This book passes two crucial tests. It is better than other books on the subject and it tells us a few things we didn’t know before.
The author, Barbara Davis, is also editor of the quarterly “Taijiquan Journal” and practices Cheng Man-ching style. She is an academic and this comes across in her approach, which tends more to writing about the translated material than explaining how to do it.
The book contains the Chinese texts and translations of the five major TCC Classics along with a translated commentary from Chen Wei-ming and a further commentary from Ms. Davis. There is also a considerable amount of background material.
The received orthodoxy of the origin of the Classics is the strange story from the Wu Yu-xiang lineage that in 1852 the texts were discovered in a salt cellar in Wu Yang and handed to Wu’s brother who happened to be the local magistrate. As the author’s researches show, said brother did not take up his post till a year later. The strange absence of the Classics from the Chen clan except for a few phrases is discussed and the obvious answer is because Taijiquan did not originate with them.
Mostly I would agree with much of Ms. Davis’s translations but “Song of Playing Hands “ for “Da Shou Ge” is faintly ludicrous and clearly derives from the author’s lack of practical fighting experience. This is manifested repeatedly as she continually identifies martial application from a pushing hands point of view. Having said that she is overly kind to the works of Wile, Lo and others as her translation is “Chapman’s Homer” compared to their sorry efforts.
She does not take the internal alchemy references very far, most likely because it is not a major part of her practice. I would not place as much credence as Ms. Davis does on the commentary of Chen Wei-ming who had no great repute as a fighter (in his writings he admitted no knowledge of pressure points and sword application) as well as being a questionable historian. Novices will also encounter difficulties as the book seems to consider each classic to be of equal importance. This is not the case.
Barbara Davis’s book is certainly the best and most comprehensive translation of the Classics on the market and I recommend it most heartedly.