Customer Reviews

The Essence of Shaolin White Crane--Martial Power and Qigong

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This is undoubtably one of Dr.Yangs finest books. Being into real Gung-Fu, Wu-su for fifteen years now, I can certainly say this with certainty. It has all the excellent information in a clear format that I have come to expect from Dr.Yang. I especially loved all of the stories of Chinese wisdom that he put into this book. Such information is important when you are publishing a book about martial power. It helps to keep the reader on the proper path. This book is an excellent balance between internal and external QiGong. This Book also really helps to categorize and organize the great number and variety of Qigong techniques. This is quite helpful to know what you are doing, and to help you then create and much better balance your Qigong training. Whether it's still soft, or still hard, moving soft or moving hard Qigong, you can put them all into one of these categories. Whether Wai Dan or Nei Dan, it's can all be organized in this way. Also, the various blend of eastern and western explanations that are put in this book, further enhance ones understanding and comprehension in the field of Qigong as a whole. Anyone who has some basic to interemediate knowledge of Qigong, will find this book very helpful in bringing them to the next levels of understanding and ability. Beginners should also have little to no problems finding many techniques that they can do as well to begin thier journey into this most amazing and exciting of fields. All the best to you all.

I love to just look at this book, it is amazing to look at and well laid out with a ton of helpful photographs and excellent descriptions to compliment them.

Unfortunately for me, I was expecting the book to be something else. From the title, I expected more on the influence of White Crane on karate, which is the art that I practice. There isn't much of this, and the historical information on White Crane itself is a little sketchy. Also, I was expecting more of the forms for comparison versus karate kata, but this was not included in any detail.

This does not negatively impact the book. While the book wasn't what I expected, it was something that was extremely well done and useful to me.

The descriptions of the flow of energy and where the energy is generated and how it passes various joins and limbs is excellent. Never have I seen such detail describing movement and stances as well as execution. I can't say enough about Dr. Yang, Jwing Ming's writing style and inclusion of well organized detail.

All of his scientific speculation is well backed up with many references, not only to martial arts magazines and books, but to scientific papers and reports. The thoroughness of the list of references astonishes me every time I look it over.

This isn't the kind of book that you can just glance over and absorb, it is the kind of book that you need to dedicate a lot of time to in order to understand. Good luck and have fun, I know that I have.

This is a remarkable book, the likes of which I have been searching for for some time. While most books on martial arts focus on specific techniques for defense, this work is concerned with the development of the power which enables techniques-both from an internal and external perspective. The book is quite in depth and, in my opinion, would be best reserved until a solid foundation in one's own art is attained.

One of the book's first sections is a historical exposition of Chinese martial arts. It is quite good. From there the author charts a clear path to developing both external and internal power. If you are a martial artist looking for ways to extend and deepen your training this book is not to be missed.

This is another of Dr. Ming's excellent books on the Chinese martial arts. I have many of them, including his complete video tape series on chin na, and regard his books and videos as a source of quality information.

There are a number of crane and white crane styles, such as southern white crane, northern black crane, eastern Tibetan white crane, and at least four styles of southern white crane are known. All have their own unique stylistic qualities but share with the others a common core of crane techniques and an emphasis on both hard and soft aspects. The feeding crane is a form rather than a style, and the "vibrating crane" is a fa-jing or explosive chi energy technique. (I don't propose to get into a discussion of chi principles here or their validity, I just mention this for factual purposes).

I should mention right off that despite the title, most of this book is actually about white crane chi gung principles and practice. In fact, 178 pages of the book are devoted to it. There are separate chapters on stationary soft, moving soft, stationary hard, and moving hard chi gung, and a related chapter covers Jin, or energy and power production. Only the last 55 or so pages are actually devoted to the martial applications, so if you're primarily interested in those, perhaps this book isn't for you. However, the photos showing the martial applications are very clear and of value also.

One interesting thing I noticed was how combat realistic the hard, moving chi gung was. Just from the photos, it wasn't easily distinguishable from a real white crane kung fu form. Oddly enough, one of the chi gung postures resembled one from Indonesian Panca Indra Suci Pentjak Silat, an interesting coincidence.

