I Ching

Useful Reference

I Ching: An Annotated Bibliography by Edward Hacker, Steve Moore, Lorraine Patsco (Routledge) With over one thousand entries covering a diverse range of sources including books, articles, unpublished dissertations, taped lectures, devices and software, this is the most comprehensive annotated bibliography of English works on the I Ching. This book will be indispensable for all scholars of the I Ching, and an invaluable resource for those interested in this classic Chinese book.

If the importance of books is measured by the numbers of their readers, the amount of commentary written on them, the quantity of editions and translations ...and, perhaps more than this, the way they've affected human lives across the centuries and the continents ...then surely two would appear far ahead of the rest of the field. One, of course, is the Christian Bible. The other, though it may surprise readers brought up in Western traditions of literature and learning (and especially those who regard it as little more than a fortune‑telling book), is the I Ching, or "Book of Changes."

While it's true that the  I Ching began as a divination manual, almost 3,000 years ago in Chou dynasty China, it rapidly became far more than that, acquiring a body of traditions, interpretations, and commentaries which placed it at the very heart of Chinese cosmology and philosophy. Many points about its origin and early development remain conjectural, and have been the subject of much scholarly attention in recent decades. There are Chinese traditions, originating long after the I Ching itself, that trace the book's origin to the mythical`emperor Fu Hsi (c.3000 BCE), then provide a steady development through the founder of the Chou dynasty, King Wen (c.11th century BCE) and his son, the Duke of Chou, before arriving at the set of standard commentaries attached to the text, the "Ten Wings," which are attributed to Confucius. More recent scholarship, particularly in the West, tends to discount this tradition, placing the book's original divinatory core‑text around the 9th century BCE and attributing the "Wings" to members of Confucius' school of thought, rather than the school's actual founder.

In early times the interpretation, and even the actual form itself of the I Ching, remained variable and fluid, as was graphically shown in 1973, when a silk manuscript of the Book of Changes was excavated from a Han dynasty tomb at Mawangdui. This manuscript, dated 168 BCE, ordered the text of the I Ching in a way quite unlike the standard edition, and included a number of commentatory essays that had been unseen for centuries. In fact, the Han dynasty (206 BCE‑220 CE) was a hotbed of scholarly activity on the Changes, and it was at this point more than any other that the book was transformed from being simply a divination manual into a work of considerable philosophical importance, combining moral philosophy with cosmological and numerical speculation in a way that put the work at the absolute heart of Chinese traditional thinking.

One part of this process was the annexation of the I Ching by the Confucian school in 136 BCE. Adding the "Ten Wings" to the text around this time, the Confucians not only formalized the "standard text" which has come down to us today, but also promoted it to canonical status as one of the five "Confucian Classics." These Classics formed the heart of Chinese education for nearly two millennia, and knowledge of them, as demonstrated through the official examination system, provided a passport to government office, from that of lowly civil servant to highest minister of state. The I Ching was always considered the most important work in the canon; indeed, it was known as the "First among the Classics."

If the Confucians concentrated far more on the ethical and moral interpretation of the book, other Han thinkers had more broad‑ranging interests. This period saw the combination and correlation of the I Ching, particularly in its structural aspects of lines, trigrams, and hexagrams, with the yin‑yang and wu‑hsing (Five Element) theories of the cosmologists, with numerical patterns and speculations, with military theory, and, rather more nebulously, with the interests of the fang‑shih or "Masters of Techniques," who ranged over many areas, from practical medicine, through alchemy and astrology, to the occult and beyond. The result of all this was a kind of "feedback‑loop" which, on the one hand, brought all these elements into an immensely subtle and flexible complex of interpretation relating to the I Ching itself. On the other, it also established the I Ching at the heart of the traditional Chinese cosmology, a worldview which, to this day, underpins Taoist meditation and even Confucian sacrifice. As long as China remained remained relatively unaffected by outside influence the I Ching remained embedded in its culture, from the highest levels to the lowest.

What, then, of the I Ching in the modern People's Republic of China? Its use as a divination system, like so many other things, is frowned upon as superstition. But the book itself is simply too central to Chinese tradition to be excluded, and continues to be studied as a historical and cultural treasure. Indeed, there's as much material published in Chinese now as ever there was, in book form or in specialist journals, on historical aspects such as traditional interpretations and cosmologies, o philology, on the findings of archeology, and, more generally, on the cultural and social side. The Book of Changes is far from dead, but the emphasis of the study has shifted; and that in itself, of course, is "Change."

