The Vital Force Archive

Judy Chancey describes T'ai Chi at the Sea, a class she built for veterans with PTSD in a program that forbids instruction-based teaching, using sea imagery, grounding and wave rhythm instead of verbal cues.

Judy Chancey traces the fallow season that began with her husband Raymond's Stage 3 colon cancer and deepened with her sister Ankie's death, and the yinning and yanging that carried her into Zoom sessions for VA counselors and cancer care staff.

Julie Buffalo's unpunctuated poem invites practitioners to rest on their feet, let the ground flow up to hold them, and feel the head suspended while the spine lengthens.

Sheryl Adair writes from her grandfather's rocker with coffee and the latest Vital Force in hand, thanking KG and contributors, followed by eight Pyramid Poems on Rocking Motion.

Judy Chancey lists the practical steps to take while awaiting TC4VETS certification, from offering pro bono VA volunteer classes and meeting VFW commanders to practicing cues without left and right.

Robert Delano, diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's Disease, tracked down his late mother's teacher Sheryl Adair and found that daily practice left him yinning and yanging while vacuuming.

Merle Freidin Smith began T'ai Chi Chih after a 1998 rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, and practiced it mentally through 18 days in hospital after cervical fusion surgery, keeping her attention in the soles of her feet.

Seven years after Justin Stone's death, Sheryl Adair catalogs what he left behind, from books and pyramid poetry to his refusal to charge teachers, and asks how teachers can keep his selflessness alive for students.

Sheryl Adair describes leaning on T'ai Chi Chih through births, illness, death and divorce, including doing Rocking Motion in hospital waiting areas for both her grandchildren's arrivals, plus a Pyramid Poem.

Judy Chancey, a lifelong breath-holder, describes how exhaling into the soles of the feet and Rocking Motion brought her a conscious relationship with breath, and calmed her fear during divisive times.

Sheryl Adair practices in a sunny spot in her home studio, reads Justin Stone's line about gratitude, then tastes harmony, circularity and balance in a breakfast bowl of Cheerios and blueberries.

Sheryl Adair describes how Pam's Albuquerque accreditation sessions, sequencing Seijaku with T'ai Chi Chih and Fast Track, showed her that Fast Track is Justin's cherry on top.

Ava Wilensky, six months into T'ai Chi Chih, was left unable to walk, sit or lie down after a hiking trip, and rebuilt her mobility by yinning and yanging alone, three repetitions at a time.

Sheryl Adair chased waterfalls for years before a visiting hiker discovered a big one hidden behind the rhododendrons on her own mountain lot, and helped cut a trail to it.

Sheryl Adair pauses on a rock above a bend in the Chattahoochee to practice Rocking Motion, watching two Canada geese drift into white water and paddle furiously through.

Sheryl Adair recounts eleven years of persistence at Temple Sinai, from an unanswered volunteer offer in 2004 to a women's retreat session, a home class, and finally a six-week series in the chapel.

Larry Bloom describes his Sandy Springs Circle of Light practising to guqin music in honour of Franky Carrillo, exonerated after 20 years in Folsom, and teacher Sheryl Adair's closing question.

Sheryl Adair practices outdoors in Sarasota on the fourth anniversary of Justin Stone's death, while visiting her nearly 97-year-old uncle, and finds herself carrying all of life during Carry the Ball to the Side.

Merle Smith recounts her class dedicating its March 31 practice to Franky Carrillo, unjustly incarcerated for twenty years at Folsom, and teacher Sheryl Adair's account of his forgiveness after release.

Gail Horlick recounts first feeling the energy at a women's mountain retreat and a year of weekly classes with Sheryl Adair that left her calmer and more emotionally balanced.

Sheryl Adair's morning sunlight cast a shadow partner on the floor, letting her watch and correct an egoless "student" whose weight shift was even but whose close was rushed.

Larry Bloom describes creating a five-stroke digital painting of Daughter on the Mountaintop, drawing on shodo, Zen calligraphy and enso, and the wabi-sabi aesthetic Justin Stone praised.

Sheryl Adair moves through a full practice on a screened porch at Lake Burton in August, noting how the rain builds to a downpour and eases again with each successive movement.

Sheryl Adair staffed a booth at a "Go Red" women's heart health event at Emory University Hospital, demonstrating TCC to nurses next door and drawing an invitation to teach nursing students.

Sheryl Adair recalls Justin Stone talking oddly about his belt in his living room until she realized he wanted her own tight elastic belt loosened before meditation, an indirect lesson in paying attention.

Sheryl Adair returns from visiting a friend facing another round of chemotherapy, and a Mark Nepo line about thinking sends her back to her daily T'ai Chi Chih; five Pyramid Poems follow.

Julie Buffalo writes in the month after her mother's death about the heaviness and rootedness she feels in private practice, and the sitting meditation she now adds afterward.

Judy Chancey draws on circularity, continuity and softness as life-management tools, turning to Around the Platter during an upheaval that shook her sense of security, and finding gratitude beyond naming blessings.

Bo Waddell recounts two outdoor practices: a homeless man in a downtown Atlanta park who said "Thank you for dancing for me," and a New Mexico sunrise practice watched by deer and rabbits.

Merle Smith recounts a springtime women's retreat in the North Georgia foothills where Sheryl Adair led a Tai Chi Chih class for 48 first-timers, several of whom felt the chi flow.