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Ultimate Guide To Tai Chi : The Best of Inside Kung-Fu
Practiced by millions of people around the world, the ancient and gentle Chinese martial art of tai chi offers the perfect balance of mind and body, strength and flexibility, grace and agility. Its smooth, fluid movements demand precision and control while offering exercisers of all ages improved fitness, stress reduction, and self-defense skills. Whether you are a curious novice, an intermediate student seeking deeper understanding, or a tai chi expert, Inside Kung-Fu's Ulitmate Guide to Tai Chi offers you a wealth of insightful, reliable, hard-to-find information from world-renowned experts in every aspect of tai chi. Inside, you'll find chapters that inform and inspire, addressing such topics
- GenresReference
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 11, 1999
18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 13, 2020
The Ultimate Guide to Tai Chi is a guide to a martial art known as tai chi chuan. While a book is capable of imparting the basics of form and the histories of styles, it cannot directly teach a student as a competent master can. John Little and Curtis Wong collaborate to bring us this volume.
The book goes over the styles of tai chi chuan, the historical precedence of the styles, the philosophy of martial arts in general and a whole lot of other stuff. It discusses the misconceptions that people seem to have about all martial arts and about unusual powers that people claim to have from chi and other stuff like that. Tai chi chuan is an internal martial art. From my limited understanding, this means that the point of it is not to break bones, but rather to cause internal damage.
This book is quite interesting. It contains pictures that show poses and devotes a great many pages to this practice. Another interesting thing about tai chi chuan is how weapons are treated. Finally, tai chi chuan is not used for strength and fitness; it won’t improve your aerobic capacity. Therefore, it also allows you to know what to look out for when you attempt to find a class. Don’t trust instructors that have private classes, don’t come in with a set bias on what a good master is supposed to look like, don’t trust masters that have to do things by the book because their own master did it that way, and so on.
When I took this book out, I expected something on tai chi, the exercise that people do for balance and meditation. In a sense, it exceeded my expectations. I had taken a martial art when I was 8, but I never had enough money for it, and I was young enough to where I didn’t take it seriously. Now I am older and out of shape. I would probably be able to take it more seriously, but I would have to devote a lot of effort to doing so.
The only real problem I have with this book is the fact that it is a book; as I mentioned before, even a DVD or Blu-ray would allow you to follow along in the stances. On the other hand, incomplete knowledge is a dangerous thing. As a final note on this book, it is somewhat old. As of this review, it is 20 years old. It still talks about using the Yellow Pages to find a local dojo or gym. Not that this is bad, but I can’t remember the last time I used the Yellow Pages for anything.
The book goes over the styles of tai chi chuan, the historical precedence of the styles, the philosophy of martial arts in general and a whole lot of other stuff. It discusses the misconceptions that people seem to have about all martial arts and about unusual powers that people claim to have from chi and other stuff like that. Tai chi chuan is an internal martial art. From my limited understanding, this means that the point of it is not to break bones, but rather to cause internal damage.
This book is quite interesting. It contains pictures that show poses and devotes a great many pages to this practice. Another interesting thing about tai chi chuan is how weapons are treated. Finally, tai chi chuan is not used for strength and fitness; it won’t improve your aerobic capacity. Therefore, it also allows you to know what to look out for when you attempt to find a class. Don’t trust instructors that have private classes, don’t come in with a set bias on what a good master is supposed to look like, don’t trust masters that have to do things by the book because their own master did it that way, and so on.
When I took this book out, I expected something on tai chi, the exercise that people do for balance and meditation. In a sense, it exceeded my expectations. I had taken a martial art when I was 8, but I never had enough money for it, and I was young enough to where I didn’t take it seriously. Now I am older and out of shape. I would probably be able to take it more seriously, but I would have to devote a lot of effort to doing so.
The only real problem I have with this book is the fact that it is a book; as I mentioned before, even a DVD or Blu-ray would allow you to follow along in the stances. On the other hand, incomplete knowledge is a dangerous thing. As a final note on this book, it is somewhat old. As of this review, it is 20 years old. It still talks about using the Yellow Pages to find a local dojo or gym. Not that this is bad, but I can’t remember the last time I used the Yellow Pages for anything.
May 13, 2020
I bought this book as research material for my novel. It's a collection of articles about Tai Chi that was printed in the magazine, Inside Kung-Fu. It covers a wide range of topics, such as the history of the art, the various methods of training and practice, as well as notable figures in the art's history.
Some of the articles directly contradict one another, and the book also has a few typos here and there, not helped by the constant fluctuation if the use of Cantonese and Mandarin terms, e.g. gwun vs kwoon.
That said, it is an informative, albeit dense read that takes a fair bit of time to get through. Two sections of the book are just photos that show the Yang simple form, which isn't as easy to follow along with when trying to do the form as instructed, and practical applications of techniques, which are somewhat suspect.
Definitely a book best read by a student of Tai Chi looking for some more insight, but be sure to pace yourself. It doesn't help that the book is kind if front-loaded, with the more interesting articles appearing after the halfway point depicting the aforementioned form.
Some of the articles directly contradict one another, and the book also has a few typos here and there, not helped by the constant fluctuation if the use of Cantonese and Mandarin terms, e.g. gwun vs kwoon.
That said, it is an informative, albeit dense read that takes a fair bit of time to get through. Two sections of the book are just photos that show the Yang simple form, which isn't as easy to follow along with when trying to do the form as instructed, and practical applications of techniques, which are somewhat suspect.
Definitely a book best read by a student of Tai Chi looking for some more insight, but be sure to pace yourself. It doesn't help that the book is kind if front-loaded, with the more interesting articles appearing after the halfway point depicting the aforementioned form.
October 30, 2023
The first two sections of this guide, on "Histories and Traditions" and "Basic Techniques" are very useful, especially the illustrations of the Yang Family Form. The "Advanced Techniques" probably need access to actual training to be useful, and the "Profiles and Personalities" was lost to me. Still, this book can be a valuable supplement to training and practice.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews