The Vital Force Archive

Rev. Rick Davis traces an early bad habit of leaving weight in the yang leg and rushing to the next movement, and links completing the shift to living attentively in the present rather than in the past or in worry.

Diane "Di" Lund froze midway across a swaying wire cable on a forty-foot ropes course, and used her breathing, alignment and t'an t'ien to move again.

Daniel Pienciak answers a student's complaint about wandering thoughts with Justin Stone's advice to return attention to the soles of the feet, plus guidance on sinking the mind into the t'an t'ien.

Diana Bahn uses her own home renovation and the stress of the unknown to describe Seijaku, serenity in the midst of activity, as a grounding internal practice for complicated times.

Justin Stone lays out a sequence of listening practices, from registering random sounds without embroidery to chanting the Gayatri Mantra and singing his own "Healing thru Joy," recalling a flute heard in Himalayan rain.

Asked at a Pennsylvania teacher accreditation how T'ai Chi Chih brings her joy, Kathleen McAllister recalls the angel card reading JOY that she wrote on her hand during her own accreditation week.

Dr. David Parrish summarizes Richard Davidson's brain plasticity research on attention, positive outlook, resilience and generosity, and the Dalai Lama's answer about subtle energy, followed by Lorraine Lepine on adapting TCC to aging.

Parker Reynolds prints an email exchange with Mary B., a former student practicing at home with the TCC DVD, who reports a 118/64 blood pressure reading, eased joint pain, and total absorption during her 45-minute practice.

Jerry C. Jonnson lays out ten guiding codes for T'ai Chi Chih instructors, from knowing your purpose and putting on your own oxygen mask first to being present, acting rather than overreacting, and valuing the journey.

Sixteen pyramid poems on silence and stillness written March 30, 2019 at Carmen Brocklehurst's Seijaku workshop, by Benjamin Brisjar, Sondra Lawson, Veronica Fleming and others.

Adabelle Rychtarik collected testimonials from her Greenville-area students at libraries, senior centers and a French creperie, who report better balance after hip replacement, tremor relief, improved sleep and giving up a cane.

Richard Karasik recalls Justin Stone telling him "Softness AND continuity IS the essence of T'ai Chi Chih," and uses symphonies, rests and punctuated circles to unpack that unnamed whole.

Nancy Johnson sets a great horned owl beside a satellite at dusk, contrasting solo grace and natural stillness with metal, programs and village-sized upkeep, then asks whether both belong.

April Leffler describes organizing T'ai Chi Chih flash mobs at two Pennsylvania malls, one circling a two-story lighted reindeer, with participants' accounts of finding calm amid holiday shoppers.

Rose Brown describes how Marie Dotts and Sandy McAlister at the Colorado Springs Intensive returned her to body awareness, prompting tears, emotional release and a new grounding practice in the soles of her feet.

Told she must be a slow learner, Caroline Guilott answers with twenty years of the same 19 movements and one pose, a retreat with Carmen Brocklehurst, and the slow discovery of grounding in the soles of her feet.

Eliza Fulton describes demonstrating T'ai Chi Chih at the Glenwood Springs Downtown Block Party, microphone and gawking crowd included, until three young people with a baby joined her and one bystander signed up for a class.

Justin Stone instructs students to sit quietly and note tactile sensations, sights and sounds, classifying each reaction as pleasing, displeasing or neutral, with the Zen master Tokusan telling two disputing monks both are right.

David Parrish shifts attention from grounding below the waist to the hands, asking students to keep them alive and soft with open wrists so chi can flow and flutter visibly.

S. Becky Shinas, a year into the practice, gives her critical mind a new job by naming everyone who loves her while she moves, freeing her body to offer its own teaching cues.

Carol Nelson-Selby draws on nearly two decades teaching an 8am class of retirees, stroke survivors and Parkinson's patients in Arroyo Grande, and on Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, to argue TCC balances left and right brain.

Continuing from the May issue, Justin Stone draws on Da Hui, the Lotus Sutra and Zen Master Danxia to argue for trusting Prajna, or present awareness, over accumulated knowledge.

Sandy McAlister opens her continuing classes with a circle of good news and questions about softness and favorite movements, and tells of a reclusive student whose balance class led to friendships and a first cruise.

Lisa Stroyan revisits a note to herself about trust and the present moment, describing how rushing the close or moving hands ahead of the weight shift creates tension, and citing Linda Braga's booklet on synchronicity.

Sky Young-Wick's Prajna column prints the lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane's "On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)," with its glow of your being that outshines every star.

Eliza Fulton recalls her surprise that TCC teachers face no continuing education requirement, and argues that Justin Stone gave teachers his example and their own inner teh instead of rules; with Pyramid Poems on silence.

Five tenth graders at Albuquerque Academy describe what a year of T'ai Chi Chih gave them, from skepticism to grounding during a student walkout against gun violence, followed by Pyramid Poems on silence.

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.

Excerpted from his book Heightened Awareness, Justin Stone links spiritual evolution to Gopi Krishna's Kundalini, habit energies, mindfulness at meals, and the Satori that came to Hakuin after a woman broke a broom over his head.

Celia Ortenberg remembers being pushed on the beach swings by her father and finds the same pause of weightlessness at the turn of Rocking Motion, with gratitude for her life and practice.