Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #283255 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Synopsis
Bruce Kumar Frantzis has written this book as an introduction for martial arts practitioners to the internal arts of Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Ba Gua, which are not usually seen as fighting arts. The book is organized around chapter-by-chapter profiles of Oriental masters who taught Frantzis - including Cheng Man-ch'ing ad Morihei Ueshiba. Frantzis describes the progressive stages of animal to human to spiritual embedded within each martial art, and the bridges practitioners need to cross in order to reach the next level.

Customer Reviews

Good on history
I'm not quite sure where the other reviewers are getting technical information out of this book. It is great for history or people that want to learn about his travels to the East. He hints at a lot of "secrets". People that have done any kind of research all ready know these things.

He does a good job of describing the difference between the "internal" martial arts. People wanting to learn more about internal martial arts will find it to be quite well written. Maybe his other book has more techniques that could be applied.

Good book. Informative. More training applications.
I found this book to be an excellent source of information on the internal martial arts of china. All of the things he says check out with other sources I've seen on the martial arts. After I read it I lent it to my Bagua Zhang instructer to read. He also liked it. In the authers next book I would appreciate it if he included more training applications.

Worth Buying
I bought this book about three years ago, and have read it through a number of times, and I can honestly say that it has been of good value to me within my own tai chi journey and training.
Kumar's personal journey as he dips and fully immerses himself into different arts with different teachers is both entertaining and fascinating, and for my money more accessible than Robert Smith's book. The difficulty inherant within it is that whilst Kumar goes into great detail - none of it is specific enough to be of immediate use to anyone who has less than years of study and practice with good teachers behind them. That said, I have frequently and spontaneously remembered many snippets of principles and guidance from this book during training that have helped me develop in a balanced way.
Not surprisingly the author has his share of worshipers and detractors within the field, and for my part I do not feel qualified to judge. All said and done however, there are very few accessible books on the internal martial arts, and this is as good as any I have read. Without its inspiration and guidance I would not be studying with my current teacher, and for that alone I am very thankful.