The Vital Force Archive

Trish Winger balanced a hardcover book on her head during class to demonstrate a still torso, and found her students' backs straightened and their movements grew smoother.

Five short passages from Justin Stone's Vital Force writings of 1986 and 1988, on accepting impermanence, love as self-realization, flowing slow motion in a dream, energy as wisdom, and his objection to teachers inventing new movements.

Caroline Guilott traces her years of practice from bursts of heat and tingling fingers to a game of hide and seek with the Chi, learned by releasing tension and grounding.

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.

Sandy McAlister retells Justin Stone's story of the unlettered mantra practitioner who ran across the water, and uses his shrugged answer about hand height in Pulling in the Energy to argue that correctness is found by feeling.

Daniel Pienciak compares learning to use an electric razor without pressure to finding softness in T'ai Chi Chih, recommending 27 or 36 Rocking Motions and Seijaku to keep the t'an t'ien charged.

Pam Towne takes up Justin Stone's promise that befriending the Chi brings a long, healthy life and an easy death, offering practical ways to do it: softness, continuity, relaxed wrists, freer waist turns and quiet sitting afterward.

After ten years of T'ai Chi Chih, Mary H. Schultz took up Seijaku with Jungmin Lee and found that grounding her feet released the back tension and let the t'an t'ien lead.

Bruce Lee describes how moving softly and slowly as though flowing in a dream draws attention out of the head into the body, letting thoughts float by and revealing the divinity within.

Seven short pieces from Justin Stone's journal writings between 1985 and 1992, including Paul Reps' ten minutes of just sitting, watching wrists and waist for tension, his three steps on the Way, and his answer to a question about reincarnation.

Justin Stone lays out the musts of moving correctly, from the effort of no effort and tailbone posture to bringing the Heart Fire down, plus three confirming signs of progress.

Caroline Guilott describes the hop of Seijaku, light on the feet with the waist turning internally, as the point where thought disappears and awareness becomes total and glorious.

JJ Johnson names four stages of playing with chi, from barreling through the movements at 78 RPM to collecting chi as carefully as smoke and finally communicating with the t'an t'ien.

Rick Davis finds time in the subtle pressure against the soles of the feet, arguing that each weight shift, settling and return marks one moment from the next during pandemic uncertainty.

Asked in Carmen's Seijaku class to describe the form in one word, Shari Holmes chose "freeing," and explains the release felt moving from strong phase to soft, and from Seijaku into Fast Track.

Diana Daffner addresses fellow teachers directly, listing what a TCC teacher actually does: holding a space of love, reminding students to breathe, demonstrating continuous circles, and learning alongside them.

After a question about Bird Flaps Its Wings arose in Sandy McAlister's Zoom teacher practice, Amy Tyksinski returns to Justin's written notes on flipping the wrists quickly while returning slowly.

Writing during the social distancing of 2020, Dorene Krause reminds her students that T'ai Chi Chih cannot be learned overnight, that movements soften with time, and that it is practice, not perfect.

Rick Davis writes during the pandemic and civil unrest, finding emotional footing in the Bubbling Spring at the soles of the feet during Rocking Motion, Justin Stone's noonday shadow image, and the 13th century mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg.

Dorene Krause practices alone behind a deserted high school during the pandemic spring and watches her own shadow on the concrete, noticing an upside-down heart form as her hands carry the ball.

Dixie Adeniran uses the weightless pause at the top of a child's swing to describe T'ai Chi Chih transitions, tracing them through Around the Platter, Carry the Ball to the Side and Passing Clouds during COVID-19 solitude.

Unemployed as a non-essential worker during the pandemic, Neal Roy practices on waking and tracks the uneven weight in his feet, finding that softening his knees and sinking lower evens the shift.

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.

Pam Towne recommends Seijaku as a next step after a year of T'ai Chi Chih, describing how it deepens softness, increases Chi flow, and recalling Justin Stone's 1986 teaching of the form.

Rev. Richard Davis uses his daughter's mispronounced "cumpf-ter-full" to show how uncorrected habits linger, then argues that counting repetitions traps awareness in the head instead of in the moving, grounded body.

Farrel Zeeman traces his practice from 30-minute morning sessions at the Big Sky Retreat in 2011 to an Albuquerque retreat, arguing that TCC is a form of prayer requiring the same stillness.

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.

Sandy McAlister answers whether all 19 movements must be done in order, citing Justin Stone on Chi memory, and describes reordering her beginner classes so students finish on familiar ground.