The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing [Paperback]

This a good book if you are new to qigong. Cohen steps the beginner through theory and then the various qigong exercises. This includes color and organ meditation, healing sounds, Big Dipper, External practices, diet, etc. He also includues some moving meditation such as the Eight brocades and Five Animals frolics.

Pluses:
* Covers a lot of material.
* Well footnoted and indexed.
* Has suggested routines for a student to practice.
* Gives adviced on the dangers of wrong qi practice. Which is quite important but neglected in some texts.

Minuses:
* No illustrations for meridians or acpuncture points. These would help explain and guide a student. Especially with the excerises like Microcosmic orbit. I found it odd that a Qigong expert like Cohen would neglect to include this.
* The moving meditations are done by drawings - I found them impossible to follow. Photos would have been much better.
* Some of the qigong exercises listed are watered down and much simplified for instance the color light meditation. It's still somewhat useful but only about a third of the exercise is
there and you don't get the full effect. I don't know why Cohen
does not tell the reader why he watered some qigong methods down.

Overall a decent introduction, as most of the material is very basic. This makes it good for the beginner but be prepared to buy other books if you want to do other methods like Microcosmic
orbit or learn about meridians and acupuncture points. This also goes for trying to learn the moving meditations from this book - a beginner with no experience with this material will be lost. It will keep a dedicated beginner busy for two years or so. Once beyond that the reader is advised to seek out formal instruction or check out other texts that do include more intermediate methods.

If you want to do moving qigong work look elsewhere, this is not a stong point of this text. Books like Wen Mei Yu's WIld Goose Qigong or Meridian Qigong.

Other books that would complement this one include:
Qigong Empowerment by Liang Shou-yu
Meridian Qigong by Li Ding - hard to get but some online stores specializing in Qigong carry it.
Wild Goose Qigong by Wen Mei Yu