The Vital Force Archive

Lois Vermilya's prose poem gathers energy from the most distant star into fingertips and soles, naming a paradox of force and letting go that might fuel her activism of fierce hope.

Marie Dotts uses the pearl formed from an irritant to describe how her longstanding struggle with the forward and back weight shifts, and the gripping tension it caused, became her deepest gift to students.

Amy Tyksinski followed an impulse to buy peonies at the grocery store, watched them open over days at a TCC retreat, and links the urge to Justin's "pointing arrow."

Transcribed from a recorded lecture, Justin Stone answers audience questions on why concentration rests in the soles of the feet, why softness frees the meridian channels, and how karma builds habit energy.

Shelley Nielsen's letter to her library foundation recounts joining Marie Dotts's weekly class in January 2022, easing arthritis pain and hearing strangers stop their cars to say she looked at peace.

Silvia Coffey sets her own habit of self-criticism, learned in middle school, against a passage from Justin Stone's Climb the Joyous Mountain on how self-pity and gratitude cannot share a breath.

Marcella K. Levie asked her senior students why they return each week, and Madelon, Olga, Ariette and Sima describe calmer minds, better balance, repeating guitar and flute music, and effort without effort.

Laurie Jacobi, quoting Waysun Liao and teacher trainer April Leffler on thinking, works out how to cage the monkey mind by turning attention to feeling the weight shift millimeter by millimeter.

Dorene Krause invites the reader into a moment of ordinary silence, breathing into the soles of the feet, releasing the heaviness of the heart and letting stillness calm the mind.

Pam Towne uses Passing Clouds as a reminder to let thoughts drift by without following them, keeping the head facing forward while the waist turns, and describes extended repetitions as moving meditation.

Vanessa Petterson, accredited in December 2022, describes building two Village Hall classes despite weak marketing skills, the laughter and loving kindness at each class ending, and her growing confidence as a teacher.

Gail Terriff describes the self-care habits that keep her replenished, from journaling and singing aloud to her morning T'ai Chi Chih practice, and quotes Thich Nhat Hanh's book Anger on mindfulness as the energy of being present.

Lisa Stroyan recounts a week of twice-daily practice in Corozal, including a session at the Santa Rita Mayan reserve, and Mayor Vellos calling T'ai Chi Chih a healing art.

After 26 years of practice, Laurie Jacobi questions a rule she thought sacred and begins dropping her hands between movements, finding it releases wrist tension and helps ground excess energy.

Sandy McAlister pairs a Rick Hanson quotation found in her filing pile with Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" to reframe moral outrage over humanitarian and planetary crises as a form of love.

April Leffler tries ending each movement both ways, palms facing the earth or hands dropped completely, and finds that attention to the four corners of the feet matters more than the choice.

Excerpts from Spiritual Odyssey in which Justin Stone takes up non-attachment within family life, Buddha's answer that he is awake, the poet Tao Yuanming, and why all healing is finally self-healing.

JJ Johnson, a self-described novice, describes feeling chi flow like honey from the fingertips, carrying it between movements, and noticing a slight finger flutter at the yin-to-yang weight shift.

Lorraine Lepine traces how natural breath, emptying, and slowed movement lead to subtle vibration and inner light, citing Paul Reps and Justin Stone's statement in 20th Century Psalms that we are the product of sound vibration.

Connie Shaw recounts breakthroughs in seeing her own conditioning fall away, and lists what keeps her practice alive: posture, empty mind, returning to the t'an t'ien, and deliberate uncontrived laughter.

Richard Brier lists the reasons we practice, from awakening intuition to opening to cosmic Chi, and describes the "mind fasting" of the empty cup behind Joy Through Movement.

Lisa Stroyan describes a stiff early-morning practice easing into a new grasp of the Effort of No Effort, distinguishing doing from feeling and moving from knowing TCC to learning from it.

After more than four years of practice, Nancy Hellebrand Blood woke up to why attention rests in the soles of the feet: it leaves no room for habitual thoughts.

Excerpts from Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey on why a teacher who does not practice is "somewhat of a fraud," teaching beginners to flow slow motion in a dream, and self-clinging as the root of suffering.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recounts the in-person teacher conference in Albuquerque, where 150 teachers gathered after COVID, and how letting go of her once-larger movements let her feel the flow Justin described.

Lisa Stroyan recounts the October "2nd Saturday" teachers' Zoom gathering led by Ev Hanson-Florin, where about 30 teachers compared Justin's written instructions on the Cosmic Consciousness Pose, the heel placement, arm height, gaze and how long to hold it.

Susan Corey describes the seniors she teaches, whose stories of sorrow and hilarity are woven into their unhurried practice, and likens them to the light-filled mystics of The Dark Crystal.

Pam Towne, after 38 years of Seijaku practice, describes the yin-yang alternation of softness and resistance, lists its massages, tonings, Jing and Joy Song, and quotes Justin Stone calling its discovery the most important event of his life.

Marie Dotts sets an anonymous line about being warm and soft like a newly woken puppy beside her own short declaration that she chooses life, come what may, good and bad.

Two brief poetic fragments from the 50th TCC Teacher Conference, one by NWA on life as one letting go and being human now, the other by NJB on love rising.