Customer Reviews

Like a Long River

5 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
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Excellent 3rd book by Lowenthal. For the T`ai Chi Ch`uan student in the Yang style or any style I considered it valuable. If you are dedicated to Cheng Man-Ch`ing and the 37 posture form he developed it is very informative. The books are very interesting and entertaining. I would recommend these books to all serious T`ai Chi Ch`uan students.

If you practice tai chi (taiji) and want to go beyond movement to the inner practice, this is a truly great introduction. It is not a manual, more a memoir, but it points the way to expanding the tai chi practice to your thoughts and feelings, and ultimately to your entire life. It is easy to miss the more subtle lessons in the early chapters, where Lowenthal recounts teachings by Tai Chi Master Chen Man Ch'ing. So much of tai chi is on the subtle level, and it can take years of physical practice and either luck or a very good instructor to go beyond the physical level. The sections on Push Hands are amazingly profound. I'm not sufficiently advanced to practice push hands, but the principles are sound in all areas of human interaction. I recommend this book very highly.

I guess i found it hard to understand where the writer was coming from let alone where he was going with the beginning of the book. Seemed like some personal stories that he tried to link metaphorically to Taiji but just didn't quite get there for me.
I realise the book initially started as a web journal and i haven't read his two other books. I admit i probably would not be called a 'serious' Taiji student but I have studied Taijiquan and still practice it along with my other martial art studies.
The last third of the book seemed to be written well. I do agree that the book is written in a conversation form with the 'Long river students'. It would be the students or anyone who had a part in Cheng Man-Ching's life that would get the most out of this book.

How ever it just seemed to me that the mass of this book was spent on the difficult art of push-hands and seemed to be going over the same things.
I really don't mean to sound rude by saying this but i just couldn't help but feel a sense of closed mindedness by the writer as i read some of the stories in this book.

..and this book as well as some other of Mr. Lowenthal's works is a confirmation of that idea.

The book is written as a conversation with the fellow students of the Long River. It has some interesting stories from the days when Professor Cheng was a teacher at the Shr Jung in New York, as well as some interesting notes made by Mr. Lowenthal's classmate John Wolfe.

In overall i liked "Like a Long River". It has a readability of a good fiction, and yet many chapters make you ponder about their content, as well as a pretty far fetched resonance that it has in relation to the history of this lineage, as well as its global effect on us, students of the Long River Tai Chi Circle.