The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing by Ken Cohen Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing
Book Review: Excellent in every respect
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are interested in taking qigong at all seriously, I highly recommend this book. It contains much background material and experimental evidence for the efficacy of qigong, together with detailed instructions on many major qigong exercises and meditations, including the eight broccades, wu-ji, and the five animal frolics. There is even discussion of sexual qigong and diet. Above all I was impressed by the author's humility and open-mindedness: he is for instance very ready to admit to failings in qigong.Book Review: Cohen's Book Will Bring Qigong Into the Mainstream
Summary: 5 Stars
Over the past 25 years, since the Beatles travelled to India to learn Transcendental Meditation, Westerners have been fascinated by the mystical aspects of numerous health promoting practices from Eastern countries. The religious and philosophical ideas that served as a context for what are essentially exercises for the mind, body, and spirit in the same sense that we Westerners regard working out the body alone as exercise, has clouded our view of the true benefits of many of these practices such as Qigong. Qigong, along with many other worthy Eastern exercises has gotten absorbed into the mass marketing machine of the New Age movement and has consequently turned off the less radical mainstream audience that is simply looking for ways to improve the quality of life.
Cohen's book puts the practical health benefits of Qigong in focus by presenting us with scientific data that prove its merit as an easy to master exercise that is unique in its ability to address health issues that tradition forms of Western exercises do not address. If you want to be able to easily lift your groceries or run up a flight of stairs with out losing your breath, then lift weights and run on a treadmill. However, if you want to be able to work and play in a relaxed and optimally focused manner, and if you want to be prevent disease--then do Qigong. That is the message of Cohen's book.
I am typically able to judge a book by how slow I read it. That is--the more profound and thought provoking the ideas being presented are, the more I tend to dwell on each page and spend a day or two ponder or putting its ideas into practice. There is also a sense of savoring the ideas such that you are sorry when you finally reach the end of it. Cohen's book is that kind of book.