Customer Reviews

Anatomy of Yang Family Tai Chi

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent guide for anyone wishing to know the deeper side of this ancient Chinese martial art. Though it's not a "how to do Tai Chi" guide, it provides detailed instruction on the integral parts of Tai Chi that are indispensable for any serious practitioner that go hand in hand with instructor-led classes. You learn how to refine your stances, breathe correctly, and move while keeping your frame properly formed throughout your exercises, among other things. This book aids in demystifying some of the most important parts of this art and in doing so, helps you to get more out of it.

BUY THIS BOOK IF: You have a competent instructor and attend classes with the aim of getting the most comprehensive and thorough understanding of what you are doing and the desire to exceed in all aspects. This should be your 'homework' study guide to companion with your 'classroom' work outs.

DONT BUY THIS BOOK IF: You think you are going to teach yourself Tai Chi.

This book is much more than a book. Books are something that are read, enjoyed and then put away. Mr. de Graffenried book is more of a text something that is read and studied, helping you grow within your art and your daily life. This book is more in line with Shunryu Suzuki: "Zen Mind,Beginner's Mine" and offers long term growth for both beginner and advance students alike. This book is a must for any serious students of tai chi.

This book should be used as a Tai Chi reference book for both students and instructors. Evidently, this is the product of Mr. Steffan de Graffenried's years of practice and reflection, and more importantly he put it in such a clear, concrete, and common-sense form that enables us Tai Chi funs to take a shortcut and to stand on his shoulders to reach higher and to see further in a relatively short period of time.

I have only begun to study Tai Chi at its very basics, but this book was an excellent resource to supplement my studies. Most of the concepts I learn in class are very difficult to grasp, as I have very limited experience with Chinese philosophy, but this book definitely made many of the complicated ideas easier to grasp.

Begin PREAMBLE

As of today, October 10, 2011, there are eight customer reviews on amazon.com of Steffan de Graffenried's ANATOMY OF YANG FAMILY TAI CHI. I have read all and profited from several of them. One preliminary conclusion I draw from those reviews is rather complex. That is, how useful ANATOMY OF YANG FAMILY TAI CHI is to any reader depends on personal answers to three or more questions:

-- (1) How long have I been studying Yang tai chi and with how many teachers?

-- (2) How familiar are my teachers with the classical literature of tai chi? Do they think it important that their students read ANY books about tai chi?

-- (3) If you bring up topics from your own non-directed reading, are your teachers open to what you are struggling to express to them?

In my case:

I am 76 years old. I have studied and practiced Yang Family Tai Chi for a little over three years here in Black Mountain, North Carlolina, near Asheville. I have had a total of three teachers (the healer, the jeweler and the pastor) -- none claiming to be anywhere near Master status, but each devoted to his own teacher and to that teacher's minutiae of interpretation and practice.

-- During my two years with my first laid-back teacher, the healer, I discovered that his approach ("Tai Chi for Health") tracked very closely with what is presented in Tai-Chi Ch'uan {Y. K. Chen - TAI-CHI CH'UAN: ITS EFFECTS AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS}. The healer brought me through the whole form nearly three times, his standard being first time 50% right, second time, 70%, third time 90%.

-- When my first teacher stopped teaching to concentrate on his practice of Chinese medicine, I started all over with two new teachers simultaneously.

One, with 18 years of tai chi under his belt, is a jeweler; the second is a Christian minister (his tai chi classes are in the vestibule of his church), and also the most gifted local student of the jeweler (having trained with him in a park for two years of classes twice a week, for the past five years now teaching on his own). Neither of these two accepts any form of payment for his instruction. I study in small classes three hours per week with the jeweler and one hour per week with the pastor. No one would call me a quick-learning or talented student of anything to do with physical exercises.

The Yang Form taught by the jeweler and the pastor is much more determinedly "martial" than what is taught by the healer. Every single posture and movement, with no exceptions, is different now from what I was first taught three years ago. I have found no repeat NO book or DVD presenting the Yang form movements that I am being taught now. I have also visited three other tai chi teachers in nearby Asheville.

