This is a book for both the student of T'ai Chi who has already mastered the basic postures and for the growing number of Americans who would like to find out just what T'ai Chi is and why it has recently become so popular. Not a primer to teach the beginner, T'ai Chi Ch'uan for Health and Self-Defense addresses itself to the philosophy behind the system of movements and to the variations that are possible once one has learned the fundamentals.

The author, who has practiced T'ai Chi for thirty-five years and taught it in New York Citiy; Dublin, New Hampshire; and Boston, supplements discussions based on his own experience with his own translations of the classic writings about T'ai Chi and the famous commentaries on those writings. Althought the emphasis in this book is on T'ai Chi as a way to achieve health and peace of mind, the 'practical' use of the art as a means of self-defense are fully explained.

Contents

Foreword
Preface
1 T'ai Chi Ch'uan and te fundamental princoples
2 My experience
3 My personal view
4 The complete set of t'ai chi exercises
5 The t'ai chi classics
T'a chi Ch'uan Classic
The Mental Elucidation of the Thirteen Postures
T'ai Chi Ch'uan Treatise
Song of the Substance and Function of the Thirteen Postures
6 The essentials of T'ai Chi Ch'uan
7 The ten guiding points of T'ai Chi Ch'uan
8 Discussion of the mind-intent and the ch'i
9 Slowness and non-exertion of muscular force
10 Secrets (the secret technique) of the eight postures
11 Detailed explanation of the essential meaning of the five elements
12 (T'ai Chi Ch'uan) Song of Pushing Hands, with explanatory comments
13 Other short texts
14 Stories of the masters
Te deflection of a thousand pound momentum by a trigger force of merely four ounces and an old man's defeating great numbers of young ones
A short biography of the Yang Familiy
The secret bitterness of Yang Famiy T'ai Chi
15 Similar philosophical points: Lao Tze and T'ai Chi Ckh'ua