The Vital Force Archive

Dora Wiemann's conference talk asks where we actually are while practicing, urging presence in the feet and t'an t'ien, gratitude to the teachers who came before, and attention to what Around the Platter Variation reveals.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls seeing Justin Stone carrying laundry to the car as Joy embodied, and teaches grounding through the soles of the feet, the t'an t'ien, and feeling rather than thinking the movements.

Judy Hendricks noticed the 2017 conference community practice was unusually grounded, crediting Sandy's announcing of each movement and "last one," the format Justin used at Albuquerque teacher practices.

Carmen L Brocklehurst describes how students arrive at T'ai Chi Chih quietly, often through a friend or a spouse, and how the "I" reason for practising eventually turns into a compassionate "we."

Judy Hendricks answers a student's question about why Justin Stone died five years earlier, recalling his words that he had never left his own teacher, Roshi Joshu Sasaki.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst describes how Seijaku shifts the emphasis to strength before softness and breath into the t'an t'ien, with beginner students reporting tingling, grounding and reduced blood pressure and diabetes medication.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst takes the 2016 teacher conference theme of Letting Go back to the open hands of Rocking Motion, argues that teh or inner sincerity is the easy way to let go, and closes with Pyramid Poems from conference participants.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst audited a Denver accreditation course hosted by Marie Dotts and taught by Dan Pienciak with Pam Towne Duncan, finding in the candidates' preparation and shared practice the meaning of TCC community.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone's refusal to write instructions for Seijaku, his direction to teach it only to the best students, and a teacher who sank into deep meditation at a conference introduction.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts years of Justin Stone correcting her waist turn, one instruction at a time, until she held a chair, felt the hips trace an oval, and energy moved knee to knee.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone asking students "Did you feel that?" and telling of a professor too much in his head to learn the movements, arguing that analyzing produces jerky motion while feeling the Chi produces flow.

Ann Rutherford and Kathy Grassel trace how Justin Stone's deliberately incomplete Seijaku DVD and brief accreditations left teachers unsure, and why they compiled a community booklet whose sales fund the TCC International Foundation.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst argues that well-meaning health plans, from hour-long walks to vegetarian diets, can throw the body out of balance, and recalls Justin Stone's gentle suggestion to try T'ai Chi Chih; a set of Pyramid Poems follows.

Ann Rutherford recounts reading aloud Justin Stone's typed letter at the 2002 San Antonio teacher conference, which led to the intensive and the requirement of a second, impartial teacher signature for candidates.

Judy Hendricks discovered that a school's new director had changed her once-silent elementary students into chatterers, and that setting clear expectations with teachers and children made every class move well.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls her first teacher Helen Brungardt Pope's words about life as a circle, links yin and yang alternation to natural change, and describes introducing four movements at a 400-person community event.

Robert Montes de Oca recounts a near collision on I-40 west in Albuquerque, when a confused driver turned into oncoming traffic and being in the flow made the evasive action clear.

Amy Tyksinski describes shifting from mechanics to feeling-sensing through the t'an t'ien, using weekly journal-dialogue and peer teaching with her high school students, and taking her first semester off in 20 years.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst names T'ai Chi Chih itself as the greatest gift, recalling her sister Corine's gratitude for the practice while working all day and spending evenings at her hospitalized husband's bedside.

Judy Hendricks returns to the Summer Solstice 1984 first issue, where Justin Stone vowed to keep TCC pure, and argues against regional variations, citing T'ai Chi Ch'uan's growth from 36 movements to 108.

Carmen Brocklehurst's introduction to a DVD of Justin Stone's 2005 conference talk, recalling his piano playing in Hong Kong, his favorite word teh (inner sincerity), and the message of gratitude he left for teachers two weeks before he died.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst takes up Ramana Maharshi's question "Who am I?", which Justin Stone often raised, and argues that only the silence of deep TCC practice, not rules about right and wrong, yields the answer.

Doug Harned, asked to contribute and finding nothing to say about T'ai Chi Chih, instead tells how a Facebook ode to a mango drew the reply "God is a mango," closing with a Paul Reps poem.

Dr. Pauline Quimson taught T'ai Chi Chih to government groups, NGOs and farming communities in the Philippines, including seventy girls healing from sexual exploitation who reported peace, deep sleep and the beginning of forgiveness.

Joyce K. Veerkamp recounts the April appointment that found a mass in her mid-section, the surgery to remove it while family and friends practiced TCC nearby, and her unexpectedly painless six-week recovery.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst opens each beginning class with the Buddha's saying about keeping attention in the bottoms of the feet, then recalls Justin Stone's reminders and his effortless close as proof that grounding requires no trying; Pyramid Poems follow.

Ann Rutherford recounts being thrown to the ground and hospitalized after grabbing the feet of an ungrounded teacher prep student at a retreat, and Justin Stone's warning afterward.

Judy Hendricks noticed at the 2003 Banff conference that she had stopped standing up between movements, and her knees hurt; returning to Justin's practice in Albuquerque cured it.

Carmen Brocklehurst recounts how Justin Stone handed her a tape of his 1990 Teachers' Conference lecture and asked how others would hear it, leading to the booklet Evolution Through Chi.

Robert Montes de Oca describes seven years of volunteer classes in psychiatric acute care units, including an inmate who learned all the movements over 18 months and read Justin Stone's Abandon Hope.