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Rating: 
Summary: Danger Will Robinson! Stop Packing.
Review: A very valuable addition to the qi gong literature, this is the first book I've seen to reveal the Golden Tortoise exercise, which is the basis for iron shirt training. However, the book emphasizes "qi packing." This is one of the most dangerous techniques around. You can easily damage your kidneys, heart, and give yourself high blood pressure and other ailments. Qi packing is not necessary for iron shirt training. Still, I'm delighted someone described the method in print. Just don't try it unless you're under the guidance of a very cautious and knowledgeable teacher. Bottom line: buy the book and read it for its revelation of formerly secret training methods. But practice the techniques only under direct guidance of a master.
Rating: 
Summary: Good material, dangerous to practice
Review: After reading this book, I read the existing reviews here before writing mine.I liked this book. It is like many Mantak Chia books,detailed and well-organized. I know that some reviewers complained about the organization, but what Chia does is give step-by-step instructions for a number of exercises. It gets confusing when trying to digest it in totality. Like reading a math text cover to cover. It helps if you read a part, practice it, master it. All of a sudden, the next chapter makes sense, and it works! I think the reason why Chia does not focus more on energy is because he does that elsewhere. He has a number of books. He's focusing on the specific techniques for this specific process-- Iron Shirt. I agree that one should not practice without an instructor. But it is impossible to really learn this stuff from a book. Internal martial arts in general. External martial arts, for that matter, too. Meditation, qigong, it all benefits from having an instructor. Books are ancillary materials. As are videos. References only, a different perspective. Supplements. Particularly for those looking at enhancing your Wu Chi posture structurally, this is a great book. For standing meditation exercises, this is a great reference. As for danger with packing-- I always stick with Kumar Frantzis' 70% rule... do something 70%. As you progress, that 70% will become more and
more. I particularly liked the way Chia mechanistically describes what to do step-by-step. When your instructor says, work on your chi belt and you stare and say-- how? Then your instructor says, feel this, now do it! And you say-- that's really cool, but I'm still not sure how to do it-- Chia gives you a roadmap. Or even if your instructor tells you how, Chia gives you a roadmap to compare with. As for who is right/wrong, where Iron Shirt really came from, what preliminary exercises should go with this or that-- I think there are many paths to any one goal. This is one. There are others. Now go find the one that gets you where you want to go. I'd recommend this book for those who are still walking the path. For those who've reached the end of their journey, why'd you buy the book in the first place?
Rating:
Summary: Nice How-To for Iron Shirt Concepts
Review: After reading this book, I read the existing reviews here before writing mine. I liked this book. It is like many Mantak Chia books,detailed and well-organized. I know that some reviewers complained about the organization, but what Chia does is give step-by-step instructions for a number of exercises. It gets confusing when trying to digest it in totality. Like reading a math text cover to cover. It helps if you read a part, practice it, master it. All of a sudden, the next chapter makes sense, and it works! I think the reason why Chia does not focus more on energy is because he does that elsewhere. He has a number of books. He's focusing on the specific techniques for this specific process-- Iron Shirt. I agree that one should not practice without an instructor. But it is impossible to really learn this stuff from a book. Internal martial arts in general. External martial arts, for that matter, too. Meditation, qigong, it all benefits from having an instructor. Books are ancillary materials. As are videos. References only, a different perspective. Supplements. Particularly for those looking at enhancing your Wu Chi posture structurally, this is a great book. For standing meditation exercises, this is a great reference. As for danger with packing-- I always stick with Kumar Frantzis' 70% rule... do something 70%. As you progress, that 70% will become more and
more. I particularly liked the way Chia mechanistically describes what to do step-by-step. When your instructor says, work on your chi belt and you stare and say-- how? Then your instructor says, feel this, now do it! And you say-- that's really cool, but I'm still not sure how to do it-- Chia gives you a roadmap. Or even if your instructor tells you how, Chia gives you a roadmap to compare with. As for who is right/wrong, where Iron Shirt really came from, what preliminary exercises should go with this or that-- I think there are many paths to any one goal. This is one. There are others. Now go find the one that gets you where you want to go. I'd recommend this book for those who are still walking the path. For those who've reached the end of their journey, why'd you buy the book in the first place?
