Review: TAI CHI for HEALTH
by Ronnie Robinson
TAI CHI for HEALTH
Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei & Master Liming Yue
Chen Style Tai Chi Centre
ISBN: 1-904719120
£25 hardback £18 paperback
A couple of things immediately strike me when looking at this book, one is the extremely high quality of production and the other are the words, Tai Chi for Health. Nothing unusual there you may say, there are many tai chi books around this theme, which is an obvious selling point for the masses, but none, to my knowledge focusing primarily on Chen style Tai Chi.
Printed on high-quality paper with full colour photographs throughout TCFH beautifully illustrates the 18 step form of the Chen style hand form. It contains detailed guidelines of hand and feet positions, weight distribution and stances before going on to provide a brief history of this family style. As the title suggests it focusses on the health aspect of the art with a lot of emphasis on the various benefits of practice including information on qi energy and the meridian system. Aside from the hands form we see Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei providing practical advice on Meditation, Silk Reeling, Energy Collection and Standing Postures.
The latter part of the book is dedicated to looking at a number of personal experiences from various Chen style practitioners with reports on Tui Na & Chen Style Tai Chi, Magaging Stress with Tai chi, Tai Chi & Qigong for the Elderly and TCM & Tai Chi.
This edition should be of interest not only to Chen stylists but also those who want to pursue the health aspects of the art.
Visit: www.taichicentre.com
Ronnie Robinson resides in Glasgow, Scotland and has studied taiji and internal arts since 1981. Aside from his professional teaching status, Ronnie is actively involved in the promotion of taijiquan and qigong throughout Europe, in his various roles. He is Secretary of the Tai Chi Union for Great Britain, Secretary of the Taijiquan & Qigong Federation for Europe, Editor of Tai Chi Chuan & Internal Arts (UK), Editor-in-Chief of the European Internal Arts Journal and organiser of one of Europe's biggest international internal arts gatherings, Tai Chi Caledonia, a week-long camp held in his native Scotland.