The Vital Force Archive

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.

Pete Gregory, seven years into live-in caregiving for his 89-year-old mother and failing 91-year-old father, maps the TCC movements onto the falls, vigils and mini-crises of his days.

Pete Gregory hears Justin Stone's "practice, practice, practice" as both a teacher's instruction and a friend's plea, linking regular practice to circulating and grounding the Chi and to empirical knowing, or Chih.

Pete Gregory walks through Passing Clouds step by step, from the sideways T'ai Chi step and heel-to-heel weight shift to the counter-circling hands and the right fingers tickling the left elbow.

Sr. Patty Campbell gathers comments from Sisters aged 80 to 93 who practice with her at their Motherhouse, describing eased arthritic joints, calmed anxiety, prayerful focus, and moving from wooden soldier to Raggedy Ann.

Rachel V. Alvarado of Crown Point, diagnosed with Lupus 43 years ago, credits a year of daily T'ai Chi Chih with improved joint flexibility, better bone density and her doctor discontinuing three medications.

Peggy Koch read a newspaper article about T'ai Chi Chih in February 2010 and began classes; her husband Larry followed in January 2011 and found the movements stopped his anxiety attacks.

Barbara Pence offers a rhyming poem announcing that Northwest Indiana is not just cows and corn now that T'ai Chi Chih has arrived, pitching it to anyone short on balance or energy.

Theresa Brown's rhyming verse traces her first eight awkward weeks of class through nine months of weekly sessions and park practices, with thanks to her instructor Pete Gregory.

Ardi Baker, in her seventies and left depressed and listless after an illness, found T'ai Chi Chih through a newspaper article and turned her practice time into prayer.

Pete Gregory challenges teachers who blend T'ai Chi Chih with dance, weights or other forms, recalls a student who renamed his altered version, and notes the wide differences in movement he saw at his first conference in 2004.

Barbara Pence signed up for what she thought was T'ai Chi, got confused by Passing Clouds, and a year later reports no falls, easier arthritis, returning hearing and blood pressure down 30 points.

Peter Gregory plays carnival barker, pitching chi as free renewable energy with no pills or ruby slippers required, then steps the reader into Rocking Motion and quotes Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey.

Pete Gregory traces gratitude from the rote please-and-thank-you of childhood, through foxhole prayers during a career of self-destruction, to Justin Stone's teaching that softness arrives when tension is absent.

Peter Gregory quit a 30-year restaurant job, moved in with his aging parents in northwestern Indiana, and endured car repairs, cancelled classes and cold shoulders before a newspaper health feature brought 75 inquiries.

Pete Gregory argues that softness, unlike the weight shift or circularity, cannot be directly measured, and that overusing the word in class dilutes it; his image is holding a newborn, hand supporting the neck.

Pete Gregory's two poems: a Beverly Hillbillies-style ballad tracing Justin Stone from struggling T'ai Chi Ch'uan classes to Albuquerque, and a verse about arriving at the Nebraska conference and hearing Justin's voice.

Pete Gregory answers Justin Stone's "Impatience" column with I AM, the Impatient Anonymous Mindset, a recovery-program parody tracing patience through grounding, regimen, skill and clarity toward peace and grace.

Pete Gregory describes how Justin Stone's presence persists at practitioner gatherings, walks through the hand and weight pattern of Daughter in the Valley, and argues that a movement altered from Justin's teaching can no longer be called T'ai Chi Chih.

Claire Whalen replaced dwindling eight-week beginner classes with weekend and one-day intensive formats at her convent retreat center, paired with a Harvard Health Letter report on UCLA's T cell study.