The Vital Force Archive

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.

Larry Bloom, awake after a thunderstorm with his thoughts racing, describes redirecting attention to his breathing until "no thought" emerged, and credits three years of T'ai Chi Chih for the inner stillness he now calls home.

Larry Bloom describes his pre-dawn practice at the living room windows, watching his reflection multiply and lighten, a spider abandon its web, and the sun arrive as he assumes the Cosmic Consciousness pose.

Judy Chancey traces Justin Stone's beginner instruction to focus on the soles of the feet from her first lessons to the rest position she used to steady herself while launching a business.

Judy Chancey passes along her student Marilyn Morrison's gratitude for Justin Stone, and her discovery, after a year of practice and a new copy of Spiritual Odyssey, that hard work is not the only way.

Larry Bloom, a scuba and free diver of forty years, connects Justin Stone's instruction on forceful inhalation and exhalation in Joyous Breath to vital capacity, tidal breathing and the oxygen that builds ATP.

Julie Buffalo describes a second year of teaching a well-attended class in a green park on the hospital campus where she works, where the earth seems to rise up to meet practitioners' feet.

Larry Bloom practices on the morning after Atlanta's first white Christmas since 1882, watching snow on his palm trees and describing how movements now move on their own after years of committed practice.

Judy Chancey traces her practice from the self-conscious mechanics of weight shift and wrist movement to the moment awareness dropped into the t'an t'ien and TCC began doing TCC.

Practicing above a North Georgia lake, Sheryl Adair distinguishes softness from limpness, comparing it to al dente pasta, and finds new roundness at the base of Bass Drum.

Larry Bloom argues that musing on softness requires considering hardness too, drawing on water in its many forms, a robin's egg, a golf grip, and a firm word to his son after he biked into traffic.

Larry Bloom compares an unwarmed mind to a stiff muscle, describing how his morning T'ai Chi Chih practice loosens rigid thinking, slows a racing mind, and makes tedious tasks pleasant; Pyramid Poems follow.

Judy Chancey's birthday greeting for Justin Stone's 93rd, praising his humility and crediting T'ai Chi Chih with leading her back to a genuine connection with the God-energy.

Larry Bloom, drawing on a career as a corporate executive, argues that TCC softness is itself a business "soft skill", quoting Justin Stone on bamboo, water wearing rock, and changing habit patterns.

Judy Chancey recalls Justin Stone saying over tuna salad at Carmen Brocklehurst's Fall Retreat that life has always provided what he needed, and traces that to a Kyoto chess game.

Larry Bloom, a former public company executive and student of one year, argues that TCC can counter corporate toxicity, listing benefits like clearer thinking and better communication while honoring Justin's warning against commercializing the practice.

Sheryl Adair swapped a week of regular classes for a group practice in her home studio, where a late-arriving student felt the palpable Chi and the circle stayed on afterward to speak about what TCC had changed in their lives.

June Engle began T'ai Chi Chih at 85 with a lesson in a parking lot after a hike, then DVDs, tingling hands, and one sleepless night after practising before bed.

Responding to Justin Stone's November 2008 article on impatience, Larry Bloom traces how he stopped seeing traffic jams and long lines as the cause of his irritation, and found a yin and yang to impatience.

Larry Bloom, a chemical engineer by training, brings his skeptical curiosity to the question of whether chi is real, surveying scientific forms of energy and the brain's billions of cells before landing on Einstein's advice about holy curiosity.

Bo Waddell, five months into T'ai Chi Chih at age 63, writes from a three-day retreat about learning in class that Chi likes to play, recognizing a childhood companion.

Sheryl Adair breaks down how she demonstrates Bass Drum to students, from the cupped hands to the letting go of the wrists, followed by Jim Eagle's account of how the movement unlocked his stiff hips and introduced him to his T'an T'ien.