Customer Rating:  
Summary: Very helpfull
Comment: Not much of assistance with the form in the pictures but it is an excellent training aid when Mr. Wong describes the various aspects and the training needed with the strength for each animal.
A must for any 5 Animal student
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good book, but Seriously Uneven Muscle Development
Comment: I am a black belt in Kempo, and TKD with an Instructor Sash in Kung Fu who learned the whole form as best as I could from just using the book. I found it clear and easy to follow. It took a couple of months to learn, after which I ordered Doc-Fai Wong's instructional video on the same 5 animal form later. I found that I'd done a fairly decent job on learning the form by book. I'd missed about 10% of it, which were mostly circling movements transitioning from one step to the other. One problem I had, which eventually led me to discontinue practicing the form is that it's seriously unbalanced. If you practice it regularly, you will have very uneven muscle development, especially in your legs. There is a big stress on jumps and standing on one leg using your right only. To alleviate this problem, you'd have to learn how to do the whole form with the opposite side and if you are just starting, it could easily take you half a year to learn this extremely long form both ways. Once you do learn it, it'll take you about 12-14 minutes to practice it just once on each side. To become really proficient at learning a martial art form, you should practice it several times each session. For a form such as this one, you would need a significant time committment to practice enough to do it justice. If you like to train in other ways such as running, weights, other martial arts, etc., be prepared to commit a lot of time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Decent demonstration of the form
Comment: This book seemed more geared towards learning a form, and introducing the "Five Animals" principles, than presenting an entire art. However, the form itself is fairly complex, as it is in essence five different forms strung togeather in a logical manner. The first chapter is just a couple of pages long, giving a brief history on developement of Chinese fighting specific to the animals style. The following five chapters detail the five animals one by one: the dragon, tiger, snake, crane, and leopard, with no apparent order. Those chapters cover the physical and mental/spiritual/psychological characteristics of the different styles. Then there is a short chapter on the stages of learning the form, and finally a chapter showing the complete form. I'd say that this part was pretty easy to follow, with the main problems being that some possitions were only shown from behind. Each photo has text describing it's actions underneath it. It is an eye-opening and physically challenging form, and is great at least for developing ballance and endurence. The last chapter shows applications of some of the movements. All in all, I'd say that someone with a background in most striking arts ought to be able to grasp what's going on. The chapter on the form itself is the meat of the text, with the rest of the book being a good intro into the Five Animals form, but nothing extrordinary stands out to me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: masterpiece
Comment: only a true lover of kung fu
see the beauty in it.
Thank you
Master Doc Fai Wong
your student
Leo Nguyen
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Shelf Decoration
Comment: The book begins by giving a brief history of the animal styles, and then describes the differences between the five styles and the intent on which you should attack. Although I found this information very interesting, I found the same information on the internet shortly after purchasing the book.In addition, it is safe to assume that the author believed in the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words" because they included very vague details on how the form should be executed. I am used to books that give very good instruction on how each movement should be performed and at times provides pictures showing the same move but from various angles. This book does not! Moreover, I prefer books that go into detail on the direction in which your internal energy should flow as well as when to breathe (there are some books that give you this information). I was very disappointed that they did not even attempt this considering that some of the animal styles are supposedly internal styles. Furthermore, the book does not give detail on the applications of all the techniques. This might have been a very good book, but they tried to fit too much into a small amount of space; thereby, omitting much needed detail.
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