Buyer Beware (Note: Taijiquan = Tai Chi Chuan = Taiji) . If you're familiar with the writings of Wong Kiew Kit he often states that you can't learn genuine martial arts like Taijiquan and Shaolin Kung Fu from a book.  You need to learn from a master because there are too many subtleties that will be missed without a proper instructor.  So when Wong Kiew Kit states that:     "I have no Taijiquan lineage. I did not learn from any well-known living Taijiquan masters. I mainly learned from Taijiquan classics, and was able to interpret and practice what past masters had written because of my thorough Shaolin training."  Which is similar to saying:    "I have no Shaolin lineage. I did not learn from any well-known living Shaolin masters. I mainly learned from Shaolin classics, and was able to interpret and practice what past masters had written because of my thorough Taijiquan training."    There's no way Wong Kiew Kit would tolerate someone claiming to be a master of Shaolin Kung Fu without having learned from a teacher belonging to a lineage.  On his website he states that:    "Not a single person of those who have learnt Taijiquan from me complains about my lack of a Taijiquan lineage. In fact, no one seems to care about this lineage issue. On the other hand, they are satisfied that what they have leant(sic) from me is very close to the kind of Taijiquan practiced by masters in the past."  How are these people qualified to gauge how closely Wong Kiew Kit's Taiji compares to Taijiquan masters of the past?   Did they time travel and study under these past masters?  Or do they have a gut feeling like I have a gut feeling that I can learn Shaolin Kung Fu from a Taiji instructor?  It's quite likely that WKK is teaching a modified version of Shaolin Kung Fu that uses Taiji principles gleaned from his interpretation of the classics.      I won't deny that Wong Kiew Kit is probably Shaolin master, but there's no evidence to suggest that he is teaching an authentic form of Taiji.  He has admitted that his entire knowledge of Taijiquan has mainly come from books and scriptures, not from a living breathing human being trained in a proper lineage.  Call it whatever you want to WKK, but don't mislead people into thinking its Taijiquan.  Telling people to learn from masters and not from books and then doing it yourself is completley hypocritical.      In the end, of what value is a "Tai Chi Chuan" book that was written by someone who has no real "Tai Chi Chuan" training?    In response to a new review, let me mention a few things:    One reviewer presupposes that Taiji branched off from Shaolin, but there's so much debate about the origins of Taiji its to hard to make any concrete statements about it.    The Wikipedia page on Zhang Sanfeng states that:     "Much of the written material about him is mythical, contradictory, or otherwise suspect. For instance, he is reported by different people to have been born either in 960, 1247, or in 1279."    There's almost no proof to suggest that he actually existed, or that he created Taiji out of Shaolin.  But what tends to be agreed upon is that all forms of Taiji branched off from Chen Style when Yang Lu-Chan learned the art and spread his version of Taiji (Yang Style) across China.       This reviewer and his master may have proper training in a Taiji, and I won't contest that, but as WKK explicitly states, he has none.  He seems to mistake WKK's lack of proper instruction from a Taiji master as modesty.  If  "modesty" is what you are looking for in a teacher, may I too be "modest" about my lack of proper instruction in Shaolin, and offer you my instruction; perhaps even a book about something that I have no proper instruction in.          WKK does state that you should not learn Taiji without a proper instructor, but he himself did just that.  Maybe he could provide us with the origins of his undistinguished lineage to settle the argument?      When the reviewer says that the Shaolin Temple is the "supreme martial arts college throughout all of Buddhist China's history," it really is just a matter of opinion.  Not everyone views the Shaolin Temple in such a holy light.  Everything WKK writes in his books about the history of martial arts, the Shaolin temple and Buddhism ends up supporting his qualifications as a teacher; which is a major conflict of interest.  All the legends about Bodhidharma and Zhang Sanfeng are stated as fact without being prefaced with a warning about the highly mythical nature of their history.  He uses the iffy Taiji developing from Shaolin story to justify his lack of Taiji lineage.  If you were a prospective customer you would be highly discouraged by the whole no-lineage thing.  But when he feeds you the Taiji developing from Shaolin stuff the reader thinks, "If Taiji developed from Shaolin, WKK must be a Master of both."  WKK sounds pretty great if he is the one writing the history books
Output: NEG