The Vital Force Archive

After 26 years of practice, Laurie Jacobi questions a rule she thought sacred and begins dropping her hands between movements, finding it releases wrist tension and helps ground excess energy.

Tina Wells devoted a class to resting longer between the 19 movements, and the group concluded that pausing lets chi settle, grounds the feet, and mirrors nature's cycles of activity and stillness.

Terry Jennings answers questions on feeling grounded in resting pose, moving on without disrupting Chi flow, and her favorite Cosmic Consciousness Pose saying: embrace everything, all 10,000 things.

Ann Rutherford opens a new column with three postcard-style letters to Justin Stone, asking colleagues whether they feel grounding in the palms during closing positions, whether standing up and pointing fingertips down disrupts Chi, and whether fingers flutter.

Marcella K. Levie treats Justin's Graceful Conclusion between movements as a moment of coming home, followed by Sharron Gonzalez on the value of in-person accreditation courses over Zoom and on making daily practice a habit.

Caroline Guilott describes the resting pose that ends each movement, the softening around the t'an t'ien with feet rooted, and her memory of Justin Stone rising early and repeating his own close.

Lorraine Lepine describes the resting position, or graceful conclusion, that punctuates the nineteen movements, and the grounded empty fullness of Chi settling when the body comes to stillness.

Teacher-trainer Daniel Pienciak breaks down Justin Stone's instruction to 'make a graceful conclusion,' describing the full weight commitment, the soundless setting down of the foot, and the pelvic girdle letting go into stillness.

Lisa M Otero recounts her early frustration with Justin Stone's instruction to come to a graceful conclusion, how balancing over her heels removed knee strain, and how strength at 60 brought softness.

Kris Jordahl, who began practising in 2020 and never met Justin Stone, counts 20 openings, groundings, pauses and closings, arguing the graceful conclusion is where energy settles.

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.

Ann Rutherford defends the closing position as grounding rather than ornament, recounting a student whose ungrounded chi threw Ann into spasms of pain, plus her lightning-rod and kelp teaching images.

April Leffler uses Justin Stone's image of teachers as the jewel of T'ai Chi Chih to recount the 2022 conference rededication ceremony and her own resistance to seeing teachers stand up after grounding.

Ron Richardson turns five things his parents told him as a child, from "Pick up your feet" to "Stand on your own two feet," into practical reminders for TCC students about posture, stepping, breathing and independence.

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.

Ann Rutherford recounts a Tibetan Buddhist class where the lama, his translator and a sangha member warned that T'ai Chi was dangerous, and argues that holding the close position grounds circulating Chi.

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.

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.

Rebecca Paulson gathers Justin Stone's own wording on how to close each movement, from his Blue Photo Text, showing the step back, the hands lowered gently to the sides, and the four to five second rest pose.

Julie Buffalo's unpunctuated poem invites practitioners to rest on their feet, let the ground flow up to hold them, and feel the head suspended while the spine lengthens.

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.

Daniel Pienciak describes the stillness that arrives when grounding in palms-down position and in the fleeting pause at the end of each weight shift, where the pelvis fully releases weight into the feet.

Pam Towne recaps the 2017 conference along Boulder Creek and summarizes her talk on grounding: resting until the Chi settles, shifting weight like sand in an hourglass, and counting repetitions in the soles of the feet.

Sandy McAlister describes her own pre-practice ritual of standing still, rooting into the ground and letting muscles release, then treats the stillness between movements as a chance to start fresh.

Adabelle Rychtarik's students in Simpsonville report what two years of practice changed: Sandra Johnson stands comfortably through church songs using the TCC stance, and Kathy Neely regained balance and arm mobility despite Parkinson's.

Alice M. Holden links St. Dominic's standing prayer to the standing pause between movements, and Stephen Thompson recounts Sandy McAlister's impromptu 2016 conference discussion on whether to rise or stay down in rest.

Daniel Pienciak questions whether the stance between movements is really rest, describing the closing posture as the moment yin and yang Chi reintegrate, and the interior release that follows.

Lisa Otero recounts the 2016 Seattle teacher conference discussions on whether to stay in the rest position or release upright between movements, and Sandy McAlister's guidance to compromise.

Dr. David Parrish traces his move from years of sitting meditation to TCC as moving meditation, settling and grounding in the rest pose, dropping attention to the soles of the feet, and teaching students to let go between movements.

Tish Jaramillo, a Chinese Medicine practitioner, locates Middle Palace, the first point on the Lung meridian, at the front shoulder crease, and links relaxing the shoulders back and down to releasing grief.