My Favourite Books (2)

I bought two copies of " Master Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on T'ai Chi Ch'uan".

This version pictured below is the second one that came out with notes and an index. The material in the book can found in other books, but this is nice to have and on re-reading it you can always find something to reflect upon in your own practise.

My Favourite Books (1)

One for my German readers....


Kraft ohne Anstrengung ( Effortless Power in English)

I bought this in 1999 in Basel, Schweiz. It's a great book dealing with posture and structural alignment for effortless strength/power. The author, Dieter Allgaier, is a martial artist practising Taiji, Qigong, Escrima and Wing Chun.

The are some great exercises and a nice "teacups" Bagua one to help the reader understand the concepts.

I  don't know if it is still in print but I think it is a lot better than many of the later structural type books I've seen since.

Twenty Years

The Path of development

Twenty Years Physical

Twenty Years Mental

Twenty Years Spiritual

The weapons forms of the Sun family

I've been studying traditional Sun style Taiji for the last 11years privately under David Martin, indoor student of the late Sun Jian Yun.

It is a fascinating style and the article by Ivan Ang in Singapore about Sun family weapons sheds light on the relationship between weapons and the empty hand forms.

The article can be read here

Mysteries of Reality

Mysteries of reality number eighteen

Touch

Many parts of our body connect with the outside world and are the root of what has come to be called senses. The five main senses are all influenced strongly by touch. Everything touches, but the aum stretching from nipple to nipple and a hand width wide, each half curving to the centre to make a rough figure of eight. To bring power to such a famous and unknown structure is beyond the capacity to make small. Peripheral vision is the eyes touching everything without a mean or selfish concentration. It is a largely unused talent, without it the person has a tunnel vision which is unable to pick out the truth, which is cushioned by environment. What is inside you works all the time. All the time is without time. Obsessed by such a commotion we have clocks and whole systems of training devoted to the 60 minutes—the number 60 from ancient times. Peripheral vision is the start of transmission because both teacher and pupil are active in this transmission. The hard quality of structures work from the inside of a ruby or a sapphire, change their colour and influence what they mean. This must be approached softly or the meaning shrinks and disappears.

Simple Qigong Exercises - Teacup seated Variation 1

Interesting Push Hands Drill

This is a push hands drill based on the figure 8, which is about joining and merging with the other person in a different range of movement than we might usually think of. It can lead to a wide variety of locks and strikes.