The Vital Force Archive

KG recounts two email mishaps: Carolyn Pogwist's joke about flying among clouds without cloud access, and an "impatient" reminder to teachers that sent itself three times.

Writing under stay-at-home orders, Carmen Brocklehurst retells the parable of the Plague and its companions Fear and Doubt, then quotes Justin Stone on chi and on voicing the Six Healing Sounds from the t'an t'ien.

Ann Rutherford describes how her New Mexico review group kept its regular practice times apart during the stay-at-home order, practising by shared intention in the Energy Sea rather than on Zoom.

Amy Tyksinski taught her first Zoom class to school families who appeared only as name plates, and offers practical tips on voice, contrasting socks for visible weight shifts, and trusting her own groundedness.

KG announces that all the content from Justin Stone's two DVDs, individual movement instruction plus the 30- and 45-minute practices, is now streaming, prioritized after COVID-19 closed classes worldwide.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst noticed she had cut short the arm curve in Around the Platter during Seijaku practice, repeated it fully, and drew from that completeness a lesson about awareness in daily life.

Cristina R. Fridenstine recounts joining a beginner class at Senior Amigos in Las Cruces in 2018, drawn by memories of T'ai Chi along Hong Kong's harbor, and her growing wish to teach young people.

Carmela Beck recalls watching Justin Stone demonstrate at an Albuquerque bookstore while her toddler roamed unsupervised, then finding his photo online a decade later when back pain sent her looking for something gentler than yoga.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts how a tape of Justin Stone's 1990 teacher conference talk, recorded without permission, was transcribed and made into the booklet Evolution Through Chi, now given free to new teachers.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst asks teachers to teach the movements exactly as Justin Stone gave them, recalling a teacher who planned to omit difficult parts, and to demonstrate what they say.

Shari Holmes describes keeping up daily T'ai Chi Chih with two of her first students during a busy Mekong River cruise through Cambodia and Vietnam, drawing curious passengers on the top deck.

Guy Kent uses an orchestra analogy to argue that teachers should play their own instrument but not rewrite the score, recalling Justin Stone dropping Circles within Circles and adding the jing.

Carmen Brocklehurst describes how Caroline Guilott's invitation to touch one's own cheeks like a baby's face let teachers feel softness for the first time, plus the 2019 Minnesota conference theme Return to the Circle.

Shari Holmes, accredited in November and teaching her first class right after New Year, describes the twelve students who came, the forgotten handouts and tips, and watching beginners find softness.

Amy Tyksinski describes her doubt before leading Turiya meditation sessions at the Philadelphia conference, then traces the year she spent slowing down Push Pull after a friend questioned its continuity.

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.

Dora Wiemann unpacks flowing and emptiness at the 2018 conference, sharing the lists her teacher prep students made of their own markers for feeling ungrounded and grounded, then asks whether a plant sprouting from a rock at Folsom flows from emptiness.

Amy Tyksinski describes teaching Nei Kung to beginning students midway through each semester and shares notes from Justin Stone's Saturday night teshos on Original Face, motivation, patience and confidence in the Chi.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst distinguishes softness from limpness, comparing it to the confident strength of lifting a baby, then guides Rocking Motion through heavy air and shares words her Albuquerque group felt while practicing.

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.

Victor Berg announces that Good Karma Publishing is closing, with remaining funds paying KG to convert Justin Stone's books, DVDs and CDs into free online versions, and inventory discounted meanwhile.

Judy Hendricks argues that the power of T'ai Chi Chih lies in the form Justin Stone originated, and describes watching his DVD before every class she teaches after 22 years of practice.

Carmen Brocklehurst unpacks the name T'ai Chi Chih as "knowledge of the Supreme Ultimate" and recalls her clumsy first classes with Helen Brungardt Pope before discovering the feeling of chi.

Judy Hendricks describes waking at 3 am in terror over a career change, and how remembering an earlier time of fearless certainty, along with her practice, restored her grounding and connection.

Dora Wiemann's beginner class sank into moving meditation during Daughter on the Mountaintop and stayed there through Daughter in the Valley, emerging only when Carry the Ball to the Side's instructions intervened.

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.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst lists six principles of T'ai Chi Chih practice, from energy following attention to attention to the bottoms of the feet, then retells the Zen story of Tesshu, the swordsman beaten with a stick until he grew aware.

Amy Tyksinski cautions against turning the hands forward before the backward weight shift completes in Rocking Motion and Push Pull, locating continuity instead in the t'an t'ien's expansion and contraction.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst calls Joyous Breath the Grandmother/Grandfather of Seijaku, reviews its audible breath and cupped palms, explains why Justin kept Seijaku an oral tradition, and adds pyramid poems from her April 2017 retreat.

Dora Wiemann breaks the forward and back weight shift into three repeated words for new students, bend, shift the weight, set the foot out, with hands resting on the t'an t'ien.