The Vital Force Archive

Laurie Jacobi gathered four written responses from her students, who describe returning to the circle each week, practicing in a chapel, feeling the flow of chi, and leaving calmer.

Connie Krumrai recounts her accreditation week with teacher trainer Daniel Pienciak, where eight teachers, a Folsom Prison DVD of Justin, and a Mark Nepo verse about cracked seeds met her anxiety with laughter.

Charlotte Garrett describes the accreditation week when words Daniel posted on the wall released a habit energy of fear before her presentation, and names the teachers who prepared her.

Sandy McAlister asks what legitimately follows the graceful conclusion, naming gratitude, sitting quietly and the community's palms-together bow as the only traditions Justin Stone handed down.

Anna Vaith honors her student Karen, who cared for her husband through cancer, and recounts how grief over her grandmother's sudden death led her to accreditation in 2005 and to teaching.

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.

Linda Worlton recounts the November accreditation course in Albuquerque, where an auditor's question about where she disappeared to during the movements exposed the self-criticism and 'survivor armor' behind her tension.

Eileen Magnuson recounts her accreditation week with Pam in Albuquerque, where candidates and auditors from across the country worked on mindfulness, grounding and finding words to teach, closing with a graduation dinner featuring Justin's artwork.

Nancy Jo Bleier recounts how a breast cancer diagnosis and surgery in Seattle led her back to a T'ai Chi Chih practice she had nearly abandoned, and to plans to teach again.

Ron Richardson asked students at his church class why they practice, and student Park Dodge of Tupelo compared moving in unison to the call and response of liturgical worship.

Nancy Johnson thanks the strangers behind her daily comforts: whoever planted the tea she brews, the makers of a mismatched thrift store sweater, the farmers, entertainers and caretakers.

Jan Wilkowski recounts a brutal third week after left knee replacement, when playing Justin Stone's DVD on repeat and moving the arms, then the mind, brought her first real sleep and a return to writing and artwork.

Susan K. G. McGrath describes how, after a first year of practice spent balancing her own energy, she found herself balancing chi for family, friends, everyone and everything, an experience Justin Stone called "TCC doing itself."

Justin Stone recounts the unexplained urge that sent him from Taos to Albuquerque, where a bookstore remark led to six weekly classes, and adds his Buddhist prayer before meals.

Sue Bitney thanks Laurie Jacobi and Bonnie Sokolov, who stood directly behind her during accreditation week in 2005 until her body finally understood Working the Pulley.

Parker Reynolds traces a two-year intention to teach youth back to a video of Sister Christa and April Leffler at Drexel Neumann Academy, and to the church youth group class that finally resulted.

Dixie Adeniran writes of three years holding the deaths of her parents, the loss of her home to fire, and her husband Jack's death, and the Justin Stone quotations and lines of verse that came to her mid-practice.

Cathy Burton attended accreditation in Rochester at age 70 with no plan to teach, then took over Dixie Adeniran's Ventura classes after the Thomas fire forced her mentor to evacuate.

Connie Lapp describes arriving at her first classes in September 2012 too sick and exhausted to do more than get to work, and her path to teacher prep and accreditation.

Jeneth Rundle traces how the instruction to think of what she was grateful for during Cosmic Consciousness Pose brought her to Justin's "fasting mind," with humility arriving hand in hand with gratitude.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone doing a practice when writing stalled, explains the seven-line syllable pattern of Pyramid Poetry, and collects reader poems on beauty, Working the Pulley and gratitude.

S. Becky Shinas, a year into the practice, gives her critical mind a new job by naming everyone who loves her while she moves, freeing her body to offer its own teaching cues.

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.

Sue Bitney marks five years since her husband Jim's death, crediting T'ai Chi Chih and the people it drew to her with steadying her, rebuilding purpose and forging resilience.

Hannah Hedrick takes a line from Sandy's newsletter as a starting point and poses the question she plans to raise at the August conference: does T'ai Chi Chih share us with others, or do we share it?

John Miller, who came to T'ai Chi Chih two years earlier after years in a high stress job, describes teacher training as challenging and fulfilling and credits Dan and April as lasting influences.

Maya Campana Caudill writes that she and her husband, in their late 70s and early 80s, still lead free twice-weekly T'ai Chi Chih and Qigong practice in the park for about 16 people.

Celia Ortenberg remembers being pushed on the beach swings by her father and finds the same pause of weightlessness at the turn of Rocking Motion, with gratitude for her life and practice.

Carmela Beck names what keeps her practicing daily even when she does not feel like it, from easing sciatica and low back pain after an injury to a growing sense of reverence for all of life.

Sue Bitney buys a "Year of Thankfulness" calendar and recalls Justin's encouragement to live in gratitude, tracing her husband Jim's cancer surgery, his death three months later, and her new direction.