The Vital Force Archive

Sandra Babka, at 76 and living with nerve damage, recounts a lifetime of exercise and practicing TCC in airports and doctors' offices, paired with an anonymous student's account of letting go through Abandon Hope and a cancer diagnosis.

Daniel Pienciak takes Marley's warning to Scrooge, "Save yourself," into the new year, naming the darker reactions and the fear, including fear of trusting a leg to support you, that block Chi and keep students from teaching.

Pam Towne was snorkeling with sea turtles on Maui when texts arrived saying the Lilac Fire was threatening her California neighborhood, prompting her to decide what she could let go of.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst calls Joyous Breath the Grandmother/Grandfather of Seijaku, reviews its audible breath and cupped palms, explains why Justin kept Seijaku an oral tradition, and adds pyramid poems from her April 2017 retreat.

Bobbie Anderson returned to her first teacher conference since her husband Andy's death, where a dragonfly, old friends' condolences and seated TCC sessions led her back to teaching.

Holly Trenary's poem traces a life of fourteen moves, exhaustion and anger carried alone, then the grounded, Seijaku-relaxed confidence and gratitude she found through T'ai Chi Chih.

Daniel Pienciak calls Seijaku the gem hidden inside T'ai Chi Chih, recalling Justin Stone recovering "Deep Purple" at a New Jersey conference piano with wholly new harmonizations; pyramid poems follow.

Justin Stone recounts a Zen priest's charge to "be the Big hermit," the Himalayan morning he decided he should be able to meditate at 42nd and Broadway, and how impermanence brings profound gratitude.

Ten reasons to come to the June 2017 teacher conference in Boulder, from the theme "Feel the Chi ~ Share the Chi" to first-hand accounts of practicing with Justin Stone and Seijaku accreditation afterward.

Sheryl Adair describes how Pam's Albuquerque accreditation sessions, sequencing Seijaku with T'ai Chi Chih and Fast Track, showed her that Fast Track is Justin's cherry on top.

Caroline Guilott describes how Fast Track freed her Seijaku practice, releasing the mental emphasis on moving through resistance while keeping her rooted in the soles of her feet as she hopped.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst describes how Seijaku shifts the emphasis to strength before softness and breath into the t'an t'ien, with beginner students reporting tingling, grounding and reduced blood pressure and diabetes medication.

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.

Margery Erickson marks nineteen years of teaching since her accreditation course, held in her family's home weaving studio, and traces her sense of being grounded and centered back to that week after a Seijaku-Meditation retreat.

Tom Rothenberger recounts leaving Dan Pienciak's Seijaku course in Seattle, then applying no anticipation and letting go on a crowded light rail and a delayed flight home.

Dixie Adeniran, a live-in caregiver for an elder, describes breaking her T'ai Chi Chih practice into fragments between eyedrops, showers and compression hose, finding serenity in the midst of activity.

Lisa Vander Vliet met Trudi at her parents' senior living community and discovered the 84-year-old had taught herself T'ai Chi Chih from Carmen Brocklehurst's YouTube video, practicing alone for five years.

Lisa M. Otero explains why Justin Stone opposed a formal continuing education requirement, then describes how seven teachers in her community meet monthly for silent practice and member-led presentations.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone's refusal to write instructions for Seijaku, his direction to teach it only to the best students, and a teacher who sank into deep meditation at a conference introduction.

Seven participants at Pam Towne's August 2015 Seijaku accreditation in North Carolina describe grounding, yin and yang balance, and the refrain "holding fast and letting go," including Bruce Eisenmenger's account of his wife's cancer diagnosis two days after returning home.

Daniel Pienciak has students imagine a clock face on the torso, tracing middle fingers from 7:30 and 4:30 up to twelve, to learn the hand positions in both Daughter movements; Pyramid Poems from Carmen Brocklehurst's Fall Seijaku Retreat follow.

Ann Rutherford and Kathy Grassel trace how Justin Stone's deliberately incomplete Seijaku DVD and brief accreditations left teachers unsure, and why they compiled a community booklet whose sales fund the TCC International Foundation.

Diana Bahn recalls years of frustration with Carry the Ball to the Side before an afternoon of Seijaku with Dan Pienciak left her standing wordlessly in the soles of her feet.

Pam Towne draws on Justin Stone's instruction to accord with impermanence, naming the weight shift, awareness of the breath, Seijaku and gratitude as tools that carried her through Ted's illness and death.

Vicki Shroeder and Steve Stevens preview the August 6-9 teacher conference at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, with a peace and harmony theme, Seijaku sessions and reviews of Justin's writings.

Justin Stone on vitality as chi, the six Indian darshanas, seed mantras and why he avoids chanting Om, ending with the woman who screamed from the heat when he did Around the Platter mentally while giving Johrei.

Nancy Jo Bleier recounts jamming her right leg on a house step in June 2014, the conference, retreat and Seijaku practices she had to cancel, and her slow return through seated T'ai Chi Chih.

After a fall left her with a fractured ankle and an Aircast boot, Margery Erickson practised seated Seijaku and TCC from a stool, feeling energy gather at the t'an t'ien.

Alice Holden's account of the 40th anniversary conference at Kean University, where 102 participants heard Sandy McAlister refine the movements, Pam Towne present Seijaku, and Neal Roy's raffle raise over $2000 for scholarships.

Brock Brocklehurst sets out in verse what Seijaku and Fast Track feel like from the inside, from different breathing and occasional frustration to getting lost in Pulling Taffy and laughing about it.