It hardly needs pointing out that the I Ching has traveled far beyond the confines of its homeland, first to those countries within the Chinese "cultural orbit" (Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and everywhere there are communities of "Overseas Chinese") and later to the West. Now translate (into virtually`every major language of the world, and generating further commentary in all those languages besides, the I Ching has become a part of global culture.

Effectively, the I Ching's journey to the West began in the 17th century, in the Latin treatises and translations of Jesuit missionaries to China. It was not until the 19th century, however, that Western scholars really began to appreciate the central importance of the book to an understanding of the Chinese mind. Even so, until the end of the Second World War, the I Ching remained primarily of academic interest.

The turning point in the I Ching's acceptance in the West undoubtedly came m 1950, with the publication of Cary F Baynes' English version of Richard Wilhelm's I Ching or Book of Changes, first published in German in 1923. This of course, also contained C.G. Jung's famous foreword, which did so much to legitimate the book's value as a "wisdom" source and, virtually for the first time in the English-speaking world, promoted the practical use of the I Ching for divination.

While a considerable quantity of work about the I Ching has appeared in other languages, the vast majority of recent Western writing on the subject has been in English, which (apart from the fact that a global bibliography would run to multiple volumes) is why this project has concentrated on material in that language alone. The last 50 years have indeed, brought an explosion of books and articles on the subject, and this enormous corpus can be roughly divided into two, the "academic" and the "popular," areas which ought, perhaps, to mutually overlap rather more often than they actually do.

Perhaps because Western scholars bring an exterior viewpoint to an Eastern tradition, much of the 20th century's most penetrating academic work on the I Ching has been published in English. We now have a much greater understanding of the book's true historical origins, the ancient meanings of the text to those who first wrote it down, and the development of the tradition; at the same time, we've also begun to realize just how many uncertainties yet remain about this early period. Other scholarly work has given a greater depth to our understanding of the commentatory and philosophical traditions, biographies of Chinese I Ching scholars and so forth; although it has to be said that so far university‑level studies in the West have rarely strayed down into the "folk" level of the book's use in divination, "alternative sciences," or magic.

These last areas, of course, are very much those on which "popular" Western interest and publication center. As a result, the Wilhelm translation has been followed by an endless stream of other translations, "versions," commentaries, and "divinatory guidebooks." The I Ching has thus become famous as a wisdom‑book and guide to self development and an infallible guide to the future, while many of the areas into which it overlaps such as Chinese astrology, feng shui, meditation, and martial arts have all received considerable attention too.

One other area should be mentioned, which falls somewhere outside the dichotomy of academic and popular, and that's the interest shown in the book by Jungian psychologists. Jung's interest in the I Ching was central to the development of his hypothesis of "synchronicity," and his ideas have been further explored and expanded by his followers. And so, not only has the I Ching become a part of the Western psyche, it's also become a part of the way that Westerners look at the psyche too.

While all this range of material centers, of course, upon the ancient Chinese book, there is now a sufficient quantity of writing, mainly in English, to be able to talk of a "Western tradition" growing up about the I Ching. The quality is variable (although much is excellent), and the tradition is sprawling and multi‑faceted. Hopefully the bibliography presented here will help both newcomers and old hands to navigate the field and, perhaps, guide them to some previously hidden treasures of a great and ancient, but still living tradition.

 Contents: Foreword Preface Introduction Table of Contents Annotated Bibliography A: Books Annotated Bibliography B: Journal Articles Annotated Bibliography C: Devices and Equipment Categories

I Ching on Man and Society by Chang-Soo Chung (University Press of America) Although the "I Ching" is an ancient Eastern Classic, it contains perspectives and ideas about the social and human situation that western sociologists may also use to better understand their world. The "I Ching", which is composed of a series of graphic symbols, lends itself to a variety of interpretations. The author argues that viewing the text from a sociological perspective and interpreting the 64 hexagrams as sociopolitical situations of the ancient Chinese Empire are the keys to understanding this complex text. Western sociologists will not only find the striking differences interesting, but also helpful and refreshing.

