PO

I currently use this book as a basis for teaching a tai-chi class; it is a great book. Though I would argue the validity of some of the information, the basic premis is great - as a moving meditation, tai-chi is an excellent way to maintain a healthy life-style.

Where can my students buy this book since it is out of print?

The book is very informative (on the basics) for the beginner. There are many new high pro parts that came into the market from the time the book was printed (1991) leaving it out of date. But....There are many good explanations on why a part was used, this will help a person to make a better decision on what part to go with themselves. There are a lot of good pictures, diagrams and technical notes to help, also many phone numbers to call for parts and help. 21 projects in all, if you have a 350 - 400 Chevy and need to find out where to start this is a good place to go to get some ideas. Over all I like the information presented in this book for the year it was written.

This book would provide the reader with an exercise system that would, indeed, improve balance and health. This system is based on Tai Chi, but is not Tai Chi. If you're looking for a dance routine no one else knows, this books for you. As far as excercise goes, it would do OK, but because it's not actual Tai Chi, most of the aspects which bring about health are missing. I would strongly recommend Yoga for health if you don't want to learn a martial art. I also feel that to use this book without a solid base in either martial arts or Yoga, one would be risking injury unless a teacher were present (and then you wouldn't need a book :). So, if you're looking for a good book on Tai Chi, look elsewhere.

The only good book on the subject of Guang Ping Yang is Guttmann's translation of Kuo, Lien Ying's 'The T'ai Chi Boxing Chronicle' and that book is not for beginners. The poster who recommends Yoga and comments rather ignorantly about Guang Ping suffers from a standard misconception about the art. Although it is a gentle healing art, the healing comes as a result of good steady practice and is a result of the internal balancing that occurs from proper use of energy. This is a demanding study. Tai Chi Chuan is an internal energy boxing art much aligned with Bagua and Shing-yi. It is one of the more difficult of the Tai Chi arts to learn because of it's need for years of training and practice. In it's higher good it is nothing less than alchemy or transformation of the individual from lead to gold.

I'm a computer engineering student and have been studying this book for 3 months and I've concluded that it's impossble to learn from. In almost all of the examples, the author skip steps that are vital for students who have never analyzed circuits in such detail before. The reading is difficult to understand, even after reading each chapter two or three times. It's as if the authors wrote this text to impress their colleages. I'm fortunate that my professor explains the material faily well. I'm definitely going to sell this book back at the end of the semister and use the money to invest in a useful circuits text. I highly recommend you do not buy this book, I wish I never did.

Take my suggestion: "Don't ever buy this book". I am a second year student and my school use this book as a text for Introduction to EE. Since my instructor is so bad in explanation, at the very beginning, I thought, I could rely on this text for understanding. I HAVE READ EVERY SINGLE WORD IN THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS AND REPEATED SO MANY TIMES AND STILL, I DON'T COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THINGS. Very vey hard to follow. If you don't believe what I said, read it yourself before buying it.

This book is extremly difficult to learn from. The material that is covered is not explained very well for someone just starting out. There may be one of two reasons for this, either the authors know the subject matter so well they lost touch with the basics or they more or less wrote the book to impress their peers.

The title says it all. I don't know what to add. Long, turgid narratives, exercises that either use or require words that are not defined or glossed, obscure usages that are nowhere explained, and a vocabulary that was out of date years before the cold war ended. Burn your copy, if you haven't already, and let Yale University press know that the 21st century is here.

I'm sure that the author had the best intentions, but this work comes across as a collection of clever psudo-wisdom that would be more at home in fortune cookies.
It is not completly without merit, but if you are expecting a book on the level of the "Tao Te Ching" or "The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma" or even "The Tao of Pooh" you should look elsewhere.