Tai Chi: Health for Life by Bruce Frantiz
4.5 Star Amazon.com Rating
Look Inside Link: http://amzn.to/13bib8n
5 Star Rating by Paul D. Pallante
This review is for: Tai Chi: Health for Life
Great book. Gives a good framework for understanding the complete art of Tai Chi. Definitely not a step by step “how to” book, but an excellent “why do” book. The benefits of Tai Chi practice are elucidated clearly, while giving an intimate look into the inside elements that make Tai Chi tick (an often overlooked quality in many Tai Chi books that seem to favor bunches of pictures and captions as filler instead of real content). I’m a big fan of Frantzis’ other books, and this one did not disappoint. Highly recommended.
Book Excerpt
“One day after watching eighty-year-old Liu Hung Chieh of Beijing [a renowned tai chi and meditation master and lineage holder] do his tai chi form, I asked him what it was like to do it perfectly. He considered the question for a while, gently smiled and replied:
‘I don’t know; I am still waiting to find out. I have practiced internal martial arts virtually every day of my life for over seventy years, including tai chi for over fifty. One day maybe twenty years ago, it seemed I did the tai chi form perfectly. It was a very good feeling. Then, a few days later it was obvious I hadn’t.
‘I can say as the years have gone by, that it has been possible to do the form better, more efficiently, and with deeper satisfaction. However, no matter how good it gets, after a while something a little more interesting usually happens…. Humans are humans and gods are gods. Gods may be perfect, humans rarely. Practice regularly. Do your best moment by moment, and tai chi will give back to you more than you can possibly give to it. Relax. Do…and let the beauty of the art unfold.’”