Customer Reviews

Drawing Silk: Masters' Secrets for Successful Tai Chi Practice

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Tai Chi world has long awaited the reprint of Paul Gallagher's DRAWING SILK as a manual for traditional Tai Chi training.

Complied from 40 years of research and practice of Tai Chi and Taoist Arts, the reader is presented not only with an essential guide to correct Practice and Study, but also with the classical writings of the early Masters in a easy to understand format.

Questions are answered and Forms are discussed in detail; yet beyond this scope of the expected, there are also insights into Nutritional Science, Herbology, Geomancy and Chinese Etiquette for Martial Arts to form a composite whole of the philosophy interrelated with Tai Chi Chuan.

It is practical, inspiring and entertaining on a level that keeps the reader wanting more from this brilliant scholar of the Taoist Life Arts.

Shelia Rae, Tai Chi Teacher
Memphis, Tennessee

Master Gallagher's third edition of Drawing Silk is one of the finest and most complete books on Taiji Quan I have ever read. He taps into his vast knowledge culled from over 40 years of practice and study, not only of Taiji, but Qigong, Chinese medicine, nutrition, etiquette, history, and philosophy. His resume is as impressive as his book, having studied with many of the greatest Taiji masters of our time. He weaves delightful stories of them throughout. One of the highlights of the book for me is the chapter of questions collected from some of his students over the years and his wise and thoughtful answers--absolutely inspiring. This book is truly one of the great works on Taiji and should be in every serious player's library.

Mr. Gallagher has studied and practiced with some of the most influential and skilled Tai Chi and Taoist masters of our time. His book, Drawing Silk is an excellent distillation of his experiences, insights and personal lessons learned. While not necessarily a "step by step - how to", this book provides rare aspects of a most profound and sophisticated art. I recommend it to anyone interested in pursuing Tai Chi Chuan and acquiring its many benefits. Besides, the various stories are really good!

Deeper understanding of Tai Chi can be hard to obtain. Looking beyond a basic understanding of the the "health" exercise form, Paul Gallagher gives a deeper sense of insight from one who has obviously studied, experienced and taught this magnificent health and self-defense system. Translations of the classics, discussions of the benefits of Tai Chi practice, what to expect from a Tai Chi class, questions and answers, form movement references, and terrific anecdotes are here for everyone from the beginner to advanced student.I highly recommend thisbook to anyone with an interest in chinese movement arts.

As a student of tai Chi for 15 years, my introduction to "Drawing Silk" has been a pleasure far beyond my anticipation. Master Gallagher weaves a rich tapestry from threads drawn from the Taiji classics, Taoist tales, philosophy, and culture. It is further spiced with ancient poems, translated by the author from the original Chinese.
Master Gallagher creates an atmoshere, simultaneously, of authority, authenticity, generosity, caring, guidance, inspiration and reflection which significantly impacted me.
This volume helped me identify gaps in my personal Tai Chi curriculum and provided direction for addressing those gaps. I can offer no greater recommendation. Enjoy...and benefit.

Everything the other reviewers have said about Drawing Silk is true. I have many books about Tai Chi, but this is the one I keep referring back to, sometimes to find advice on a problem and sometimes to clarify a point which has become fuzzy. Like the Tao, it continues to provide and is never emptied.

Thank heavens this was reissued. Every T'ai Chi player needs this collection of essays.

Drawing Silk is wonderful offering of insightful knowledge useful for both the interested beginner(me)and someone further along the path of internal exploration. The book's content aside from offering some masterful anecdotes, alludes to many great achievable possibilities on a personal level through discipline, practice, internal realignment and body conditioning plus a whole lot more on a broad scope of relevant topics.....
As said by the other reviews here,this book is not as much a how to, more like in my opinion, a travel companion accompanying you along your journey offering up a rich variety of perspectives not immediately obvious to those outside of Taiji's sphere of appeal.

Having studied Taiji for over five years I have seen a lot of the books out there and can count the ones that have real value to the study of this art on one hand. "Drawing Silk" is near the top of those few. My own teacher is a personal friend of Master Gallagher and has always spoken with the utmost admiration for him. What this book offers in history, philosophy and plain fundamental teachings of a true master makes it a must for anyone who wants to know what this art is really about.

In "Feeling into Words," Irish poet Seamus Heaney makes a distinction regarding the practice of poetry that seems especially relevant to *Drawing Silk*: craft, Heaney writes, is "the skill of making" whereas technique is the "whole creative effort of the mind's and body's resources to bring the meaning of experience within the jurisdiction of form." The analogue in taiji practice might be the skill of doing and the whole creative effort of being. If taiji practice were thought of as a lyric poem, then Paul B. Gallagher's wonderful and timeless book might be understood as drawing the thread of connection from the outward practice of taiji to the inward contexts and meaning that gave rise to and continue to inform it.

In this, Gallagher abides by the desire Yang Chengfu expressed in his introduction to *The Essence and Applications of Taijiquan*:

I hope that later students will not merely chase after the externals, but will instead pursue what is internal. If you
want to attain the highest achievement, have some patience and it will come. The important finer details of the boxing
postures cannot be obtained in the appearance of form, but must be sought in the idea that unites the whole. (12)

I very much appreciated the various angles through which Gallagher approaches the challenges of carrying a tradition into the future while remaining flexible enough to weigh and respond to a changing world if one's goal in studying and practicing taiji is, as he puts it in his chapter on etiquette, to become "a cultivated human being in the best sense of the term." As the book's subtitle suggests, in *Drawing Silk* Paul B. Gallagher shares translations of the Taiji Classics, personal experience as both a student and as a teacher, and tales--the integrated wisdom of body and heart/mind and spirit working in concert--to point the way.