China Books

A work for the more advanced student of Cheng Hsin. "I wanted to create an art based on fundamental observations of physics, perception, intent, impulse, and energy-an art that gears itself to meet any situation because it is founded on understanding the principles in which interaction takes place. Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou is such an art." -- Peter Ralston (For this item please quote stock ID 11996) ISBN: 9781556431159

For beginners, this is the best introduction to the internal practice of fighting. Ralston is one of the most successful free-form fighters in modern times, having won many tournaments, but he is also a Zen student and philosopher who has broken fighting down into its simplest components. This seminal work, by the first Westerner ever to win the world championship in a full-contact martial arts tournament, draws on the internal disciplines of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Aikido, Pa Kua Ch'ang, and other arts to offer a new way of looking at who we are and how we live in the world. Ralston calls his teaching Cheng Hsin, loosely translated as 'integrity of being' or 'your true nature'. The principles, paradoxes, and mind-body exercises in this extraordinary book show how to harness the life energy inside us-and achieve effortless power in everything we do. (For this item please quote stock ID 17304) ISBN: 9781556433023

Personal, reflective, and gently investigative, these early essays have a raw, fresh quality which predates the more formal theory and practice of Peter Ralston's two best-selling books, Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power and Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou: The Art of Effortless Power . Many of the questions for which the martial arts work of Cheng Hsin is a vehicle of discovery — identity in relation to others, authenticity in the face of belief systems, the draw we have to pursue ineffective self-serving urges, and our tendency to conceptualize rather than experience things — are described here in simple, almost conversational language. Attempting to grasp what authentic knowledge is, Ralston's queries become a quest for how humans can develop a deeper sense of themselves as participants in the world. (For this item please quote stock ID 11997) ISBN: 9781556431197