The Vital Force Archive

Anne Perkins expected to teach a handful of after-school students at Central Catholic St. Nicholas School, but Sr. Gail Tippett wanted the whole school, and Perkins ended up leading thirteen groups from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Justin Stone tells teachers that pointing out where the hands go is not enough, explaining how ending movements with hands parallel to the floor and the Cosmic Consciousness pose let yin and yang rejoin.

Five anecdotes: Vida Wackerling's male students who scorned then demanded the Joy song, Thuha Bui feeling chi sent from her New York class mid-training, Noel Altman on George Washington's wooden teeth, Arthur's week-long argument, and April Leffler's student who got only as far as Pluto.

Eleven haiku by Becky B. Watkins tracing a morning practice from the first circling movements through Carry the Ball, Pulling in the Energy and Push Pull to a quiet mind.

Six classroom anecdotes from Nancy Jo Bleier, Debbie Cole and Sharon Sirkis, including a hospital student singing rock-a-bye-baby during Pulling in the Energy and a pose renamed the "Cosmic Kick-stand."

Sherri Taylor punctured her left palm with a paring knife in August 1999 and credits daily Bass Drum, Push Pull and Pulling in the Energy, plus massage, with restoring sensation and avoiding nerve surgery.

Steve Ridley answers students who ask which movement cures asthma or helps the heart, noting Justin Stone never prescribed outcomes, and giving only general chi influences for a few movements.

Writing from Guam, Sister Mary Joseph Quichocho practises daily and did T'ai Chi Chih at the beach, where a man teased that Pulling in the Energy was calling in the fish.

Kirby's account of a December 1986 Seijaku retreat in the Utah canyonlands, where the group practised in falling snow at 16 degrees, hiked ten miles daily, and kept a final day of silence.