Many years ago a professor whose major field was Confucian philosophy told me that the 1 Ching informs us of universal principles governing such a wide range of cosmic and human realities that any attempt to interpret its meanings within a specifically defined frame of reference would either bring distortion to its true nature or do injustice to its profundity. The opinion expressed by this professor reflects a more or less typical belief that has been held long and widely by Asian 1 Ching scholars: the I Ching offers a vast reservoir of wisdom and knowledge covering almost every phenomenon under heaven. The tendency to think that the knowledge offered by the 1 Ching has such broad applicabilities, first of all, should have to do with the nature of the book. The original text overall was written in highly ambiguous symbolism which allows no easy clear-cut understanding, and therefore has yielded many different interpretations. Most 1 Ching scholars seem to have taken this ambiguity rather as a sign of highly general knowledge and wisdom than of defective knowledge having no clearly definable substance. This will explain why there has been a tendency among scholars to remain non-committed to any specific and clear interpretation: an attempt to narrow on or side with a specific interpretation would undermine the traditionally held belief in the 1 Ching as containing a system of profound knowledge covering a wide range of natural and human realities. But, trained in an area of modern social sciences and having observed well enough that any knowledge is a human product having only a limited validity or utility, I have been skeptical of such a claim for the "boundless" profundity of the 1 Ching. However, once we refuse to grant this mysterious classic a privileged status as containing a system of omnibus knowledge relating to many different levels of realities, we now have to face a situation in which all the interpretations which the 1 Ching has yielded so far simply do not cohere into a systematically organized body of knowledge. In my view, the reason for which the I Ching still remains largely a mysterious book unapproachable by the rational mind could be attributed to the situation that I described above. Any person who wants to achieve a rational understanding of the 1 Ching will find himself perplexed as he goes through a series of earlier commentaries on the text and more recent interpretations on them as well, obviously because they on the whole would appear to lack not only thematic clarity but also logical coherence. As a matter of fact, this was a situation I actually experienced myself when I first read the text and related commentaries twenty some years ago. After the first reading of the book the impression that struck me was that I was being thrown into a maze of disjointed information that seemed hardly likely to add up to a systematically integrated body of knowledge. It did not seem to be a book which a social scientist like myself would like to search for what may be regarded as rational knowledge.

Nonetheless, there was something very interesting that held my attention on this ancient classic. I detected an important theme that underlies considerably large segments of the original text of the 1 Ching and of various commentaries written in later periods. It appeared to me that the perspective and the conceptual devices with which the 1 Ching depicts the essential conditions of the social world were of significance in modem social sciences and their main ideas could be translated without much difficulty into sociological terminology. To identify from the text materials and their variable interpretations underlying sociological themes - which I find to be the most distinct and important element in the Chinese intellectual tradition centering on the I Ching - may be compared to extracting a factor by a mathematical procedure known as factor analysis. Factor analysis in terms of its essential function may be characterized as a technique to delineate underlying hypothetical dimensions in the light of which an observed pattern of correlations among a set of numerical values can be explained meaningfully. To put a little differently, the analysis is used as a means to explore theoretical concepts that can account for an observed pattern of correlations among a set of numerical values measuring specific properties of things or individuals. By comparing the nature of the analysis carried out in this study to that of factor analysis, I want to bring into focus the following that seems to me to have a great deal of importance in elucidating the basic aim of this study.

As might have been suggested above, my aim in this book is not to create my own version of an interpretation of the I Ching. Of course, this book can be characterized quite appropriately as a sociological interpretation, a rather unique characterization for an exposition of the I Ching. The term "sociological," if it refers to the I Ching, may sound even exotic to scholars whose major field is Chinese philosophy. Then let me explain in a bit more detail what I actually have done in this study. The original text of the I Ching was written in such highly ambiguous symbolism that, through the long Chinese intellectual history, many prominent figures in Chinese philosophy were drawn into the challenging task of expounding upon what should be the real significance of the ancient classic and wrote volumes upon volumes of expository notes to facilitate a clearer and meaningful understanding of it. Unfortunately, however, the resulting situation has been problematic as I pointed out already. All the interpretations that have been rendered so far simply do not cohere into a systematically organized knowledge. Or, we may say, there is so much an excess of divergent or even colliding explanations that readers may still have to rely very much on their own judgment, uncertain at best, to infer what kind of specific entities or events the 1 Ching really concerns. The primary procedure in my own solution for this problematic situation is to establish an overall perspective with which I can bring together as many pieces of available information as possible under the purview of a thematically integrated body of knowledge. It is in this sense that I compare the nature of the analysis done in this study to that of factor analysis; I will attempt to separate out, from the whole mixture of knowledge cluttered with unrelated or conflicting themes, only those elements that converge into a unified theme. This would result in a version of the interpretation in which the I Ching is viewed as dealing with far more narrowly and sharply focused topics than having been interpreted generally in the main tradition of I Ching scholarship.

