The Vital Force Archive
Forty years of The Vital Force (1985-2025), the journal of the T’ai Chi Chih community. Search for a word, a teacher, a movement or a place, or browse by category and topic.
Working the Pulley
Working the Pulley is one of the T’ai Chi Chih movements, and teachers return to it for its particular demands and its effects. Articles here include teaching tips, accounts of its use in physical therapy, and personal reflections from students and teachers on what the movement offers.
A collection of classroom laughs gathered from Sharon Sirkus, Nancy Lecraw and Bobbie Weichman, Kathy Grassel and Rodney Anderson, including a whole class bowing by mistake and juvenile detention students riffing on Working the Pulley.
Justin Stone corrects common errors: the wrists, not the arms, do the work in Carry the Ball to the Side, hands stay cupped in Push Pull and Passing Clouds, and Working the Pulley turns from the waist, plus news of his conference videos.
Justin Stone
Originator
Constance Fraatz hosted Georgia's first statewide workshop in October 2002, where Sandy McAlister's unadorned teaching, especially her breakdown of Working the Pulley, deepened practice for teachers and students alike.
Pat Flynn joined a class on a whim, blurted out to teacher Marge Erickson that she wanted to teach, and recovered shoulder movement and energy lost to Lyme disease.
Jan Arrott takes the conference word "swivel" and tests it in practice, using a corkscrew image to hold the T'an T'ien facing forward while the waist turns of itself.
Seven short anecdotes from Ed Altman, Amy Hackenberg, Sharon Sirkis and Bitsy LeBlanc, including a beginner who tried to swim through Working the Pulley and said she was drowning.
Three reader tips: Christine Sproehnle-Benson on keeping a clear space at home with a new baby, Gordon Wade on swapping his afternoon power nap for a TCC session, and Hope Ridley's conga-line drill for Working the Pulley.
New Mother's Realization
Richard Brier continues his comic allegory of Chi Lanka, meeting Rip Van Stone in the Taffy Forest, relieving Masters Yink and Yank at the pulley, and posing atop Mt. Chi.
Richard Brier
Steve Ridley sets out two principles for each movement: hands reaching their extreme position exactly as the weight fully shifts, and alignment of strength, with corrections for commonly misaligned movements.
Jeanne Carlson-Linscott describes crushing her shoulder, collar bone and seven ribs in a motorcycle accident a week after accreditation, doing one-handed and mental T'ai Chi Chih in hospital and leaving in six days.
Jeanne Carlson-Linscott
Bemidji, MN