Customer Reviews

Chinese Healing Arts

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

 

 

This book is a collection of historical documents about qigong, massage, and some herbs. From a historical point of view, it's a very interesting book. From the point of view of "what should I do now," it's less valuable. Some of the advice--how to induce vomiting, for example--seem pretty dangerous to me. The qigong postures are described and illustrated, but the description is short on detail, and the illustration are period line drawings that are lacking in anatomical specificity. If you already study qigong and are interested in the history, it's a great book. If you are a beginner looking for instruction, make sure this isn't your only book.

Susan Lynn Peterson,

author of Western Herbs for Martial Artists and Contact Athletes

The material seems authentic enough, with a number of sources provided in the introduction (although hard to trace and verify.) The illustrations seem genuine, originating from old Chinese medical texts. However, the author's statement that this material is not well known in China either, set off something of a red flag.

Another issue has the author omitting certain information, such as times of day for certain postures, as well as their relation to the five elements. (This was stated in the introduction.) This makes certain sections of the text incomplete, and of questionable value to someone trying to get complete information.

The text descriptions accompanying the illustrations are either very obscure, and seem like more of a direct translation than an actual explanation of the subject depicted. An author's commentary, or if the author is not qualified, a TCM doctor's notes would have made this book more readable and understandable.

To the familiar, you will find descriptions of the Yijin Jing, the sitting Eight Pieces of Brocade, the 5 Animal forms, and several others. Unless already familiar, as I stated earlier, the text will be very confusing.

As it stands, the text is very obscure, some of the grammar is on the verge of confusing, and the terminology at times needs explanation (some of it is non-standard, and some outright archaic, even for qi gong practitioners.) As such, this book only gets 3 stars. A lot could have been done to make this book a genuine treasure to Qi Gong/TCM practitioner, but it seems the effort was not put in.

I would only recommend this for the most hard-core qi gong practitioners/historians, and the curious. Although in itself a valuable book, for the average reader, this will be of very little use.

This book is really great. It is an english version of an ancient chinese book. I love it because it has almost all of the internal workouts for strength, speed, and ch'i cultivation. If you want a great book at an awesome price get this one.

This book contains a lot of interesting concepts, though I wish some terms were explained better. For example, it tells you to 'press the vertex' but doesn't explain what that means. The "Heavenly Drum" is defined as "the occiput" and I have no idea what that is (and it wasn't in my dictionary). Some things are worded as if literally translated such as 'closing the breath.' But not all items have these flaws and it has some very interesting techniques, drawings and diagrams. I'd say it's a good buy for the price.