The Vital Force Archive

Pauline Quimson-Tong answers questions raised at the 2009 conference, naming Rocking Motion for grounding, seated practice to feel the t'an t'ien, Justin Stone's music, and demonstrating a movement wrongly before showing it correctly.

Cathy Williams names impatience as an ego problem, describing the road rage incident that pushed her to swap hard rock for classical music on the drive home and to start each day with T'ai Chi Chih.

Frances Alexander plays her flute in a hilltop grotto during a break at Dan Pienciak's T'ai Chi Chih intensive, and finds in the echo of her notes an understanding of honoring the stillness.

Carol E. Lieberman watched silent women moving in San Francisco parks for years before a friend, Jim Eagle, became a teacher; nine months into classes at a Unitarian church, she can sit still for ten minutes.

Elissa Maguire reports on David Schulberg's conference discussion of teaching styles, where instructors agreed teachers must shift a classroom's ambience toward empty mind through silence, softness, flowing music and body-mind scans.

Lucy Hocking, certified in the 1980s, returned to the 2008 teacher conference after a long absence and recalled the 1985 Asilomar gathering, where a distant piper played Amazing Grace during beach practice.

Linda Braga hands her Tibetan singing bowl to students, who discover that a tense grip yields only a thud, and Stephen Thomson urges teachers to bring awareness down from the head into the body.

Anne Perkins expected to teach a handful of after-school students at Central Catholic St. Nicholas School, but Sr. Gail Tippett wanted the whole school, and Perkins ended up leading thirteen groups from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Three writers on harmony: Renza Baker regains mind-body connection after cancer when her rigid knees finally soften, Becky Watkins opens classes with a struck brass bowl, and Nancy Werner-Azarski's colleagues notice she is less angry at work.

Elaine Peterson, a music professor at Mississippi State University, describes using T'ai Chi Chih to help singers and instrumentalists move from the center, ease tension, and stay fully present while performing.

Three reader poems: Bryan Fine, student of Donna McElhose, on silence and swimming in the sea of Self; Jerry Bumbalough on walking steadily after a workshop; and Sharon Sirkis on loud music.

Nancy Lecraw describes how twenty-five northern Illinois teachers and students formed a Circle of Gratitude for Justin Stone's 89th birthday, with Native American readings, flute music, a full practice and tea.

A pyramid poem by Thomas Osborn, a student of Sharon Sirkis, setting silence against motion and asking the practitioner what can be heard while moving.

Carmen Brocklehurst describes two teenagers, 15-year-old Alex and 13-year-old Zak, in her adult beginners' classes, plus a student note from California State University Hayward and Kathy Grassel's praise for Joel Andrews' "Emblissening Movement."

Catherine Millman recounts hosting the 2004 St. Louis conference, from the leaderless committee structure and the T-shirt auction and quilt raffle that funded scholarships to the Seijaku practice by the fountain.

Sharon Sirkis recounts blinking emergency lights during her college class's first music session, a student's "get-out-of-jail free card," and a 95-year-old choosing her hair appointment over class, plus Sheila Leonard's license plate holder photo.

Sr. Antonia Cooper gives full instructions for the Rededication Candle Ceremony, from candle suppliers and spiral formations to the stepping pattern, reflection questions and the yin-yang meaning of each hand.

Jan Arrott recounts Justin Stone's blunt verdict that rhythmical background music turns practice into dance, and describes how his own TCC recording kept conference practitioners awake to continuity.

Cabaret singer Grace O'Connor recounts performing her show at the 2000 Teachers' Conference in New Jersey, and credits two years of T'ai Chi Chih for the stamina that let her record 14 songs in two days.

Sharon Sirkis collects classroom moments, from seniors interlocking fingers during Around the Platter to a student doing Pulling Taffy at red lights, and Nancy Vermond's seated class flows to Frank Sinatra.

Eight classroom mishearings and comebacks collected from Viola Bens, Sharon Sirkis and Pat Huseby, including silly putty mistaken for chewing gum and a student stuck on the two girls on the mountain.

Sharon Sirkis lists twelve tactics she uses when she does not feel like practicing, from telling herself she will only do Rocking Motion to switching to Seijaku on her teacher's advice.

Linda Braga's Valentine's Day 1999 poem sets the ringing of a singing bowl against the singing of her own soul, finding God's voice in the round and round.

Catherine Brieussel teaches three T'ai Chi Chih classes in her French state school, where teenagers follow an hour of practice with soft music and illustrated notebooks of the movement names.

Rhonda St. Martin thanks the merchants, hotel staff, students and anonymous donors who buoyed the 1998 Albuquerque conference, and names the Sunday sunrise community practice with Rob Janov's music as her highlight.

Barbara Sommers describes a year-long seated class at a Senior Day Care Center, where foot stamping built awareness of the soles, chairs in a circle curbed wandering, and the first ten movements were adapted left foot then right.

Teachers including Pam Towne, Edie Budney and Anne Doering recount the 1997 Teachers' Conference: Joel's harp concert, Justin's Jing chi enhancement, the candlelit rededication circle, and blunt suggestions for next year.

Mark Moloney's prose poem moves from the last peal of country church bells and echoes of plain chant to a riverside street at night, where street cleaners' brooms briefly interrupt the stillness.

Gwen Yee traces her path from 1977 classes to accreditation and teaching, then recounts her first TCC conference, where corrections from many teachers and Joel A.'s harp concert left her feeling at home inside her own heart.

Justin Stone's short refrain, credited to him as an A.S.C.A.P. composer, repeats "Joy, Joy, Healing thru Joy!" and places that joy in the heart, the mind and the soul.