Healer and Jeweler do not urge students to read about tai chi. Pastor reads a fair amount and watches more DVD, I think, than the other two. Not one of the three has read deeply into tai chi classics. Not one is remotely as analytical as Steffan de Graffenried. Yet each of my teachers to date is a pleasure to watch doing the form. And each has distinct, but very different, strengths as an instructor. Currently, despite three times as many contact hours/week with him, perfectionist Jeweler has brought me only to Move 34 in Y. K. Chen, "Needle at Sea Bottom." More forgving Pastor has his little band, including me, at varying levels of proficiency virtually all the way through all 108 moves. None of the six teachers mentioned, by the way, is Oriental.

END PREAMBLE

I have written such a long preface because I believe that de Graffenried's book is pitched toward practitioners like me: hundreds of hours of practice, with very little presentation by teachers of history, theory and analysis of tai chi or qigong. For such as me, this book is notably useful and thought-provoking.

ANATOMY OF YANG FAMILY TAI CHI causes me to thirst and reach greedily with the author for new insights (I have so few insights into tai chi at this stage). I applaud the way Graffenried was taught: "through physical and oral instruction and through the study of the classic writings" (Preface, p. 7). Needless to say, his book moves into a void in the way I have been taught tai chi.

None of my teachers has distinguished, as goes Graffenried, between 13 postures and the movements that make up the 108 successions of the Long Form. Yet the author implies that it was once common to spend five years on the postures before linking them up through movements! All of my teachers teach posture and movement simultaneously -- from the beginning.

None of my teachers has said a word about The Six Harmonies, Eight Gates and Five Steps so well introduced by Graffenried. Balance, spine, waist, torso, relaxation, lengthening and stretching and proper breathing have been taught -- and with considerable emphasis. Some pushing hands I have done. All of the practical training and qigong exercises done in my classes has made it easier for me to understand de Graffenried.

So I am finding ANATOMY OF YANG FAMILY TAI CHI an Aladdin's cave of treasures to delve into, entirely, alas, on my own, without proactive help of my two current teachers. They welcome me bouncing things I read off them -- ideas and explanations of de Graffenried and others. But they are no deeper into the rich written history and philsophy of tai chi than am I. ANATOMY is the book of the hour for bumbling me!

Alas, ANATOMY OF YANGE FAMILY TAI CHI is not flawless. Its weaknesses include:

-- (1) a certain incoherence in the sequencing of presentation. In normal American pedagogy, a teacher begins the demand side of his pupils, with the familiar, and then steps systematically across them into unknown territory. Steffan de Graffenried, by constrast, begins as a supply sider, esoterically, with unfamiliar terms of art, concepts and history. Later he uses them to explain already familiar (from classes) movements and postures. In addition, be it conceded, the author also elucidates some new (to me) practices, e.g. slight spiraling movements of knees and thighs;

-- (2) weak proofreading that should have detected a score or more of typos;

and, finally,

-- (3) instructive, well selected but poorly reproduced, grainy black and white photos of historical figures, exercises and postures.

Bottom line: this is a very good book for me, given my novice status in tai chi and the background weaknesses of my three teachers regarding reading of the classics of tai chi. Thank you, Steffan de Graffenried!

-OOO-

I teach tai chi at a college, so I talk a lot about theory, structure, alignment. This book is perfect for helping the student to understand (and remember) just what it is we are trying to do!

I highly recommend this book for novice and experienced practitioners of Tai Chi alike. The author does an excellent job of translating the Eastern basis of Tai Chi into Western terms which makes the practice of Tai Chi more grounded for all who read this book. I am looking forward to reading this author's next book.

Based on the glowing review, I purchased this book. I should have noticed that 3 out of the 4 reviewers who gave this book 5 stars all reside in Alabama. Coincidence? In any event, it is an OK book relating the author's 10 years of experience practicing Yang style Taiji. It is not an authoritative work, contains no special insights, and break no new ground. It is not to be compared to "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind".

I was very disappointed with this book. It covers a lot of ground already explored more completely in other books. The photos and layout of the book have the look of being home-made without much skill. Having practiced Yang style Tai Chi for more than 30 years I am always reluctant to accept personal claims of skill and knowledge. Placing oneself in the Tai Chi lineage, as Steffan de Graffenfried does, while ignoring other more famous and competent teachers is an affront and an embarrassment.