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The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu: The Secrets of Kung Fu for Self-Defense, Health, and Enlightenment (Tuttle Martial Arts)
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - A good fiction type book being sold as a reference on Martial arts or Kung Fu
Hi,
This book is a good pictorial representation of some of the concepts of some of the Chinese Martial arts. Not necessarily Kung Fu - Least Shaolin Kung Fu.
It is refreshing and entertaining to read the material with accompanying pictures as a fictional novel. But as far as the knowledge on Kung Fu or Martial Arts is concerned it has very very little to offer in that area. The book is written in good and simple English. However it lacks the scientific approach, the thoroughness and completeness required for any Martial Arts or Kung Fu reference book. In fact the book does not have even 1 % knowlege on the traditional Shaolin Kung Fu ! The book tries to demonstrate a lot of techniques as Kung Fu techniques but their overall applicability from this book is only fictional (not real). For a serious martial arts student or a Shaolin Kung Fu seeker the book is of a very little value.
Rating: - Please read this full message if you have any previous martial arts knowledge
There are many good kung fu books, however, this isn't one of them.
If you think the book is interesting, it may be because the lack of knowledge you have about martial arts. Try beating a street fighter with those movements and see what happens.
On one of his web sites, Wong Kiew kit advice how to beat a boxer by using two Shaolin Kung Fu patterns, the supposed boxer throws some passive punches, then Wong Kiew Kit beats him by constantly repeating two patterns until the boxer is beaten. This is a weed-smoke fantasy, a boxer would bravely come over you throwing a bunch of direct, jab and uppercut punches until you fall unconscious, as well as a street fighter.
You won't be able to defend yourself with the movements in this book, overall, you can't learn to fight from a book, you need to constantly practice your defenses and attacks in order to make them unconscious reactions, you can't think: "oh, I need to use the mirror pattern" when you are in the middle of a fight, you need unconscious reactions.
In this publication, Wong Kiew Kit himself says that you can not learn to fight from a book.
Also, the author is incompetent to remark how dangerous it may be to apply the pattern named "poisonous snake shoots venom". Someone without previous martial arts knowledge may think it's okay to use that as an attack, apparently it is just "one more attack" listed in the book, however, someone can get into big trouble or can even hurt (if not kill) a friend because of the author's incompetence to explain how dangerous a strike on the neck can be.
Rating:  - Great General Overview
This is a great backgrounder on the subject of Shaolin Kung Fu and on how to recognize and zero in on your own approach to learning and training. Don't expect it to be annotated reference work, but rather a general history and exposition, which is quite a lot for any book on a topic as vast as Shaolin Kung Fu. Historical exactitude is not always the order of the day as you read this, but generally speaking, it reflects the veteran Chinese understanding of Shaolin, which is way better than you would typically get otherwise, plus a reasonably accurate historical view, nonetheless. Not utterly engrossing 100% of the time, but more like 80%, which is still very good.
As this book attempts to demonstrate, Shaolin Kung Fu is deceptively deep and complex in an unraveling, level-by-level way. For some, it is too deep, or too physical, or too hard (as opposed to too soft), and so it's good to look into it a bit before plunging into all that sweat and mabu hurt and aching shins. Part of the problem with taking up something as difficult as Shaolin is that the levels may not really seem to make sense to you. That is why you need a good understanding of what you expect to get out of it. Schools have two dimensions: 1) making money, and 2) teaching a life-enriching martial art. No school can focus on just one, so if the school/teacher strikes a good balance, this is often the best sign.
For anyone contemplating taking up Shaolin, start here amidst your kwoon window shopping phase. And take comfort in the fact that Shaolin encompasses so much of probably everything you ever liked about martial arts in the first place, within its own bottomless, broad curriculum. This is due to the "martial arts college" nature of the Temple throughout it's long history. Also understand that Shaolin is an excellent starting place for most any martial arts study, no matter where you eventually may end up. All martial arts, while they were not always invented at Shaolin Temple per se--some Indian fighting arts actually predate the Shaolin Temple, just as Shaolin Kung Fu's "founder" Da Mo was himself an Indian Buddhist monk--nontheless, all were at least most probably preserved by the Temple monks, as well as honed and perfected there over time. Most Chinese martial arts (and thus Japanese and Korean) thus tend to owe the Temple due as their mother in some sense or another. Certainly everything the West understands to be "martials arts" was shaped or preshaped there into what it currently is today. This book goes into quaint legends and explications of how and why kung fu survived the way it has, thanks to the Shaolin Temple's supervision and care.
Rating:  - Very informative and well done work! A+++++++++++
A MUST HAVE FOR MARTIAL ARTIST. I LEARNED QUITE A BIT FROM THIS BOOK AND I AM NOT MORE THAN HALF WAY THROUGH. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating: - VERY GOOD!
This is perhaps one of the best kung fu books you can buy!
For a lone practitioner, it is a great "manual" for developing your Kung Fu training and objectives.
Well pleased.
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