The topics in Empty Force: The Ultimate Martial Art: The Power of Chi for Self-Defense and Energy Healing are the things I've argued about with other martial artists and curious onlookers for decades. If you've not had the experience these authors talk about, you have no idea that any of this is real. Very few people can demonstrate the craft, and even fewer care to demonstrate. If you run into someone with genuine ability and have a personal encounter with the force of chi, you aren't so skeptical any more. Even if you don't buy the official explanation, you know something unusual has happened.

I took up this practice almost twenty years ago, just thinking that the only way to prove it true or false was to experience some of it myself. Even though I was warned away from it by experts who consider training without a teacher to be dangerous and learning any of the secret methods independently to be impossible, I thought, eh, what the heck. I might as well give it a good try.

At this point I'd like to partly agree with the experts who warned me off. Some of this is dangerous, and in ways you don't expect so it's hard to prepare for trouble. It's a new level of experience and brings new problems with it. But it certainly is possible to do on your own, if you're willing to devote yourself consistently to daily practice and independent study and take advantage of occasional courses and seminars. Lots of good teachers wander through the country teaching, and even though they don't know everything they usually have a piece or two which you'd otherwise miss.

In this book, now reprinted as Empty Force: The Power of Chi for Self-Defense and Energy Healing the techniques of Dong Jing are presented sensibly and without mysticism. Several different training approaches are offered in detail, and none will be difficult to learn. Stay with any of them for a few years and you'll have experiences of your own to puzzle over. A few lucky souls might develop a little faster than that, but the system weeds out the impatient people quickly. It's boring, painful, time-consuming and at first very unrewarding. Most westerners quit before they ever get noticeable results, and even in the East masters look for special people to train because they know that unless you can "eat the bitter" it's just a waste of time.

Click on the image below for a sample page of "Empty Force."