Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114628 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Synopsis
The ancient martial art of Tai Chi Chuan is one of the most effective stressbusters available. In China, it is also used extensively for the prevention and treatment of illnesses, and its beneficial effects for health and fitness are now widely recognized in the West.

Customer Reviews

Interesting book, but by no means COMPLETE.
I think that this is an interesting book, but by no means it is a COMPLETE book about tai chi chuan. It speaks about the five main styles, and include about 20 pages of illustrations of each style. I think it can be useful as a reference book about general information on tai chi chuan, but it is not aimed to teach any style, as the explanation of each one is very short.

Not cost, but investment
This was the first tai chi book I bought, and it's certainly not disappointing. It's possible to learn the basic 24 step tai chi form from the book, which I did, and I've been told that it's actually quite good. The 48 step form is considerably tougher, though. It's a good book for the tai chi chuan beginner, but a general martial arts background is usefull to get the "feel" of the movements. It covers absolutely everything, if you were to pick this up in a bookstore it would sell itself (well it did to me) and it's by far the best introductory book of it's kind. I'd also recommend Sifu Wong's Shaolin Kung Fu book...
The reason it didn't get five stars? Well, the many styles all have an illustrated form section, this isn't bad, but with the exception of 2 (Yang and Chen,) the others are unbelievably difficult to learn from an instructor, so learning them from pictures is simply out of the question. Want Tai Chi Chuan??
BUY THIS BOOK FOOL!

who is this for?
I was attracted to this book since I am a martial artist who wished to practise tai chi forms in my spare time and felt I knew a little about the forms already. The first couple of chapters read well. They list some stances and a few basic forms and how these relate to combat. However I felt this was very much a book with lots of coverage and very little detail.

Most of the book covers a comprehensive list of different tai-chi forms using lots of little drawings. However without actually knowing these forms inside out to start with the book is near to useless. I don't really understand the target audience here - I can't see it being useful to either the beginner or advanced student due to its lack of real detail.