The Eighteen Lohan Skills: Traditional Shaolin Temple Kung Fu Training Methods

It's really hard for me to rate this book. I should give Mr. Olson 5 stars for effort. This kind of source is a how-to manual written usually in some kind of semi-poetic verse. If you translate it as a how-to manual, it is a terrible read with all sorts of footnotes and comments explaining the text. If you translate it in a more readable, more poetic form, much of the how-to detail is lost. Mr. Olson opted for readability.Further problems with this book are that the two original texts appear to be copies of a third, earlier source, which may have been a copy. And, as Mr. Olson points out, there are inconsistencies between the two texts. The first text appears in a book published by Wong Honfan, who also performs the movements in photos and explains how-to do them. This is fully translated. Yet, it is painfully obvious from the photos that Wong does not know all the details of performing the movements correctly, or, at least, only performs beginner's positions. He violates quite a few of the principles my teacher taught me, and he often does not match a number of the illustrations in the original text. This erodes confidence in his how-to commentary.I have started translating the names of the movements to compared with the few names that I know. This has been enlightening. I have not yet translated the original very blurry text. I find it odd that the translation labeled Original Text is translated in 11 lines where the Chinese is five pages long. I realize that translations rarely match one-to-one, but this awfully efficient translation. The photos of the original text are too burry to make out with confidence, and, as already stated there are discrepancies between the first and second texts.Yet, with all the problems, it is nice to have an Eighteen Lohan Gong reference at hand.

The book was terrible. The descriptions were vague. Even though I don't read Chinese the original copy would have been better. This is a very expensive book. To clarify, I have 38 years of experience in the Chinese Martial Arts, I practice a version of the 18 Lohan, and I was hoping this would fill in some gaps. Totally, not worth it.

If you are interested in learning the Eighteen Lohan Skills, this book is the very best available in my opinion. Clear and informative with photos, descriptions and Chinese text. Well worth it.

Excellent exercises to improve longevity!

I have learned and researched Qigong and Chinese Martial Arts since 1983.While I commend the author for tackling a difficult subject, the books has many translation mistakes and other types of wrong statements.For example:Page 98, the character for "Jiang" is translated as "soaring" when it actually means descending.Earlier in the book the phrase Er Lang Carries the Mountain is translated as "Two Young Men Carry the Mountain"!People who read Chinese books all know about the legend of Er Lang Carrying the Mountain. That is a real bad mistake.Also, he said the drawings in the first section don't match the drawings in the second section, which is completely wrong, they are the same drawings showing the same thing, just done in a different style. Nevertheless, it is clearly the same postures being depicted.In the beginning of the book he lists some Book about Luohan style, and lists a book that about Luohan that is from Hua Quan styles and has nothing to do with the 18 Luohan he is talking about in the book.Last but not least, the book spells Luohan as Lohan, ha ha, 1 Lindsey Lohan is enough, 18 would be too many!

Is this book about history of Chaplin kung fun? On the summary of this book . I don't know what points the author want to tell us.

Testo molto completo e riflessivo ricco di tante immagini fotografichemolto esplicite che ritraggono le numerose posizioni del Kung Fu Shaolindi origine molto antica ma ancora oggi molto praticato.GRAZIE

in good condition