spj's new taiji book

[oasis]

hey spj ,

got my book yesterday. thank you very much. when i get a chance to go through more of it this weekend i will post a review. but initial view looks nice: i like the photographs and your explanations of the applications of different techniques in taiji.

[SPJ]

You are welcome.

It would take a month or so, before the book will be available at amazon.com.

You are welcome to write a review on the amazon.com site, too.

The contents are principles and theories with a lot of technique examples.

Have fun.

If any Q's or suggestions/corrections, we may discuss on this thread.

[Becca]

It took almost a whole week to work my way through it well enough to post an intelligent rewiew, but here goes:

This has got to be one of the easiest to understand and follow Martail Arts books I have ever had the pleasure of reading! It is a life time of blood, sweat and tears crammed into 71 pages designed to give non Tai Chi practioners an insightful look into the this art, as well as true tai chi practioners another contect to view thier art through.

The book is broken down into three well planned sections: theory first, then practice, and ending with a forms section. I especially valued te order Peter Jaw chose. The theory section thuroughly explored critical terminology and ideals needed to understand the material covered in the next two sections.

The second section is a series of self-defences, or combinations, based on standard senarios such as how to deal with a strait punch to the face/chest/sholder, ect. For each of the concepts of the body and how it works with the rest of the body and Dan Tien covered in the first section (Zhang, Wan, Zhou, ect) section 2 gives several easy to follow combinations of how the concept would be used in self-defence.

Section 3 takes the foundation begun in the second section with self-defence and illistrates how to apply them to the more common Chen Tai Chi techniques.

I cannot comment much on how this book would read to a seriouse Chen style Tai Chi practitioner, but as a student of Kung Fu, I found many insights in this book. I was able to apply every technique from the book I attempted with some proficiency after only a short amount of time. While I can asure what I was doing looked nothing like true Tai Chi, I got a very good feel for how the Tai Chi Quan is used in personal defence. This is a truely remarkable fighting style!

I used my father as my personal guinie pig and drilling partner while working through this book. I found thatafter as little as 30-45 minutes of drilling, we were going full speed/full contact! Each session averaged about an hour, with 1-2 sessions per day after we got into the prac ap section.

As the attacker, I found it extremely difficul to keep my father fromredirection then nutralizing they strikes. I started hitting harder and throwing you punches faster in an attempt to get him, but by the third day of drilling, I was not able to blow threw his defences no matter waht I tried.

As the defender, I found the techniques became almost instinctive after only one drilling session. By the end of the third day, I was able to swich it up almost without concious thought. Is in many ways similar to what I learn it the kwoon, but has a flowing, almost totally relaxed feel to it.

This is something I feel I could use to my benifit with some more work, mainly because it is compact enough to use in a crowded room, quick enough to be used when caught completely off guard, and powerfull enough to nuetralize the attacker with minimal injury that I would be able to "get away" easily. I highly recoment this book to anyone who has ever wanted to get a better look at Tai Chi Quan who isn't able to search out a master of the style for what ever reason.

[SPJ]

Thanks a lot for the review.

My brother always complained that my stuff is too hard to understand.

I said it is not me. It is the stuff that is hard.

It did take me a while to sip thru many piles of notes. The main thing is that being a color book, it costs too much to have many pages. I have to cut the number of images and texts drastically. At the same time, I have to provide enough info to appreciate the bare minimal concepts.

I read many MA books in English. Mostly have a lot of pictures with techniques only with few words.

It is very difficult to do that in CMA. However, I adopted the formats with a lot of techniques, pictures and very stringent in words.

If this format is popular, then I may keep it the same way in future books.

My brother hated the text and words, too. He practices Zhao Bao Tai Chi. He likes the new book, too. He suggested that to include Chinese text, too.

So in the future, the text will be in both English and Chinese.

--

Thanks again.

[Becca]

Wow! I have got to stop posting so late at night. My spelling was worse than usual.

I personally prefer to have the technique explained as well as shown. Picturs are nice, but that is a static view of something that is anything but static. As I've said, my background is not in Tai Chi, but the princiles you covered have similarities in Pai Lum, so I was able to get quite a bit out og the text. The pix were good for making sure I was interpreting your words.

[SPJ]

Cool.

[SPJ]

Here is a link to the news release.

Explore Tai Chi

[SPJ]

Amazon.com is updating its website.

The book is still under scanning. Maybe in a few weeks, every one may read free pages by "search inside" the book.

Here is a link;

Book

[SPJ]

I think that in order to show the Tai Ji diagram in the background, they increased the blue tone on the book cover.

So it is almost all blue.

Originally, the Tai Ji diagram is black and white and the cover has light blue tone.

[SPJ]

I never know exactly that how the news wire works.

Once the news are released and it is upto the media, TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, etc to post it or not.

I designated LA, San Diego, and San Francisco CA.

I did a search via google.

I got UK Yahoo, finance that posted my news release.

Here is the link;

UK news release

Mmm. It is always interesting to know how the media work.

Actually, I knew that it does take a while for the media to pick up Tai Ji related news. Since there are so many news needed to be posted any way.

I was talking to my friends. My books always ended up in not so "correct" bookstore websites. I think that it has a lot to do with bookstore managers. He or she decided to carry and sell what kind of books they like or deem more acceptable to his or her target audience and buyers.

[SPJ]

Here is an example.

The book on Chan and CMA. My target audience was CMA practitioners and Chan/Daoist theorists. It is mainly an MA oriented book.

The book becomes popular in business/finance, sports and spiritual bookstores.

Here are some links:

Business

Sports

[Becca]

I'm not so suprized that you would find it being marketed for spirituality, actually. I'm also a member of Beliefe Net And find that almost everyone there has atleast looked into Marial arts for meditation ideas. Especially in the Budist comutity there.

[SPJ]

Kind of interested in how News wires work on the internet.

Here are links:

Explore Tai Chi

New book in 2004

Red Nova

Once the news is released or faxed to the media, TV, radio, mag, newspaper etc. It is up to them to carry or post or not. Some are hosting the news on the web and also searchable. Interesting!

At Red Nova site, you may even discuss the news story in the forum. WOW.

[norther practitioner]

I read two of those articles.. nice stuff...

[Dronak]

I took a look over those articles and it looks like a few of them used the exact same press release. It sounds like an interesting book and I can put it on my list of ones to consider buying (currently I can't afford any fun spending). Is the general theory, techniques, and such applicable to any style of tai chi even though the end of the book explains Chen style postures? I've only learned Yang style, but have seen some videos with Chen style on the web. It looks like Chen style has a different way of turning the body, almost jerking it quickly against then back with the original intended motion. I doubt I could learn and pick that up from a book. Videos perhaps, but not a book. But still, it could be a useful intro to Chen style postures. So if the rest of the book is generally applicable to any style, I'll think about getting it later on.