The Vital Force Archive

Carol Love makes the case for taking practice outside, from Nature-derived movement names to choosing a spot where uneven ground sharpens balance and birdsong replaces traffic noise.

Mary Wichmann describes leading twelve widows of fallen servicemen in one hour of T'ai Chi Chih on a deck at Holbrook Farms Retreat, with minimal instruction and no goal beyond peace and joy.

Accredited in November 2024, Joan Sheehan describes the intention she set during accreditation week, the absorbed attention she now brings to mashing potatoes, and the clarity of practising at the Poudre River.

Beverly J. Miles recounts an eight-day trip to Corozal, Belize, where visiting teachers held morning and bayside practices, opened The T'an Tien platform, and won Mayor Rigo Vellos's pledge to promote TCC.

Lorraine Lepine recounts a small group of T'ai Chi Chih teachers gathering in Belize, where twice-daily practice, jungle, ocean and Beverly's community combined into what she calls the most delicious Chi dish.

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.

Christian E. Gunning's poem, written out of the November 2024 teacher accreditation course, moves through circle sharing, magpies and mule deer, snow past a west-facing window, and pealing bells.

Judy Hubbell describes teaching T'ai Chi Chih outdoors and at senior centers in the Castro, South Sunset and Ocean Beach, with City College classes for older adults and YouTube sessions for isolated students.

Christina Tillotson describes practicing daily near her 21-year-old cat Quanyin, conducting chi toward her as she purred, and continuing that practice at her death and over her ashes.

Donna Aldous collects short poems from the 50th Teacher Conference, among them Nancy Frost's lines on quiet forest air and going home, and a verse on letting go into your soles.

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.

Gail Terriff returned from the 50th anniversary conference in Albuquerque after years of inactivity and pain, talked about T'ai Chi Chih at a neighbourhood block party, and set an August 8 start date for an outdoor class in her cul-de-sac.

Terry Gay Puckett was practicing Around the Platter on her deck when a large cat appeared balancing along a twelve-foot fence, teaching her to move slowly and attend to the soles of her feet.

JJ Johnson answers a student's question about Seijaku with the story of practicing at a Texas roadside park on World T'ai Chi Day when a freight train roared past.

Patricia Spears Bigelow credits regular practice with strengthening an ankle after tendon surgery, easing asthma, and stopping the falls her glaucoma caused, and describes doves, squirrels and an owl watching her practice outdoors.

Judy Smith walks past saguaros and the Garden Bistro to Laura Star's class under an adobe ramada at Tohono Chul in Tucson, correcting a movement and remembering family members Justin taught.

Linda Braga recalls an early morning practice on a Mt. Baldy patio where a Doberman, a grasshopper and a bumblebee gathered beside her, all facing east until she finished.

Tara Stiles, accredited by Justin Stone at Green Gulch Zen Center in 1978, recounts a beach seal watching her practice, her 'chi drawing' crayon exercise, and letting a joyful student flow uncorrected.

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.

Linda Prosche travels to Hilo for two weeks with her former teacher Hannah Hedrick, whose question about "Freedom Quotient" leads her to examine the decades-old habits, likened to Pele's hair, standing between her and effortless practice.

Sue Bitney said yes to teaching outdoors at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in September 2020, and when fifty students asked to learn every movement, she began walking them through all nineteen in a single thirty-minute session.

Sharon Sirkis reprints four classroom jokes from December 2000, including a senior worried his big belly would stall the waist's engine and a hubcap that became the Seventh Healing Sound.

Debby McLister describes how years of T'ai Chi Chih have intensified nature's colors, from magenta azaleas and Kousa dogwood to bluebirds and goldfinches seen while practicing on her deck.

Nancy Jo Bleier recounts her 1997 accreditation in Albuquerque under Ed Altman with Justin visiting daily, teaching seated sessions to stroke and mental health patients, and starting monthly Practice by the Sea in Sitka.

Denise Alire found joy in worldwide Zoom practice during years of solitude, favors practicing alone along the beach until a place invites her to stop, and still loves the stronger cosmic vibrations of moving as one in person.

Rosemarie Berezin signed up at the Clarkstown Community Learning Center thinking T'ai Chi Chih was formal T'ai Chi, and found in Oreann's class a practice that feels like floating in the Caribbean.

After an exhausting three-hour Seijaku teaching practice, John Marquez walks to a nearby park, lies barefoot under a tree, and finds Justin Stone's phrase about serenity amid activity coming true.

Sandy McAlister climbs out of the dent in her couch and returns to a two-mile woodland trail, finding in the walk, its mile marker ritual and lighter return a parallel for restarting a lapsed practice.

Denise Alire practices T'ai Chi Chih barefoot on the sand by the bay, fretting over unfinished shopping and no cash, then finds two rolled twenty dollar bills at her feet.

Diana Daffner tripped on a curb, broke her elbow, and found she could approximate most T'ai Chi Chih movements with her arm in a cast, which came off after fourteen days.