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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Expected more, February 12, 2008
A previous reader commented that this was an unauthorised work, not sanctioned by Dr Pang - I would have appreciated some reference to back up this claim.
The ideal situation would be to be able to read in Chinese, the original works by Dr Pang,
The second best situation would be to be able to read English translations of Dr Pang's works, and then have to opportunity to digest and interpret this oneself
The third best situation would be to read someone else's interpretations of Dr Pang's ideas, which is what this is book purported to be - third best, because no matter how good the intentions, this must necessarily lead to dilution, pollution, omissions, additions.
Occupying a place somewhere below the best, second best and third best situation (I would hesitate to classify it as fourth best, because of the foreign material included, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Dr Pang's teachings), is where I would place this book. Joseph Marcello's contribution makes up a big chunk of this book, dedicated to advice on nutrition and alternative therapies - this part of the book feels like an add-on - I feel it is out of place in this work, and should never have been included - I have no problem with the information presented, and in fact, I have been using many of these ideas for decades - but, it feels wrong to include this as part of a work, supposedly based on the teachings of Dr Pang. Ditto for the quotes of other philosophers in the Joseph Marcello contribution - these are mentioned as supporting the philosophy of Dr Pang - once more, while interesting in itself, it feels out of place - almost as if Dr Pang's ideas need backing up by others - it just feels wrong to include this as part of a work supposedly based on the teachings of Dr Pang. I feel that I could (and might very well do so) rip off this last part of this book, and gain, rather than lose anything.
I have an English translation of some of Dr Pang's work, in his own words - he speaks plainly, and simply, and I have no difficulty following his ideas - I do not need someone to interpret these ideas, and then to spoon feed them to me. I believe that the authors have been honest in their intentions, but I do find it a little arrogant to give your own interpretation of such a great philosophy. What would have been correct, would have been to translate Dr Pang's writings word for word, so that each reader may know exactly what was said, and is then free to accept, reject, interpret or misinterpret these ideas for himself - as it stands now, if one has misgivings about the philosophy, one does not know if one is having doubts about Dr Pang's ideas, or about the authors' interpretation (no matter how honestly presented) of Dr Pang's ideas. This is unfortunate because it leaves me still not knowing exactly what the original teachings are - I am left wondering, is this what Dr Pang said, or is this what the author thinks he meant? I what have appreciated it very much if the authors had translated the original works, word for word, and then added their ideas in square brackets, so that one could know exactly who is saying what - in this way, I could compare my own interpretation of the original with the authors', without thinking that Dr Pang's philosophy is flawed.
The main reason I bought this book was to try and get a clearer understanding of exactly how to do some of the movements, and also what one should be visualising while doing each movement. While this book helped a little in this respect, it could have gone very much further - advice like, retract your Adam's apple - what does this mean - pull it up, pull it down - if so, why not just use plain English - instead it sounds as if you should draw it backwards towards your windpipe - if so, how? The same applies to many of the guidelines around visualisations - these are completely foreign ideas to minds not familiar with this philosophy, but they are explained very poorly, or hardly at all. If ever there was a place to spoon-feed the uninitiated reader, it was here - this is the place to go into detail, and to imagine the readers are five years old.
I am disappointed with this book, because I feel the author could have addressed the above-mentioned issues, and by so doing, have done a much better job (I say author, not authors, because I do believe that Joseph Marcello detracts from this work - I would be interested to read his contributions, but in a separate work, not as part of this one)
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