Customer Reviews

T'ai-Chi: The Supreme Ultimate Exercise for Health, Sport, and Self-Defense

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Cheng Man-ch'ing and Robert W Smith do an excellent job of showing the western readers the real traditional tai chi. With over 275 pictures and 122 diagrams Robert Smith continues to produce the high quality books he is famous for. I would recomend this book to all serious martial artists.

As a beginning Taiji student, I've found this book to be a great tool for further developing/practicing at home. It is a great guide to those studying the short Yang 37 form style. I've found it supplements training by helping you remember the essential footwork, handposition, and weight transfers from class. The pictures can be a little challenging as they are 'mirror' images of what you are actually doing. However, they are all there in a complete pull-out form as well, including footwork. The writing is to the point and descriptive. The book does NOT provide the transitions between each form very well though and thus I recommend it a supplemental tool to going to your taiji class. It will be a well-worn book though!

This book is really comprehensive. It has many pictures and descriptions of them to help you along with the forms. I'm taking a Tai Chi class at my college, and this book is the perfect companion. It is very well layed out and can be easily followed. Of course it is always necessary to have an actual master, but this book is probably the best on the market. Many Tai Chi books are confusing and poorly made, but this is one of the few that is not. Learning Tai Chi straight from a book is a little silly, at least look for classes or a video. But this is the perfect companion piece to perfecting your Tai Chi. If you want to buy the best, this is the one - no question about it.

This text by famous grandmaster Cheng Man-ch'ing and his first Western student, the well-known martial arts authority, Robert W. Smith, was written specifically for Western readers. One of the very first books written in English about T'ai Chi (first published in the U.S. in 1967), it is the first to present Cheng's now famous Yang style short form. It is also provides an English translation (by R. W. Smith and T.T. Liang) of the extremely important T'ai Chi Classics which provide the written wisdom essential for understanding and progress.

The book includes pictures of Cheng doing the postures along with text describing them as well as a very helpful foldout chart showing the complete form. Other excellent chapters cover T'ai Chi history, T'ai Chi for a healthier life and the Principles of T'ai Chi. In the section, T'ai Chi for Self-Defense, Cheng is pictured (with T.T. Liang) in demonstrations of some of the postures such as "Turn Body and Sweep Lotus with Leg" in which he advises that the "...waist and thigh must be relaxed and sunk or the sweep will not be effective." In "Withdraw and Push," Cheng tells us that "The energy used must come from the leg, not the hands."

The section entitled "Yang Cheng-fu's Twelve Important Points" introduces Westerners to the insights of the Yang family, the originators of modern T'ai Chi and the ones to bring forth T'ai Chi to all of China and the world in general.

In "Questions and Answers," Smith asks Cheng a series of interesting questions. For example, "In doing the postures how does one know when he is relaxed?" (Relaxation, of course, is the first principle of T'ai Chi practice.) Also, he asks "How important is the Pushing-Hands Practice?" Cheng's answers to these and other insightful questions provide helpful guidance to a student at any level.

This early, excellent text would be an important addition to any T'ai Chi player's library.

The photos on the cover have varied over the thirty years this book has been printed. My preference is the original one with Chen Man Ching vice the leotard clad dancers, old people, etc. that had evolved from marketing. This book is a classic. The highest point are the photographs of Chen Man Ching. What an example of elegant and correct Tai-chi.

Excellent works. With open mind to let things go and take what it is we will be able to see and feel the real world and get good health.