I own many books that are translations of classic Taijiquan writings.    Many of the books have a tremendous amount of information for the serious Taijiquan student.   The problem I have had with many of these translations, with no fault to the translator, is that the information is presented in no logical order.   It's like being given a jigsaw puzzle in pieces and having to figure out how to put them together to get the whole.

Dr. Yang, Jwing Ming has always been very organized and logical in his approach to presenting information on the martial arts.   Consequently, the layout of this book on Taijiquan Theory is extremely well done and is presented in the order that one should learn the techniques taught.

Now the organization of this book alone would compel me to own a copy.     Yet, there is an even more compelling reason to obtain this book.    The translations in this book are not of old traditional texts, but rather they are a translation of writings by Dr. Yang himself.    Anyone familiar with the published works of Dr. Yang knows the high level of knowledge and skill that he possesses.    When you read this book you are getting a wonderful distillation of years of practice and knowledge that Dr. Yang brings to the table.    This is not a collection of writings by numerous artists, but the focused and balanced views of a premier martial artist who has a resume in the martial arts that covers the soft and hard martial arts.

The book's premise is the need to learn to regulate, in order, various processes in our body and mind.    The following areas are covered:

• Regulating the body

• Regulating the breath

• Regulating the mind

• Regulating the Qi

• Regulating the spirit

Dr. Yang starts off the book with an overview of the five parts to regulate.   The overview is so well done that a student could take the information and make serious progress in their training.

However, what is very satisfying is that Dr. Yang then takes each of the five parts and thoroughly explains how to achieve the necessary regulation.   At times, he might refer to other books that he has published that have even more detailed explanations of the five regulations.   

I remember seeing this book for sale and thinking, "oh, I already have books on theory, I probably don't need another."     Yet the truth is, after reading this book, if I was given a choice of only keeping one book on Taijiquan Theory, this would be the one I would choose.

Additionally, Dr. Yang covers the following topics while presenting his Theory of Taijiquan:

• Jin, Pushing Hands & Sparring

• Taiji long and short fighting strategies

• Relationship of Jin & Qi

• Unification of the internal Qi & external physical manifestations of the Qi

Run, don't walk, and obtain a copy of this book.   It is a masterpiece.

Copyright 2007 Patrick H. Dickson • All Rights Reserved