Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Dense little book chock full of insights, training aids, kinematic concerns, visualization techniques, push hands insights, and more. Sifu Robin Johnson does a very good job of providing a syllabus of his training methods and insights from decades of study, practice, and teaching.
He breaks it down into 10 steps-- 10 key points that have helped him and his students. It's almost like a system. Each chapter covers a key point, and each chapter goes into considerable detail as to what he means, and different ways to implement the key point into your training. It's a good organizational tool
Pros: Densely packed with the above insights. Moreover, focuses on footwork, legwork, lower body alignment, sinking, placement and structure of legs and pelvis. Gives great visualization techniques to help with finding the right structure, and discusses in detail. In my experience, finding books that so extensively discuss the lower body in Tai Chi are rare to non-existent. And really, sometimes inch-by-inch discussions on placement of feet, weight-shifting, knee and pelvic alignment. Truly a joy.
Cons: Cheng Man-Ching filter. Cheng Man-Ching style was definitely the most popular in the USA early on, but it is being supplanted by traditional Yang style (which I study)-- and there are significant differences in the forms (even ignoring the difference in sequence). Especially a lot of the rear leg/knee alignment discussion needs to take this into consideration if your style is not Cheng Man-Ching. The later, upper body chapters are very form-specific, rather than generalized to Tai Chi collectively, and it takes some concentration to distill out concepts from his very specific examples. Furthermore, Sifu Johnson is not the clearest writer-- more because it seems like he forgets that he is writing through the Cheng Man-Ching filter. Finally, this is not a beginner's book. A working knowledge of Tai Chi, and a moderate amount of practice (at least a few years taking classes a couple times a week from a good teacher?) is, at least to me, mandatory in trying to understand where Sifu Johnson is coming from. Also, no helpful illustrations or pictures, and it definitely needs them.
Summary: Indispensible book. Has its limitations mostly due to the style-specifics and writing style, but it deals in a very frank, detailed way about issues that I believe come up in every Tai Chi practicioner's endeavor to become more skilled, and which are rarely treated with this much sincerity and rigor elsewhere.
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