This approach, as we will see in this book, has produced the kind of interpretation of the I Ching whose distinctive features are characterized chiefly as sociological and political. I tend to believe that my trained capacity as a sociologist would facilitate deriving the interpretation presented in this study in which sociological and political ideas stand out prominently. No doubt, I should have been more receptive to the sociological and political ideas than to pay attention to other aspects in which scholars in other disciplines would be more interested. No one would be free of a selective cognition of this sort. However, one of the main purposes of my study was to explore the unique mode of the Chinese thought of itself as expressed in the I Ching, or, to put it more properly, as expressed through the specific manners in which the symbolism of the I Ching has been interpreted by the main tradition in Chinese philosophy. It was not by any means my intention to cloak my own ideas under the garment of the I Ching. Instead of projecting my own interpretation onto the I Ching, my role in this study may be viewed as a mediating one with which I simply take maximum advantage of my trained capacity as a sociologist in looking into its underlying ideas which, even considered by themselves, may best be characterized as sociological and political. I certainly tried to make the most out of a happy coincidence that my position as a sociologist could be well utilized for studying the I Ching. However, to emphasize again, this book is about the I  Ching, or, to put it more properly, is to explore the unique mode of Chinese thought expressed through the manners in which the I Ching has been interpreted, rather than to create and promote my own conception of it.

Considering the important role that the 1 Ching has played long in the East-Asian cultural region, my attempt to expound upon this ancient classic seems to be a meaningful task in itself. More significantly yet, this study has a distinct feature in that it has approached the I Ching aiming at a system of knowledge which can square with today's academic standard in terms of both clarity in meaning and logical coherence. Nonetheless, other than the prospect that the 1 Ching could be understood as involving rational knowledge that deserves serious consideration even today, there was an additional reason for which I was drawn into this particular project. The way in which the I Ching depicts the essential features of social and human situations is closely analogous to that of Kurt Lewin's field theory in psychology. The unique perspective of the I Ching as such drew a keen interest from me; it struck me as having important implications with respect to some critical issues in modem social sciences. It was this promising potential judged as worth exploring even today, besides my long-held aspiration to attain a rational understanding of the I Ching in itself, that motivated me strongly to hold on to this study. In view of the present state of modem social sciences which, in my view, is suffering from a poverty of new and bold theoretical ideas, it seemed all the more worthwhile to search for whatever potentials the I Ching might have in this respect. In this study I therefore tried to explore theoretical implications that the unique way in which the I Ching depicts the essential features of the social world may well have with respect to

such important issues in social sciences as the nature of relationship between individuals and society and the chronic discord between functionalism and conflict theory. And, I will argue that the I  Ching involves interesting theoretical ideas that may be judged as feasible even today. Of course, my argument as such may be received differently depending upon viewpoints to which individual scholars are committed respectively. Regardless of what one may think of actual or potential merits of my position taken in this study, I nevertheless am sure of one important contribution to be made by a study such as this one; it will take us on an excursion through a system of thought whose novel ideas are diametrically different from our usual modes of thought and therefore provide interesting subject matter for scholarly discussions.

This study has relied as its main source of reference on an English translation of the I Ching rendered by Robert Lynn, Professor of Chinese Thoughts and Literature at the University of Toronto. Lynn's version, entitled The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted By Wang Bi, is, as far as I know, the most thoroughly documented English translation among the many different versions published in recent decades. I express heart-felt thanks to Professor Lynn for allowing me to cite his valuable work.

THE CLASSIC OF CHANGES
A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi
Richard John Lynn
Columbia University Press
$19.95, cloth; 602 pages; charts diagrams
0-231-08294-0
CD-ROM (not reviewed): CD-ROM & book (not reviewed)
The I Ching is one of the central texts of Confucianism. It consists of 64 hexagrams, each of which is made up of six divided or undivided lines. It was possibly created at the end of the 2d millennium BCE. A cryptic, partly unintelligible text, it was written at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE. The main treatise on the text, The Ten Wings, was written at the end of the 1st millennium BCE. Although the book has long been used by fortune tellers, its main influence has traditionally been philosophical, particularly between the Han and Tang dynasties, when Wang Bi wrote his brilliant commentary which Lynn uses as the base for his translating this version. After Wang Bi it was more generally accepted as the base for theories of the universe based on numerology. Although rejected by the empiricist scholars of the Ch'ing dynasty, the numerological aspects of the I Ching have recently been reemphasized by Westerners, especially Jungians, interested in Eastern mysticism. Lynn offers a pluralistic postmodern reading of the text and its levels of interpretation that will appeal to any who have consulted or studied the oracle.

