Book: Principle-driven Skill Development
Click cover to purchase at Amazon.com
"Russ has done a great job with this book. If you're a practitioner of any martial arts system that has some sort of root or ancestral heritage in southern Chinese martial arts, you'll appreciate this work.
We don't often come across Chinese boxing manuals that get translated into English, so whether you practice the system or not, the contents can be enlightening and valuable. Russ' notes as the author, and as someone with extensive experience in the martial arts, really helps explain the maxims we find in the text. He simplifies them in an easy to digest way, but you'll likely want to keep diving back in and thinking about."
"This book is a great aide in learning and/ or studying the art of southern Taizu Quan. It takes you through many facets of training and disects the art through poems and Quotes."
"An excellent work of translation, with commentary from a learned practitioner of the arts.
Typically in martial arts literature there is a habit of "telling" twice as much as is shown, with commentaries often running at length into humble-brag territory. Not so here.
What Sifu Russ presents here is a considered translation with commentary applicable to the translated material. No sideways paths, philosophical waxing, or the like.
Info. Delivered powerfully, straight and without flourish. Which itself could be seen as commentary on the art described.
Highly recommended."
"An excellent strategy guide for any fighter but especially valuable for practitioners of southern arts, be they Chinese or Okinawan arts. The book could serve as a training checklist, reminding the practitioner of important principles or maxims."
"This book draws from the military classics of the late Ming and early Qing while describing the unique features of the style.
The only drawback is that there is no chronological collocation of the text or its author (should be the end of Qing/very beginning of repubblic). The lack of context hampers the value of this little but precious book."
"The principles and theories are presented in the traditional lines of text with translation and then are clearly explained. This is actively useful for people training related styles as a training aid. No pictures and not much a total beginner could pick up. Much like the tai chi classics. There has been little like this for external kung fu in English. I am very happy this was translated. I am excited for similar translations to follow. The one fault is it fails to say the age of the text or even when the author lived but I believe it is Qing dynasty."
"A clear and concise translation of Zheng Jinbu's Overview of Fujian Taizu Boxing. None of the usual problems with such translations as the author teaches the said art and understands his subject having written an students manual on the art 'Fujian Five Ancestors Boxing' and a book on the mechanics of martial arts. Too often translators are non practitioners of the martial arts and one wrong interpretation of an word can change or reverse the context making the work worthless practically so this book is of great value for the future understanding of the art. And is not padded out with trivial filler to justify an bigger more expensive book. Whilst it the price of books has rocketed of late and this is a slim volume it is good value for money given the knowledge it contains."
