The Vital Force Archive

Barbara Kristoff recounts the 50th teacher conference, from April Leffler's "walking the dog" image for Rocking Motion to small group sharing, and the grounding she carried home.

Dora Wiemann recounts how a donation earmarked for outreach led her to pull 208 excerpts from Justin Stone's Photo Text, sorted into four card decks, and suggests practising with one quotation at a time.

Comments gathered from small groups at the 2024 conference, responding to session themes of Worthiness, Unity, Courage, Joy, Opening, Giving and Receiving, Trust, Love and Gratitude.

Attendees at the 2024 Albuquerque conference answer five questions about why they came, what surprised them and what they carried home, from small-group talks to refinements in grounding and roundness.

Mary Strom recounts a Minnesota gathering for T'ai Chi Chih's 50th anniversary, where watching the leader's wrists during Around the Platter showed her the difference between softness and the collapse she long mistook for flexibility.

Lisa Stroyan gathers her notes from the 2024 50th anniversary conference, quoting April, Sandy, Carmen, Daniel, Tina and Justin, and closes with a pyramid poem built from the daily themes.

Sandy McAlister recounts how her breath settles naturally as she sinks into stillness, citing Justin's insistence that no breathing technique be coupled with T'ai Chi Chih, and a class experiment that found regulated breathing distracting.

Daniel Pienciak builds on Justin Stone's instruction to focus on the soles of the feet, distinguishing merely bending the knees from surrendering all bodyweight to the feet so the upper body genuinely relaxes.

Amy Tyksinski invites undecided teachers to the July 25-28 Albuquerque conference marking 50 years of T'ai Chi Chih, noting deferred payment until June and the theme "There is Only One Thing Going On."

Beverly J. Miles describes a year of practising Seijaku and arrives at the questions she still cannot answer, about holding the breath during hold fast, alternating sides in the Joy Song, and which movements are omitted.

Excerpts from Spiritual Odyssey in which Justin Stone credits the growth of T'ai Chi Chih to teachers' teh, or inner sincerity, warns against treating it as a business or as exercise, and insists movement come from the center.

Seven subscribers, among them Sue Bitney, Michelle Crow, April Leffler, Beverly Miles, Carolyn Pogwist and Guy Kent, wrote whatever surfaced after practice, from Passing Clouds and the water cycle to the t'an t'ien's glide in Working the Pulley.

April Leffler traces the "three-part harmony" of soles of the feet, softening knees and t'an t'ien in her practice, then asks how that same sense of connection applies to relationships in life.

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.

Lisa Stroyan describes locating her tan t'ien lower and deeper than expected during April Leffler's online accreditation, and A.B. of Albuquerque finds Bass Drum and Around the Platter blurring the boundary between self and cosmos.

Connie Shaw recounts a class in which teacher Marie Dotts urged students to practice with soft eyes and follow where the Chi led, and Shaw felt the room dissolve into light.

Caroline Guilott recalls skipping into the room to greet Justin in Albuquerque, and describes how words about the movements can trap a practitioner while attention to the t'an t'ien, the weight shift and softness opens the practice.

Dorene Krause describes the tan t'ien as a rounded bowl of stored Chi rather than a dot, with quotes from Justin Stone and Julie Barrier-O'Grady and instructions for breathing into the center in stillness and in movement.

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.

Laurie Jacobi arrived at the 2023 teacher conference convinced 24 years of practice had taught her all there was to know about body mechanics, then came away with new refinements in Bird Flaps Its Wings, Around the Platter and the Six Healing Sounds.

Susan Corey rereads her notes from Laurie Jacobi's "Embracing Emptiness" talk at the 2022 Teacher Conference and finds that waiting inside the pauses brings her weight shift into palpable harmony.

Caroline Guilott insists on Justin Stone's exact wording, from "graceful conclusion" to the "hip swivel," and explains how the relaxed, slightly cupped hands let students feel polarity as heat, cold or tingling rather than a cosmetic gesture.

Caroline Guilott draws on Justin Stone's exact phrases, from "graceful conclusion" to the hip swivel, and explains why polarity between relaxed, slightly cupped hands is felt in the body rather than the mind.

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.

Three 2002 letters from Mary Wichmann asking Justin Stone if she could come to Albuquerque to learn meditation, through his invitation to her June travel arrangements.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recounts years of struggling with Justin Stone's instruction to "come to a graceful conclusion" until a Tuesday morning practice when she simply followed him and her wrists went soft.

April Leffler describes imagining three coins under each foot, two at the ball and one at the heel, to track the weight shift and finally understand Justin Stone's reminder to bring a movement to a graceful conclusion.

Teacher-trainer Daniel Pienciak breaks down Justin Stone's instruction to 'make a graceful conclusion,' describing the full weight commitment, the soundless setting down of the foot, and the pelvic girdle letting go into stillness.

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.