The Vital Force Archive

Two short untitled poems by Anon from the 50th Teacher Conference, one on light, gratitude and expanding joy, the other on brown leaves and holding the hose in a rainless heat.

Lisa Stroyan gathers her notes from the 2024 50th anniversary conference, quoting April, Sandy, Carmen, Daniel, Tina and Justin, and closes with a pyramid poem built from the daily themes.

Dorene Krause describes a June evening event for her students, with shared TCC stories and a practice in two concentric circles, and prints the words she wrote on the unity a circle creates.

Lois Vermilya, a student of Kathy Grassel in Albuquerque, strings the names of the movements into a single poem that rises from rocking to standing steadfast as a tree.

Adabelle Rychtarik recounts the 50th anniversary conference in Albuquerque: practicing in the new TCC Center, John Marquez teaching pyramid poetry, hot air balloons over morning practice on wet grass.

Joan Weaver's pyramid poem marks the 50th T'ai Chi Chih teacher conference, naming the Zoom connection to Albuquerque, the small-group storytelling, and those remembered in absence.

Diana Bahn opens with a short poem, then recounts returning to a live event at the 50th anniversary conference in Albuquerque after years of laying low and being of service while her teacher Carolyn Perkins and husband Michael weathered obstacles through COVID.

John Marquez's pyramid poems on darkness, gratitude and silence are paired with anonymous workshop comments, including one widow who found faith in herself after losing her husband of 48 years.

JB describes how an intuition arriving during Rocking Motion reminded her that TCC itself holds the patience she needed while her partner faced repeated hospitalizations for severe emphysema.

Anna Vaith, who once found writing pyramid poems as enjoyable as a dentist visit, describes how Carmen Brocklehurst's guidance at the summer teacher conference produced a poem she loved.

A sequence of pyramid poems by Beverly Miles, moving from passing clouds and softness that beckons chi to an ode to Seijaku and a closing poem on conference connection and flowing gratitude.

Bruce Childs borrows Pamela Adelstein's definition of sacred space to recall the quietude of the T'ai Chi Chih Center in Albuquerque, then asks his friend June, who answers with a poem about weekly open practice.

Carmen Brocklehurst puzzled over the textbook subtitle "Joy Thru Movement" until she watched Justin Stone walk out of an Albuquerque dry cleaners with his laundry and saw joy itself.

Terry Gay Puckett strings together phrases gathered at the 2023 conference, from "effortless effort" and "empty the cup" to feeling the soles of your feet and remembering Justin Stone.

Garo Nokhoudian's pyramid poems move from surrender and caring to Chi waking up playfully between the sheaths, ending with hang time when earth and sky beat as one.

John Marquez builds a pyramid poem from single words, moving from chi and movement through vibration, freedom and awareness to silence, breath and honest written speech.

Walter Charley, who learned T'ai Chi Chih in Sedona around 1976, recounts teaching groups of children in psychiatric hospitals, where depressed children lifted and anxious ones calmed; with pyramid poems by Beverly Miles and Johnnie Lee Marquez.

Abby Molino, a nurse since 1976, describes the right-left confusion that flummoxed her during Pulling Taffy's Anchor variation, with coping strategies and mirroring tips for instructors; four poems by Beverly Miles follow.

Nico Borneman likens a practitioner to a breaching whale who surrenders to fluidity, followed by pyramid poems from Lisa Stryoan, Terry Gay Puckett and KayRydeen on tanden, rain and rooting in Hawaiian sand.

Carmen Brocklehurst links everyday acts of kindness, including a boy who unbuckled his seat belt to save a cat, to the wholeness felt when a group ends a movement together and Justin asked, "Did you feel that?"

Sandy McAlister questions Justin Stone's phrase "graceful conclusion," recalls how he ended repetitions with a downward thud, and asks teachers who studied with him to respond in the next issue.

Sak's paired poems, TCC Feet and TCC Hands, trace rocking from heel to toe, stepping side to side, palms gathering and letting go, and the healing sounds Ho, Hu, Szu, Hsu, Hsi, Chui.

John Marquez builds a pyramid poem from the firm resting position outward to friendship, morning reading of centuries-past wisdom, self-responsibility, and students absorbing Justin's teachings until teacher and student merge.

Lisa Stroyan's poem, sparked by Lorraine Lepine's practice and Ann Rutherford's conference reference to kelp, names sensations of soft arms, uncurling fingers and resting on the energy sea.

Joyce Kanyuk credits her teacher Oreann with bringing students into peace and calm, and describes looking forward to the camaraderie of Monday morning class and feeling the energy of the movements; Pyramid Poems by Johnnie Lee Marquez follow.

JJ Johnson quotes a line from a 2007 Carmen Brocklehurst article to a frustrated veteran student, then cannot find the sentence anywhere in the text; with Pyramid Poems by Johnnie Lee Marquez.

Laurie Jacobi recounts how pandemic isolation in Minnesota opened a fruitful emptiness, drawing on Lao Tzu, Japanese flower arranging and the slowed transitions between movements, followed by readers' Pyramid Poems.

Eliza Fulton maps the body's subtle anatomy - the toric field, chakras, the shushumna and the koshas from physical to bliss body - and argues TCC's circular movements rebalance them; a short poem by Terry Gay Puckett closes the piece.

Ten of Donna McElhose's students answer her homework questions, describing tingling hands, pulsing heat in Daughter in the Valley, energy circling a group, coping with cerebral palsy, and seated practice after a sprained ankle.

John Marquez builds a pyramid poem from the word gratitude after a morning practice, then traces how years of T'ai Chi Chih turned being alone from a negative into valued time for practice and writing.