Does anybody know a good book on tai chi? Cost? Please explain in brief the basics of tai chi?

There are lots of books on tai chi, which can be found at 'amazon' or from the following informative sites.


Good luck!


I did tai chi chuan and really enjoyed it, amongst other things it gave me lots of energy and a profound sense of inner peace.


I only gave it up (reluctantly) because the class times clashed with my university lectures.

Does anybody know a good book on tai chi? Cost? Please explain in brief the basics of tai chi?
There are two books that come to mind:





T'ai Chi Clasics by Waysun Liao. It has decent translations of the major writing that had the most impact on the development of taiji chuan. The the works of Chang San Feng (Founder of Wudang wushu where all taiji, bagua and xingyi come from), Wong Chung Yua and Wu Yu Xiang. It is published by Shambahala for about 15.00USD.





The other is The Complete Book of Tai Chi Chuan by Wong Kiew Kit. It goes through decent detail on the development of taiji from the Tang Dynasty (618-906) and through its evolutions at Wudang Mountain, Chen, Yang, Wu (both) Sun and into the present day. It is very heavily illustrated and can serve as a good reference book. It is published by Tuttle Martial Arts for about 17.00USD.





There are many others in Chinese and if you want I can let you know which ones those are and where to get them (if you can read Chinese, LOL)





Hope this helps.
Reply:I wouldn't recommend a book, simply for the reason that you must see the subtle changes in flowing from one movement to the next. A video might be good though. I'd recommend either chen or yang style tai chi
Reply:Tai Chi (Taijichuan) is a Chinese Internal martial art. Unlike Karate, Judo and other external hard martial arts; Taiji is used to promote health, stress relief and longevity as well as self defense.





There are several different types of Taiji, just as there are several different types of Karate. Chen and Yang are the most widely practiced. Chen looks more like a hard martial art than the others due to the fact that it has several speed changes and hard stomps incorporated into its forms.





Taiji is based on relaxation of the muscles. External martial arts are based on muscle tension.





Taiji is called an internal martial art because it's focus is on internal energy (aka: "Qi.")





There are many books out there about Tai Chi.





In order to recommend a book you will have to sharpen your focus a bit.





You may want to start with an overview of Taijichuan, such as:


"Tai Chi Health for Life"


by: Bruce Frantzis.


ISBN: 1-58394-144-4





"Tai Chi Health for Life" costs $24.95 new, but I see that it is selling on Amazon $16.47 (less for a used copy.)





You can take a look at the table of contents on the Amazon site.


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