I CHING
The Classic of Changes
The First English Translation of the Newly Discovered Second-Century B.C. Mawangdui Texts
Translated with an introduction and commentary by Edward L. Shaughnessy
Classics of Ancient China
Ballantine Books
$25.95, hardcover, includes Chinese with facing English texts, notes, bibliography
0-345-36243-8

In December 1973, archaeologists excavating a Han tomb at Mawangdui, in Changsha, Hunan, made probably the greatest discovery of early Chinese manuscripts since the opening of cave #17 at Dunhuang in 1900. They discovered, neatly folded in a lacquer hamper placed in the tomb of Li Cang, Lord of Dai (d. 168 B.C.), more than twenty texts written on silk, including by far the earliest manuscript copy of the I Ching or Classic of Changes and two copies of the Lao Tzu or Classic of the Way and Its Virtue.
The early publication of the scrolls containing the Lao Tzu made Mawangdui well known to people everywhere interested in early China. It has prompted a tremendous outpouring of interest and controversy that continues unabated today.
About twenty years after`its discovery, the complete text of the I CHING, including especially the commentaries appended to it in the manuscript, have finally been made public.
Somewhat like the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls controversy in the West, after languishing for years in the hands of the team of scholars officially charged with preparing it for publication, the Mawangdui I CHING manuscript was finally made public in transcribed form by other scholars who had access only to photographs of the text. The appearance of these informal transcriptions immediately sparked dozens of scholarly articles and major debates over the nature of the manuscript and even that of the I CHING itself.
This is the first basically unadorned rendition of this precious work into English. Shaughnessy does not offer many conclusions of his own, preferring to keep the focus on the translation of the material. This includes Confucian dialogues that add new meanings to the hexagrams and that are not part of the received text. This work should appeal more to scholars and serious students of I CHING, than to those seeking a ready source for consultation of the oracle. The best oracle edition remains the famous Wilhelm/Baynes' I CHING edition published by Princeton University Press. This edition has recently been published in hypertext CD-ROM. Though we have not seen the full product, a version is available for preview on line.

THE MULTIMEDIA I CHING
by Richard Wilhelm, Cary F. Baynes
Princeton University Press
Bollingen Series
CD-ROM: $49.50, both Mac and Windows versions are on the same hybrid disk
0-691-01212-1
Actual has been reviewed:

CD edition features: generates oracle hexagrams through precise duplication of Yarrow or Coin methods; stores, files, and prints oracle readings and texts. And includes: tours of material through voice and animation, 3-D walk-through or quick map-based navigation, ambient sounds of nature and classical Chinese instrumentals, preference settings for sounds, screens, and destinations; full texts of Wilhelm/Baynes' I CHING and Hellmut Wilhelm's Change: Eight Lectures on the I Ching.
The music and pase of the interactive features enhance a meditative and introspective atmosphere to considering the hexagrams.

SAMPLE THE I CHING

The I CHING or Book of Changes, has been consulted as an oracle and explored as a book of wisdom and philosophy for 3000 years. Now Princeton University Press offers an interactive CD-ROM edition of this great classic, built on the entire text of the original Wilhelm/Baynes translation that has been very popular as an active oracle since its publication in the early 1950s. Through its familiar system of 64 six-line "hexagrams," the I Ching attempts to render all phenomena in the universe in terms of the interplay of the primal forces of Heaven and Earth, of Yin and Yang.
In this CD edition, China's ancient oracle is coordinated aesthetics elements inspired from Chinese landscape painting, scrupulously rendered cyber architecture, and a background of gentle Chinese classical music and narration.
The open-air Pavilion sets the stage for consultation of the oracle through the traditional method of yarrow stalk divination or the simpler coin divination--or by entering a hexagram--for instant access to the appropriate readings of the Image, the Judgment, and the Lines. The text reader incorporates all levels of the text and all the Wilhelm commentary.
The Library's rooms serve as a guide to the rich levels of text of the I CHING, allowing hypertext exploration of the deeper levels of the work, including the Ten Wings and other commentaries. Throughout the interactive I CHING, tours await to guide you to the deeper resources of the disk and the many tools for using them.
Now one of the oldest books of any civilization has finally found a medium which can fully incorporate its interactivity. Whether you seek wisdom, advice, translations of each original Chinese text, or an experience deep within another culture's thought, THE MULTIMEDIA I CHING is a perfect milieu. Finally, the world's oldest hypertext finds its instrument. Check out this useful aid to making decisions.
Sample the I Ching on the internet