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good
Review: I am very sorry but although the author of this book has touched on an important component of life (the way to nurture life itself), his writing style is so poor and disorderly that it takes a lot to figure out what the heck he is trying to say. As from his other books, he seems to always forget that people will learn the concepts only FROM WHAT HE HAS WRITTEN. He lacks a sense of sequence in introducing details; some important details come ONLY LATER, after the element they pertain to has been covered. His English is not always easy to understand either; sometimes what he writes is very confusing. This, among other things, causes progess to be slow. Yes, he has some knowledge, but he needs to offer it in a format that can be grasped easily and without ambiguity!
Rating: 
Summary: Good materials, poorly organized
Review: I cannot argue about the content, very useful and promising.
Yet, I quit after spending exhausting weeks trying to extract useful information from this book (save to practice them). I made notes, summary etc., but the book is too poorly organized. My sugestion is to treat this book as encyclopedia only, learn from the master or other books. Back to this book only if you want to check some details.
Rating:
Summary: Danger Will Robinson! Stop Packing.
Review: this book is difficult to follow unless you have been learning and practing standing meditation and energy arts for some time. when i first came across this book some two years ago i could not use the information on this book properly. there was a sea of information in the book with much attention to details. Soon it became frustrating and i left the book on my book shelf and followed some other chi kung books that were much easer to follow. now after two years i find myself coming to this book over and over again. now that i have been doing standing meditation for some time it is easer for me to incoporate more of these informations in to my practice.
Rating:
Summary: Easy information for beginners
Review: This book is very difficult to follow, and the topics and information is difficultly organized in this book.
It gives you the idea that this was meant to be longer than it ended up becoming. This can be seen with the continuity of thought throughout the book.
As an owner of the book, I would recommend one of Yang Jwing-ming's books on chi-kung, or "Qigong Empowerment". I am afraid that this book works too much on elaboration of very simple nei gung (mind energy direction) than giving more useful information.
Just as well this book is good for beginners though, and the book if you follow it will help you to achieve.
Look forward to spending at least an hour every day or kiss iron shirt goodbye.
So this is neither a good or a bad book, yet after a while of trining you will realize it is all in the mind and that is what the training is all about, 'improving neural connections for strength training'. (Paraphrase from "Job's Body: a Handbook for body work")
Rating:
Summary: Good detailed book on iron shirt
Review: This is a very detailed instruction book on Iron Shirt Chi Gung Part 1. Iron Shirt Chi Gung has 3 levels, and this covers level 1 which must be mastered before going to level 2 and 3. The aim of level 1 is to correct and improve your posture, strenghten your internal organs by packing 'chi' around them, strenghten tendons, muscle etc. Also, it teaches you the types of energizing breaths. Master Chia has written a very detailed book that's clear and easy to undetstand. However, to master this, you may have to get the video as well. You should read this book (which has a lot of pictures and illustrations), understand the principles, then look at the video to model his postures etc correctly. The bottom line is, this is really a good book on Iron SHirt that deserves a read and study by anyone interested.
Rating:
Summary: Good material, dangerous to practice
Review: While I do not really know weather or not master M.Chia is a real Daoist master, I do know that most of the techniques in this book take 15-20 years to learn, and only after fully mastering the standing meditation (1 hour daily), inner smile, microcosmic & macrocosmic orbit (after many years of hard daily training), you may start practicing the iron shirt (which is indeed not really necessary for a healthy life). Just for a simple example, a friend of mine, who bought this particular book and started practicing it without consulting his whushu teacher first, got some major breath disorder and lost his erection for a couple of months. The book indeed contains some interesting topics, worth reading, but be very careful and practice only under a supervision of an experienced master.
Rating:
Summary: Caution: Packing-breathing no longer taught.
Review: While some portions of this book are still in use (postures and rooting)...
The Iron Shirt packing-breathing techniques have not been actively taught by Chia-based organizations for quite some years, because too many people were getting hurt.
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