Product Description

A must for advanced students, this book is the next level in training for those who have learned the Tai Chi form and begun pushing hands practice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #599194 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, Chinese

Customer Reviews

re: tai chi theory and martial power
excellent guide for the beginner and beyond. background information and detailed descriptions and photos for internal energy work and tai chi.

Very practical and detailed
Like Dr. Yang's other books this is a gold mine of good information. I find the few negative reviews puzzling, since there is plenty of quality information here. No book is perfect, especially on tai chi, but this is an excellent book. I suspect these people have never tried to read the real tai chi classics, which give far less. They are very difficult to understand in that they speak much more in metaphors and vague descriptions that are far more general and less specific than Dr. Yang's book.

Yes, the back leg needs to be bent springlike, as one person says, but Dr. Yang mentions that, and anyway, that's a very basic concept that almost everyone knows anyway. Dr. Yang's book goes beyond the basic principles and gives quite specific instructions on the more advanced ones. As far as good, practical, and detailed advice on many aspects of tai chi energy, power, speed, posture and body mechanics, form practice, martial applications, and so on, this is probably the best I've seen.

As far as actually how to generate fa-jing, or explosive chi power goes, I've never seen a book that does that, ever. Apparently the only way to get it is to either have that secret personally passed on to you or else to learn it from many years of diligent practice of the tai chi form. I suspect that most people who criticize books like this are looking for shortcuts and "secrets" and probably don't have the discipline and diligence to practice the form enough to get even the basic understanding and skills anyway, let alone the more advanced ones. The reality is that there are some things in tai chi that can't really be explained that well in words and simply have to be learned by practicing the form over a period of many years.

I had one specific comment, which is that I found the long section on the many different types and applications of jin energy very practical and useful. I had learned many of these from my teachers and had figured out others on my own from doing the form, but I learned somemore from this chapter.

So overall, another fine book from Dr. Yang that gives far more than any other volume on the subject I've seen up to this time. If there is a better one that lays so much material out so clearly on the subject of tai chi, I'd like to know what it is.

An excellent and practical book on Tai Chi, MUST READ!!!
This book is not perfect and it does have shortcomings. I am a beginner in Martial Arts, and some of the criticism which states that this book is not as advanced as it claims to be may have some merit. However, as far as I could tell, this book has excellent content for both novice and advanced students of Tai Chi.

This book has some very clearly written content and outlines a large number of important movements. Most notably, the pictures are clear and contain all the necessary markings and arrows to help a beginner reinforce what he or she learns through instruction. Just for this aspect of the book alone, I believe it is first rate!

Where I feel the book does fall short is in publication quality. The paper stock was clearly very poor, and the binding quality was also poor. This contributed to bunching in the center of the book. However, for small lot publishing of niche products such as this one, such shortcomings are unfortunately the norm.

Overall, the book is comprehensive and covers a lot of ground. Perhaps for the very advanced this book may not help them get to the deeper meanings of some of the movements. Then again, perhaps the very advanced shouldn't be looking for such meaning in a book. Nevertheless, as a practical guide this book is a cut above the rest.