I CHING CLARIFIED
A Practical Guide
Mondo Secter
Tuttle
$14.95, paper; 172 pages; punch-out cards
0-8048-1802-9

Several features make this guide to the oracular use of the I Ching especially useful. Included is a new coin method that approximates the complexity of the traditional yarrow stalk method and original theories on the evolution of the hexagrams and the meaning of the transitional hexagrams.

UNDERSTANDING THE I CHING

A Complete Guide to the History and use of the Ancient Chinese Oracle

by Cyrille Javary

translated by Kirk McElhearn

Shambhala

$10.00, paper, 134 pages, glossary, notes, bibliography

1-57062-227-2

The I Ching, the famous Chinese oracle, has been consulted in one form or another since the Bronze Age, and people of every era have benefited from its timeless wisdom. Understanding the I Ching is a compact guide to the fascinating history and development of this text known as the "Classic of Changes"—with complete instructions for consulting and interpreting it. Cyrille Javary shows that the seemingly random act of "throwing the I Ching" is, in fact, a tool for skillfully revealing the qualities of the present moment—the patterns of energy and relationship, the great and subtle underlying themes, the hidden and apparent imperatives for action.

More than introductory, this work offers clear ways to think about the oracle and its use in ones life.

"The best questions to ask of the I Ching are those with a verb of action whose subject is the person asking the question. Asking the I Ching if a project will be a success would be simple divination. For this type of question, tea leaves are more efficient. Ask the I Ching, however, what is the best way to a make a project a success. It will then answer you by proposing the most appropriate strategy, according to the moment, to yourself, and to the project in question."

Cyrille Javary is a leading authority on the I Ching. He is the founder of France’s Djohi Center for the Study of the I Ching and the publisher of Hexagrames, a French journal devoted to I Ching studies.

THE ELEMENTS OF THE I CHING

by Stephen Karcher

Element

$9.95, paper, 184 pages, bibliography

1-86204-035-4

The I Ching is the oldest and most powerful Chinese divinatory oracle. This clear and simple guide explains how you can take advantage of its wisdom to create happiness and success in your life. It offers practical information on: the I Ching’s roots and history; how it works - the symbols or hexagrams; how you can consult the oracle and find answers to a wide range of questions; recognizing and interrogating anxieties, fears and desires; reconnecting with one’s self through the creative imagination. An excellent work for the rank beginner.

WALKING MEDITATION

PAKUA: the Martial Art of the I Ching

by Paul Crompton

Element

$14.95, paper, 163 pages, line drawings, bibliography, index

1-85230-897-4

Pakua is an internal martial art based on the Eight Trigrams of the Classic Chinese text, the I Ching. It may be practiced as a form of Walking Meditation to promote a sense of harmony and well-being for body, mind and spirit. Its secrets are revealed in this manual written by an internationally acknowledged expert in Chinese martial arts.

Pakua is known also as the art of Walking the Circle, since circular action in all its aspects is fundamental. Particular attention is paid to relaxing whilst moving.; and it is in the practice of paying attention to the body that its meditative aspect is rooted. The free style exploration of Pakua’s footwork and unique movements can be a source of inspiration to teachers and practitioners of dance, Western sports and gymnastics.

This comprehensive introductory guide covers: the origins of pakua, the eight Pakua animals and the movements corresponding to each: snake, dragon, lion, hawk, bear, phoenix, unicorn and monkey; the connection with the circular arrangement of the I Ching, the basic Pakua form and how to practice it; and case studies of those whose health has improved with the practice of Pakua.

Paul Crompton has studied martial arts for over 40 years and is an internationally recognized expert in these areas. He has written extensively on the martial arts, and his books include The Elements of Tai Chi and The Art of Tai Chi: A Practical Guide.

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