The Vital Force Archive

Lorraine Lepine walks through the upright posture of the resting position, from the thread of energy at the ceiling to the tucked chin, lowered shoulder blades and perpendicular tailbone, as a route to the relaxation response.

Passages from Justin Stone's Climb the Joyous Mountain on disciplined mind, Japanese understatement, spring rain on temple eaves, gratitude at meals, and Zen freedom lived amid conditions.

Dorene Krause draws on dictionary definitions and a Psychology Today passage to describe surrender in T'ai Chi Chih: yielding weight into the soles of the feet, releasing self-judgment, and trusting the flow of chi.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst gives practical instruction for seated practice in a straight-back chair, working the weight shift through the sits bones in Rocking Motion and Around the Platter.

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.

April Leffler describes the phrase "present time awareness" surfacing during a morning practice, the small mental check-outs it gently interrupted, and how returning attention to the soles of the feet carries over into daily life.

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.

Marcella Levie connects Marie Dotts's Zoom guidance about letting TCC do her with the Hebrew Letter Movements she teaches, tracing her path from a Siesta Key beach in 1991 toward accreditation.

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.

Carmen Brocklehurst credits Zen master Paul Reps with prompting Justin Stone to leave the stock market, explains why TCC was originated rather than created, and urges attention over habit energies; Clare Bradley's pyramid poems follow.

Sandy McAlister, in a piece reprinted from 2008, describes how unfocused attention lets the Chi rise into headaches and giddiness, and how attention below the waist keeps softness anchored in grounding.

Sandy McAlister, in a piece reprinted from August 2008, likens the rest between movements to dough rising, the stillness where yin and yang Chi reintegrate before letting go and moving again.

Daniel Pienciak turns attention away from favorite movements and toward the middle of the weight shift itself, the bending and straightening legs and the grounding stillness between sets.

Gregg Bradley offers four pyramid poems titled Outlook, Sensations, Thoughts and Aftermath, tracing life before T'ai Chi Chih, vibrating hands, a calm clear mind, and solid steps afterward.

Donna McElhose asked her current students to write to future beginners, and their mostly anonymous letters report a hip that stopped cracking, better balance, new friendships, and calm found in fifteen minutes of daily practice.

Justin Stone introduces his out-of-print book on gurus, teachers and the mystery of Being, then argues in the chapter "Abandon Hope" that only dropping hope for tomorrow lets us live today.

Judy Chancey describes T'ai Chi at the Sea, a class she built for veterans with PTSD in a program that forbids instruction-based teaching, using sea imagery, grounding and wave rhythm instead of verbal cues.

Allan B. describes how, after four months of daily T'ai Chi Chih, his post-practice sitting became a discipline he calls One. Perfect. Moment.; John Marquez adds how effortless movement brought joy.

Sr. Karen Kaelin's notes from three 2021 conference presentations: Carmen Brocklehurst on using breath to connect with the t'an t'ien, Jungmin Lee's tea ceremony, and a panel on reaching under-served communities.

Christa Keller's prose poem, written out of her Seijaku practice, holds to the single moment, the breath of life, and moving through the perceived hardness of life with softness.

Rick Davis argues that the 19 movements need nothing added to them, and that stillness of mind comes from yielding the intellect to the form rather than overthinking or embellishing it.

Bill Nakao takes up continuity between movements, citing Justin Stone's "It is all continuous, dear" and the thread running from Rocking Motion to the close, and asks practitioners to attend to the pauses at rest position.

Dora Wiemann lays out a recipe for practice that begins with the TCC principles like full weight shift and grounding, then moves to the invisible ingredient of allowing the movements to express themselves.

Ivonne Begue de Benzo, a Masters student in Positive Psychology, describes planning a qualitative study interviewing TCC teachers to build an awareness intervention for mindful eating and satiety.

Victor J. Dougherty's poem listens to the silence of falling snow, following each flake to ledge, leaf, field or face, and finding that neither is ever in the wrong place.

Bryan Fain traces his first months as a beginner, from imitating his teacher and memorizing sequence to Marie Dotts' weekly group practice and a workshop with Bill Moore.

John Marquez describes enduring a difficult pandemic year by practicing repeatedly, holding the Zen question "What is this moment lacking?" and deliberately choosing to shelve a dark place and take back joy.

Terry Jennings guides readers through a short experiential exercise: sensing the space outside and inside the body, around thoughts and sounds, then moving free form for five minutes, closing with a poem about air.

Laurin McDonald describes how Zoom sessions she and Lesley Nell run became a lifeline for isolated older UK students, and an anchor for her own bereavement after losing her husband in November 2020.

Rebecca Paulson recounts being asked for a Diversity Statement when applying to teach T'ai Chi Chih in a community college Continuing Education program, and the answer she wrote about centering, self-acceptance and receptivity.