The Vital Force Archive

Lisa Stroyan collects teachers' responses from Sandy McAlister's April 2023 Zoom discussion on the split mind, including Joan Weaver's trick for recovering a lost count while teaching.

From a spoken word CD, Justin Stone recounts the 1974 first class where a priest regained his sense of smell, the tingling and heat students feel, and the stage when T'ai Chi Chih can be done mentally.

Ana Royal describes injuring her left knee reaching for a carry-on bag in Boston, the years of injections and medicated gel that followed, and how a year of daily TCC practice ended both.

Abby Molino, a nurse and massage therapist, returned to T'ai Chi Chih after three decades, traded her frustrating VHS tape for a DVD, and drew the many-handed kitchen woman with her Sandhill Crane.

Marcella Box introduces Lovena Warren, an 86-year-old accredited teacher whose free weekday Zoom practice restored her daily habit, and who led hurricane evacuees in T'ai Chi Chih from a shelter stage in 2005.

Joanne Howell recaps the Second Saturday discussion of Sandy McAlister's four practice types - formal, working, play and tailored - with teachers' examples of connected forms, imagery and staying true to Justin Stone's original.

Daniel Pienciak describes experimenting with faster, smaller movements and fewer repetitions, citing Justin Stone's Photo Text encouragement to build a personal program and test different speeds.

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.

Senior teacher Nancy Werner-Azarski of Minneapolis recounts seeing Justin's face when she sat to meditate before practice, his silent standing answer at an Albuquerque conference, and how hip pain led her to two long-avoided projects.

Donna McElhose collected thank-you letters her Illinois students wrote to Justin Stone, describing asthma-friendly movement, circle meditation, a Folsom Prison video, and the struggle to practice alone at home.

Trish Winger names the commitment that a daily group practice creates after 20 years of putting her own practice last, alongside the freedom of solo practice to choose movements and pause.

John Marquez describes a 5:30AM Saturday with his cat Bella, arguing with his own laziness, and finds that beginning one movement, or even a weight shift in a checkout line, builds consistency.

Lorraine Lepine describes the four-days-a-week Zoom practice she has led since March 2020, letting the Chi teach during silent practice, with testimonials from Melissa, Steve Geer, John Marquez and Nicky Mendenhall.

Guy Kent compares solo and group practice after the 2022 teacher conference, recalling forty-minute sessions with Justin in Albuquerque and suggesting practitioners time their own practice against that mark.

Daniel Pienciak, a conservatory-trained musician, compares solo piano practice and choral singing to TCC, arguing that group flow delights but daily solo practice carries the inner discipline Justin Stone described.

Lisa Stroyan admits she has never practised steadfastly alone, and describes how Zoom group practice and a Seijaku class question from Carmen gave her the phrase "supportive cohesiveness."

Quotations drawn from Justin Stone's spoken word CD, on building an imperturbable Center amid busy life, the tan t'ien as the seat of intuition, and why a teacher who does not practice is a fraud.

Margery Erickson recounts a former student, Sandy, rejoining her drop-in YMCA class and producing the worn list of TCC movements she once used to practice before craft shows.

Sharon Sirkis of Columbia, Maryland collects classroom moments: two seniors interlocking fingers during Around the Platter, one wanting to push away worries, and a student pulling taffy at red lights.

John Marquez builds a pyramid poem from the word gratitude after a morning practice, then traces how years of T'ai Chi Chih turned being alone from a negative into valued time for practice and writing.

Drawn from Justin Stone's spoken word CD, a Lotus Sutra passage, the Nasrudin tiger powder joke, Hakuin's enlightenment by broom and his Song, notes on purification, and a warning that a teacher who does not practice is a fraud.

Sandy McAlister climbs out of the dent in her couch and returns to a two-mile woodland trail, finding in the walk, its mile marker ritual and lighter return a parallel for restarting a lapsed practice.

April Leffler describes the phrase "present time awareness" surfacing during a morning practice, the small mental check-outs it gently interrupted, and how returning attention to the soles of the feet carries over into daily life.

Donna McElhose asked her current students to write welcome letters to future beginners, and they describe bad knees and a seated class, being the only male in the room, and the daily practice that finally made the movements make sense.

Dorene Krause takes four lines about the growth of certainty, heard in Daniel Pienciak's Seijaku course, and applies them to years of practice, including a student's account of returning to class thinking she knew the movements.

Donna McElhose asked her current students to write to future beginners, and their mostly anonymous letters report a hip that stopped cracking, better balance, new friendships, and calm found in fifteen minutes of daily practice.

John Marquez recalls his father telling him, as the first-born of his generation, to set an example, and describes how nearly three years of T'ai Chi Chih practice answered the skeptics around him.

Hannah Hedrick recounts a long neighbor dispute over invasive Himalayan raspberries that reached court twice and even interrupted her class, and the intention of beneficence that came out of her practice.

Glenn and Mary Laudenslager began TCC in spring 2000 after Mary saw it on PBS, taking an eight-week class with Lou and Joyce DeGidio that led to twenty-one years of daily practice.

Allan B. describes how, after four months of daily T'ai Chi Chih, his post-practice sitting became a discipline he calls One. Perfect. Moment.; John Marquez adds how effortless movement brought joy.