Customer Reviews

Hsing-I: Chinese Internal Boxing (Chinese Martial Arts Library)

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

 

 

Allen Pittman and Rober Smith offer a simple, insightful introduction to the internal art of Hsing-I Chuan. A short history and some general guidelines are followed by a complete forms section including 5 Elements and 12 Animals sets. The book is not meant to be comprehensive, and it achieves its goal of giving the reader a real sense of what the art is about. The only down side is in comparison to Robert Smith's orignial Hsing-I book, this one comes out a bit the lesser. It is missing the pictures of the old masters, and their chapter of invaluable advice. It is also missing the two-man exercises and applications. Hsing-I players will want to have this book, however, as it gives a valuable reference in terms of forms comparison, and offers some valuable advice on the goals of practice. The final piece of which is :"Therefore, in order to best perfect your Hsing-I skills, always work hard and remain humble."

A straight-forward guide, it provides coverage of the five elements and the twelve animals of Hsing-I and should be useful to beginners. Heaven knows, my copy has been well-used. The illustrations and descriptions of the movements are fairly easy to follow. It's not an in-depth coverage and does not claim to be, but it does present the basics and touches a bit on the history and philosophy behind the art.

A straight-forward guide, it provides coverage of the five elements and the twelve animals of Hsing-I and should be useful to beginners. Heaven knows, my copy has been well-used. The illustrations and descriptions of the movements are fairly easy to follow. It's not an in-depth coverage and does not claim to be, but it does present the basics and touches a bit on the history and philosophy behind the art.

I believe the authors are among the first to introduce hsing-i chuan (pinyin: xingyiquan) to western audiences. In presenting a complete core hsing-i curriculum, together with fundamental concepts and training, the authors textualize the bio-mechanics and forms behind the 5 fists and 12 animals. Also included are sections on hsing-i lineage, martial wisdom and philosphy.

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.

This book is incredible... Mr. Smith is a great expert on hand to hand fighting and he learnt his stuff from some of the best martialists that Asia has to offer the form presented in this book comes from the great master Chen Panling.

I enjoyed some of the writing vignettes, other than that, ya stretch, ya breathe, ya throw some punches. Nice.
If your only gonna buy one martial arts type book, buy another one.