White Crane kung is considered to be an especially refined style of kung fu. It has had an important influence on karate styles such as Okinawan goju-ryu and shorin-ryu, and also Yamaguchi's Japanese goju-ryu has at least one hakutsuru or white crane form. (In fact, I once saw a film of Yamaguchi's funeral and one of his top students performed a white crane form in his honor). Three of these occur in a number of variations in the Okinawan styles. (It's known that aged masters taught different versions to different students on the same day. Whether this was the result of age-related memory deficiencies, shall we say, or some other factor isn't known.) The white crane master, Go Ken Ki, is usually credited with introducing these forms into the Okinawan karate styles.

In addition to its influence on karate, white crane is important in the history of the Chinese arts not only for its own stylistic innovations, but also for its influence on tiger-crane styles such as Hung Gar and other five animals type styles, which incorporate the crane as one of the five animals (the others being dragon, snake, leopard, and tiger). There is also the older Ha Se Fu or "5 Lower Tigers" style, which contains a white crane form. Unlike Hung gar with its extremely long forms (the first form in Hung Gar is over 200 moves long), their forms are shorter and have only one for each animal, which is kept separate from the rest, rather than integrated, as in Hung Gar.

In addition to the above, there is also a chapter on principles and concepts common to all kung fu styles (such as hard, soft, jin energy training, chi, and so on), and there is also a nice history of white crane and kung fu, including some interesting stories about legendary masters and their exploits (which are basically de rigeur in any kung fu book).

Overall, this is another fine book from master Ming emphasizing mostly the more advanced, internal chi gung training of white crane, which should be of interest mostly to intermediate and advanced students who already have some idea of the martial applications and perhaps want to know more about the internal aspects and mental training as well.

This is a book about the essence of the White Crane Chinese Martial Arts. Not forms, techniques or weapons but the essence. As such, it tries to describe the qi and jing aspects of White Crane and give examples of training them. The book is intended, in my opinion, for the intermediate-letel martial artist. The reader should already have some concept of what qi and jing are - if not and you still want to read this book (which is very useful nonetheless), it is suggested that you look in at some dictionary-type definition which would save much confusion.

The book starts with an intro into Chinese Martial Arts and Qigong - history, practice, the specifics of the White Crane style and moral philosophy. This is very detailed and quite different from other mainstream accounts.

Next comes the qigong section. In it, Yang first describes his theory of the science behind qi and qigong. Even if you don't agree with his ideas, it's very interesting as an extended scientific treatment of qi is very rare. Then, it provides exercises for White Crane Qigong - hard and soft and within each of those - stationary and moving.

The same is done for jing - it's explained scientifically first and then exercises are given. Yang is very good at cautioning the reader to take due caution if performing any of the exercises here. I think it's best to select a few only and do these for a long time.

This is a very detailed book that will get you thinking about the essence of whatever art you practice (as a practitioner of Choy Lee Fut which is very different to White Crane, I found the book invaluable anyway) and will remind one about the essence of an art as something contained in the varying expressions of energy specific to that art (and not external things like forms which systemise those energies). The book is an inspiration to every practitioner.

The White Crane is a southern chinese kung fu style, and Dr. Yang's reference sets the standard. The White Crane style is a parent art from which many southern styles developed (including Wing Chun, Japanese and Okinawan Karate) so it is worth studying.

Included is the martial theory behind the system, featuring lengthy discusssions on Qi & Jin and their martial applicability. A martial artist of a style that is descended from the White Crane will find much to enhance his own understanding of his art.

This is mainly a reference material, as Books and DVDs do not make good primary instructional material for martial arts, so plan on attending a seminar or finding a good local school to get the most from this book.

...as usual, Dr. Yang does it again with this exceptional work. Buy his books...honestly, buy them all! You can read this many times over and still keep learning new things and getting new ideas. Pretty much like all of his books. Thank you yet again, Dr. Yang. You make me feel humble knowing there are still true masters living in this world.

I've definately finded the best source of informations on Martial Arts : Yang Jwing Ming , and this book one of the best . From this pages You can study several training pattern and integrate them in Your style now , but later read them again and again , them will reveal many other aspects !!

Being a marital artist myself for over thirty years I say this book has been most fulfilling after becoming bogged down in the working society and not having time to work out, I was greatly discouraged at the rate my knee joints developed arthritis like pain. Before reading the book I forced myself to work leg work to see what would happen and in a few short months I was walking without a limp. After reading the book I can see that in a few short years continuing down this route would soon result in painful joints again. Not only has this book pointed to a more complete and sensible direction for my martial arts, but also a way that has already improved the quality of my life.

Contained way more information then expected! The actual patterns, forms, and applications left a little to be desired I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to know more about white crane then the actual techniques