Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #265356 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 196 pages

Customer Reviews

Good
I have a love/hate relationship with writing reviews. What's good for one person may not be good for another. Nevertheless, there's no "see inside" from Amazon yet, so a review will help the potential buyer. Most of the comments below are to give a slightly different opinion from the other reviewers.

One of the reviewers said this book was like the Tao of JKD. My reply would be "sort of". Dr. Painter elucidates the principles of his art. The wedge is a primary principle. For the wedge, he gives quite a few examples. Other things, he provides a few examples, but ends with something like 'the interested reader can uncover more'. Actually, the interested reader wants to, well, read about them. Admittedly, there is no way that one could show *everything*, but I would have preferred more. The section is longer than other Unique publications, but nowhere near the length and depth of Tao of JKD.

There are 40 pages in the application section, but one page is given to pictures, one to commentary (picture 1 shows this, picture 2 that, etc.) and pages here and there on combat principles. The author does say the applications are meant to be examples of principles, and they are that.

The flip side of the comments that this is Ba Gua for a modern self defense is that there is little here of traditional Ba Gua. Dr. Painter's system, IIRC, has a focus on palm formations (heaven palm, thunder palm, etc.) each with a yin yang version. When I see 'palm formations' I mean hand/body formations, not a sequence of movements that other systems refer to as "palm" meaning the movement sequence bracketed by the changing palm movement in a 'kata' set of eight such movements. The palm formations find their way into this volume, but without a specific list of all the palms as a reference. I know Dr. Painter has single palm change, double palm change etc., but those are not in this volume. I've read magazine articles by Dr. Painter that go more in depth, and it's a shame he didn't include some of the same here.

All that being said, I'm glad I purchased the book. The section on training was good (although it also suffered from "the interested reader can figure out more on thier own" treatment in some places). In general, it's well put together and he gets a lot of things mentioned. The guy obviously knows his stuff.

As one reviewer said, this calls for a third volume. I thought the first volume of this series was very good.

Volume Two demands a Volume Three
Level: Beginner to Intermediate

So this book is what it is advertised to be... a treatise on Nine Dragon Ba Gua training and combat applications. John Painter's approach is clear, concise, and brass tacks reality. He's very to the point and very real about the violent truth of life or death combat. This isn't tournament, this isn't even cage fighting. It's real, and it's all on the line.

The book opens much like Bruce Lee's classic: Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Concepts such as range, closing the gap, vital areas, basic training methods, perception (vision and touch), angles of attack and defense and the like... all with a Ba Gua flair that is somewhat unique but mostly not. He then moves into specific principles from his system that are an interesting approach. The primary concept is the wedge, and the different ways that the various Ba Gua palms provide that structural wedge as a basis for disrupting the opponent's center and moving you into a position to neutralize/counterattack an attack.

The most interesting sections for me were the Ba Gua specific training methods--the various push palms drills, circling drills, iron sphere, nine poles and other footwork drills. Documentation on this sort of thing is somewhat hard to come by, and as a bonus, Painter brings in his very practical perspective into all the training. Dr. Painter is not into all this qi flow stuff as a mystical energy source. It's about physics, the biophysiological principles of relaxation, and total body coordination combined with practical combat tactics, strategy, and attitude. Unlike some authors with this bent, Painter is not inclined to go out on a limb-- he cites well known scientific principles and uses them in very elementary ways to support his perceptions. When it doesn't apply, he just says-- this is what we do, and this is why.

Much of the latter half of the book is combat strategies against various attacks, opponent types, scenarios. It's a sort of practical how-to guide. There are a good number of step-by-step examples illustrating his system's fundamental approach and enough variations to get a good feel for the way they approach applications in general.

There probably wasn't enough space in this book to address my main interests-- that is biomechanics of power generation, more detailed analysis of touch sensitivity, controlling lines, disrupting an opponent's structure at the limb level, not just the more brute wedge going straight for the opponent's center. That works when you're a massive guy (Painter's biceps are truly a marvel for a man of his age, for example), but if you're substantially smaller than your attacker a wedge may or may not work without perceiving/controlling/disrupting limb structure, too. I basically wanted more detail on what Painter referred to in Volume One-- that each palm needed to be studied 100 hours to completely understand it. Well... how about some details as examples to lay some groundwork for that analysis? Basically, I want a Volume Three, and am somewhat disappointed that Volume Two was not my imaginary Volume Three. Still, given Painter's priorities (that is: combat) I can see why he chose to write what he did.

All in all, a refreshing book, because he's no-nonsense, reality-based... basically a train hard to understand the concepts and body awareness and applications, and be prepared. No fancy stories (although he generously quotes his instructor-- to excellent effect). A general principles and overview of concepts book with some nice examples, overall, but not a rigorous, more finely detailed analysis of the techniques.

Combat Baquazhang
Combat Baguazhang Nine Dragon System: Forms and PrinciplesCombat Baguazhang Nine Dragon System, Volume TwoThese two volumes dealing with the Combat Baguazhang Nine Dragon System are, simply put, the clearest explanations and instructions of an very practical martial art system. The principles and techniques are based on scientific fact and not mystical teachings. The instructions are clear and the diagrams and photos make them easy to follow. As much as one can learn a martial art from a book, these two are the ones to use.