The Vital Force Archive

Sandy McAlister calls on teachers to fund travel and hotel costs for overseas colleagues attending the 50th anniversary Teacher Conference in Albuquerque, and to sponsor candidates at in-person Intensives and Accreditations.

Pam Towne, accredited in 1984 and present at every teacher conference since Asilomar in 1985, urges teachers to come to Albuquerque in July for the first in-person gathering in five years and TCC's 50th birthday.

Lisa Otero counts the hundred-plus students who have come through her five classes in 15 years, including a new athletic student she misread completely, followed by Annie Braudy's discovery of soft hands.

John Lee Marquez, a teacher of nine months, describes his first TCC conference under the theme "Remembering Connection," with videos and stories of Justin Stone and notes on deepening practice.

Sue Kenney lists the paradoxes of T'ai Chi Chih, physical and spiritual, calming and energizing, and recalls Justin Stone's advice not to analyze them but to experience the effort of no effort.

Rosalind L. Braga recounts Justin Stone's 1998 talk at Folsom Prison, where the words "your joy is my joy" won over inmates and guards, and traces the weekly classes and inmate teachers that continue in 2023.

Karen Silva recalls Justin Stone demonstrating grounding in Basic Pulling Taffy, the pulling hand crossing diagonally to end parallel to the ground, an explanation she still uses in her classes.

Sandy McAlister outlines the volunteer-run pieces of the TCC organization and urges every teacher to pay for a listing on the taichichih.org find-a-teacher page, after a researcher searching for a teacher found no names.

Sandy McAlister describes the first California teacher's retreat since COVID-19, held in Oceanside with 20 teachers, and its theme of coming home to community, to practice, and to Prajna, the inner voice heard in silence at the tan t'ien.

Walter Charley, who learned T'ai Chi Chih in Sedona around 1976, recounts teaching groups of children in psychiatric hospitals, where depressed children lifted and anxious ones calmed; with pyramid poems by Beverly Miles and Johnnie Lee Marquez.

Rosalind (Linda) Braga recalls a private lesson where telling a nervous teacher candidate what she was doing right made her cry, and offers wording for positive group corrections.

Linda Braga recalls an early morning practice on a Mt. Baldy patio where a Doberman, a grasshopper and a bumblebee gathered beside her, all facing east until she finished.

Sue Kenney recounts how a 2001 Vital Force article led her to teach at Folsom Prison, walking the metal detectors, gold coin checkpoints, cell blocks and yard to reach a chapel class of thirty men.

Lucy Hocking revisits the Asilomar grounds where she hosted the first International TCC Teacher Conference in August 1985, and admits that as a lapsed teacher she has stopped practicing daily.

Sandy McAlister describes how a wandering mind lets the Chi rise, bringing headaches and giddiness, and how attention below the waist keeps practice grounded while softness stays shaped rather than limp.

Lisa M Otero recounts her early frustration with Justin Stone's instruction to come to a graceful conclusion, how balancing over her heels removed knee strain, and how strength at 60 brought softness.

Julie Heryet reports on the Folsom State Prison class after a 15-month lockdown gap, including a student talked out of suicide, poet Lawrence's release, and inmate-assistant Stephen's death from cancer.

Newly accredited, John Marquez compares himself to an artichoke shedding layers, and finds that demonstrating movements while talking, correcting, pacing and counting is harder than he expected.

Rosalind L. Braga recounts a silent encounter at a contemplative retreat at Santa Sabina Center, where a curious young Chinese woman who practiced T'ai Chi Ch'uan watched her move and called it light as a feather.

Judy Hubbell, three years into teaching Mind Body Health classes including ones for Chinese seniors, responds to the JustinStoneTCC.com newsletter and asks about Justin's link to Wen-Shan Huang.

Linda Prosche travels to Hilo for two weeks with her former teacher Hannah Hedrick, whose question about "Freedom Quotient" leads her to examine the decades-old habits, likened to Pele's hair, standing between her and effortless practice.

John Marquez builds a pyramid poem from the firm resting position outward to friendship, morning reading of centuries-past wisdom, self-responsibility, and students absorbing Justin's teachings until teacher and student merge.

Sandy McAlister questions Justin Stone's phrase "graceful conclusion," recalls how he ended repetitions with a downward thud, and asks teachers who studied with him to respond in the next issue.

Pam Towne offers a New Year self-check on how you move, using a mirror or cell phone video to test softness, continuity, weight shift, polarity of the palms and focus in the t'an t'ien.

Sandy McAlister recounts the second Saturday teacher Zoom gatherings, including September's discussion of TCC polarity and which movements have it, October's swap of class handouts, and tips on Cosmic Consciousness Pose.

Pam Towne teaches Justin Stone's joy song from Meditation for Healing, with its faster weight shift, swinging arms and one syllable per shift, and suggests adapting it for students' balance.

Lisa Otero recalls meeting Justin Stone through her aunt Carmen Brocklehurst, her initial disappointment that he seemed a conventional businessman, and the lessons on death and attachment absorbed over pancake house dinners.

Wilma Kuhns took up T'ai Chi Chih to protect her balance, then during her second class the last joints of her right fingers clicked into place, letting her close a painless fist.

Johnnie Marquez came to T'ai Chi Chih for balance after stumbling off a stationary bike, resisted his teacher's repeated suggestion to seek accreditation, and describes how Zoom practice, an Intensive and pyramid poetry changed his mind.

Johnnie Marquez traces the stages of a student's journey from quickly learned movements to the growing intimacy with the feet, total weight shift and moments when the practice seems to do itself.