Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power

by Peter Ralston

Every once in a while you find a high impact book. Something that awakens something deep within and lasts forever. This is the one. It is a book that you can pick up time and time again and always gets something new out of it, or something deeper than you. Cheng Hsin is the best introduction for beginners to the internal practice of fighting. It is a seminal work that draws on T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Aikido, and Pa Kua Chang and was written by the first Westerner ever to win the world championship in a full-contact martial arts tournament.

Genres: Martial Arts, Nonfiction, Fitness

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1989

About the author

Peter Ralston works with people to authentically expand and deepen their “consciousness,” and to become more real, honest, and effective human beings. He facilitates people in understanding their own selves and minds, and in becoming increasingly conscious of the nature of perception, experience, and existence, and the nature of “being.” He also does this through teaching people about their bodies and how to be most effective in its use, as well as teaching them the Art of Effortless Power — a large scope internal martial art using an effortless power to “play” with others, deepening an understanding of effective interaction using such principles as joining, complementing, leading, and so forth to create masterful interactive skills.

Reviews

[Voldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!

[Raymond Goss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author starts this book discussing he background in Judo and external martial arts, which he seems to have mastered rather early and perhaps got board of them. This book covers "internal" martial arts and power generation. As part of a martial art discussion group, we read this book and discussed it in detail. I'll give it 4 stars because it sparked good conversation and dialog, but I think that 3 stars would be appropriate for reading it by oneself.

The book is difficult to read. The author uses terminology that differs from what many internal artists may be used to. My discussion group came to the conclusion that the author speaks from his own experiences and discoveries and describes things based on his own vocabulary. While it is clear that Peter Ralston has a grasp of Chinese or asian languages, I found the terminology to be non-standard. I myself speak some Chinese, practice Chinese Medicine, and have practices both internal and external martial arts for over 30 years. I understand what is meant by xin (heart), xing (form), qi, Taiji, Yi (mind/intent), etc. but the author seems to use both the older Wade-Giles spellings of Mandarin terms and often redefines them in English without reference to the Chinese. This makes the complex subject even harder to read in my opinion.

As far as the content goes, some chapters are really good and others could be just skipped by some readers. I think I would recommend to the reader to start with the appendix interview first, then skim the chapters before doing a deeper dive. I don't think you can read this book without some exposure to internal martial arts, but no form or particular style is required. You can't follow this book if you only have an external martial arts background. The author's final chapters discuss what many might related to the "Dao/Tao" and not necessarily "Power" generation. This is that philosophy of True Heart (Cheng Xin) but maybe not what the readers are looking for.