortless middle, with focus dropping to the soles of the feet; Pam Towne urges learning or rededicating to Seijaku.

Meg Scinto lays out her step-by-step method for teaching the Around the Platter Variation, from rubbing palms to feel energy, through arms-only practice, to carrying and releasing the ball at center.

Ev Hanson walks through the forward and backward weight shift and the polarity of the ball in Around the Platter Variation, while Ron Richardson explains why students open their hands and how he demonstrates cupping the energy.

Detailed refinement notes from a retreat, covering hand angle and wrist release in Rocking Motion, the Chi between the palms in Bird Flaps Its Wings, and letting the T'an T'ien initiate Around the Platter and its Variation.

At Justin's Life Celebration, Sr. Antonia interviewed Justin Stone, who recalled Professor Wang's three warm-ups, the week the TCC movements came to him named and complete, and refusing teachers' tithing checks.

Four teaching approaches to Around the Platter: Alice Holden's student brought a cardboard pizza plate to class, Anna Gunderson and Pat Flynn break down the yin/yang step, and Carmen Brocklehurst adds thumb and t'an t'ien refinements.

Sharon Sirkis recounts three encounters: an adult daycare student's quip about wine, a UMBC student demonstrating Around the Platter with her legs on the floor, and a skeptic in back pain who conceded she had a point.

Three short pieces: Sheila Leonard names her snow-shovelling moves Passing Snowflakes and Carry the Shovel to the Side, Linda Braga brings a stuffed cat to teach the taffies, and Kathy Grassel lets a Juvenile Detention Center student keep his beach-ball-sized ball.

Linda Braga asked her continuing class to practice a single movement for as long as it felt complete, and students reported hot vibrating hands, electrical sensations up the spine and twenty-minute Perpetual Motion sessions.

Lisa Renee France signed up for a T'ai Chi Chih course only to earn one CPA credit, then a hospital stay made Sharon Sirkis's lessons about bamboo, patience and a too-full plate suddenly matter.

In a letter, Beverly McFarland credits a belly dancer student's tip about shifting from bent leg to bent leg with releasing hidden tension in her Pulling Taffy and improving her alignment.

Cristina Minelli recounts her November 2001 lecture to roughly 300 people at the University of Verona's Special Education department, from her ten years of insomnia and the Indian tiger parable to leading the room in Push Pull and Around the Platter.

Nancy Vermond, grieving the hurried clearing of her sister's condo after Alzheimer's moved her into a nursing home, found in the Around the Platter Variation a reminder to hold on lightly.

Four light-hearted items: Debbie Cole's class billed as "Moving Medication," Sharon Sirkis taking a message from a squirrel, Mary Pat George's student hearing "Around the Bladder," and Sher Dano's grandchildren critiquing a graceful conclusion.

A photo of Tom Tolentino and his students moving through Around the Platter in a Southern California park, where his Saturday morning class runs as a walk-in, join-in session.

Four anecdotes: Sharon Sirkis gets a message from a movie listing, Mark Moloney's student renames Around the Platter "Wiping the Counter," Jean Katus mishears "waste," and Ed Altman slips a quarter under a candidate's heel during Anchor Taffy.

Dan Carpenter, a student finishing a semester class, compares the flow he finds in Perpetual Motion and Rocking Motion to carving down a mountain on his snowboard, and recounts practicing at dawn during an ice storm.

Doug Harned describes teaching his first class, from faltering words to a looser rhythm, adding Around the Platter Variation with spare time and seeing students report warm, tingling hands.

Selfa Robin Boyd's pyramid poem moves through Rocking Motion, Bird Flaps Its Wings and Around the Platter, finding roots growing from the soles of her feet toward the earth's center.

Barbara Joy practiced at the seashore on Monhegan Island, Maine, where a sea gull approached each time she did Bird Flaps Its Wings and walked away when she switched to Around the Platter.

Hope Ridley noticed that every one of the twenty movements holds both tension and release, citing the wrist flip in Bird Flaps Its Wings and the inward circle of the platters.

Lois Mahaney taught twenty second graders in Hayward in just two one-hour sessions for a Chinese New Year multicultural program, and their demonstration impressed a visiting martial arts instructor.

Diana Daffner recounts how she and Richard led a Sarasota Peace & Justice Center beach picnic through Bass Drum, Push Pull and Around the Platter as metaphors for awakening, breathing and sharing peace, with poems from two participants.

Richard Brier walks through the movements one by one, giving each a personal symbolic meaning, from varying circle size in Around the Platter to the student whose 35-year insomnia eased with Passing Clouds.

Meredith Robbins recounts her first class at the Stone House in Lakewood and the teaching images she relies on, from ducks on a pond for Around the Platter to rhythm words and the lesson of Push Pull's reserve.

Short on time before going out, Jane Klingensmith missed her afternoon practice and instead braced her feet against the tub end, working Around the Platter, Push Pull, Pulling in the Energy and Carry the Ball while bathing.

Richard travels the land of Chi Lanka, passing gates named Rocking Motion, Bird Flaps Its Wings and Bass Drum, and ordering a Stoneburger Supreme from a waiter named Just-In.