Fundamentals of Pa Kua Chan, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Park BOK Nam (Author), Dan Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1998

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Unique Publications (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865681724
• ISBN-13: 978-0865681729
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #664,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Likely the most important book written on Internal Arts., November 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Fundamentals of Pa Kua Chang: The Methods of Lu Shue-Tien As Taught by Park Bok Nam (Paperback)

This book won't teach you any fancy forms, but it will teach you everything you really need to know about Pa Kua (and any other internal martial art, for that matter).

This is a book of the true fundamentals of Pa Kua. Each lesson is there to teach you to progress as smoothly and efficiently as is about humanly possible. Park really stresses the necesity of basic drills, practiced properly, to allow the body to learn to 'relax' enough for efficient martial use. Exercises begin with footwork drills, progress to combined footwork drills, and then to basic palm techniques. Later both the combined footwork and palm techniques are combined.

Also taught in this book is basic Pa Kua Chi Kung, enough for the beginner to develope a feel for Chi flow and are sufficient exercises for Chi development until the practice of one's martial techniques take over one's Chi work.

There is a Volume 2, but it doesn't seem to be listed here at Amazon.com as of this review. This is as good as Volume 1, but isn't needed until you've absorbed everything from Vol.1 (good luck!)

Again, if I had to own only one book on internal martial arts I would most certainly make it this one. No art is ever any better than its basics. So, the more strongly developed your basics, the more developed your skill will be. I feel this is the best book from which to learn those basics.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Secrets not many chinese practitioners know, March 27, 2001

By 

"wing_hong" (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fundamentals of Pa Kua Chan, Vol. 1 (Paperback)

I am a practitioner of I-Chuan and Pa-Kua in Hong Kong. I have bought almost every chinese Pa-Kua books published in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. This book had been recommended to me many times by my friends, but I was still reluctant to buy it, thinking that not much more could be learned, not to mention my more than ten years efforts in finding and seeing many of the well-known masters both in Hong Kong and China. One very important thing I've learned over these years is that the esoteric teachings of internal martial arts had been developed most of the time by teachers who did not have the real skills but wanted to cheat for more students. I was amazed at how earthly and scientific this book has finally explained the real mechanics for the tremendous striking power of internal martial arts, it tells you which muscles to use instead of the apparent movements of the body. This book teaches in the same way and language of every real masters I've met - no hype, no lengthy discussion at qi(though I do not deny the role of qi in internal martial arts)which could not been verified anyhow, but every instruction is consistent with morden physics and human biology. I'm very happy at the fact that this book is not written by a chinese, which symbolizes the art of Pa Kua has truly been taught and spread to other parts of the world.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb overview of an inherently complex endeavor, December 17, 1999

By 

Rahman (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fundamentals of Pa Kua Chang: The Methods of Lu Shue-Tien As Taught by Park Bok Nam (Paperback)

Martial arts in general has two distinct facets: the internal arts, which ultimately tend toward spiritual and theoretical issues, and external arts, focusing upon training and competition. Typically these lead to divisiveness in the martial arts community. Resolving these two sides of the same coin, on an individual level, is a difficult and often frustrating issue.

Pa-Kua Chang is a style dedicated to incorporating both of these aspects of the martial arts. Its skilled practitioners can easily confound some of the best stylists from other disciplines. The techniques are extremely efficient and systematic. At the same time, internal cultivation is emphasized as a key to development physically as well as spiritually. Both sides are necessary.

This work on Pa-Kua Chang introduces the reader to the many diverse facets of this style. Tradition, theory, internalization, physical considerations, are all interwoven into a complete and self-contained foundational work.

Many of the details (read: secrets) one may wish from a martial arts book are necessarily missing. After all, true martial functionality is a social aspect of life, between two (or more) intelligent beings. Exercises and basics are described herein, so that the seeker has tools with which to pursue higher degrees of refinement. Nothing in this work is glossed over, however. Reaching a high level of proficiency of even the basic exercises outlined takes tremendous discipline and dedication. One can seek out further instruction in the interim.