Falk's Dictionary of Chinese Martial Arts-Compact Edition

This review is for the COMPACT paper edition, printed on a slightly lighter weight paper in a slightly smaller font. There is also a DELUXE edition available. Both contain the same information.\n"This Chinese-English Dictionary is massive, with countless words and phrases used by the internal and external martial arts of China to describe training, techniques, theory, forms, sparring, methods, wrestling and qinna. And words that always pop up when you are reading about martial arts, like TCM terms, anatomical terms, historical and literary names, dynasties – the list is endless. Most martial techniques and names cannot be found in a regular dictionary – and if the characters are there, they have a different meaning from that used in the martial arts. With three indices, ordered by the pinyin transliteration, radical index, and stroke order index, and a fair bit of cross referencing, you should be able to find what you need."\nDictionary displays pinyin terms, Chinese characters and English definitions.\nTalk about a time saver. If you have ANY interest in a place to look up martial arts terms in Chinese (pinyin) to see the English meaning, this is that place. I estimate that Sifu Falk has translated more than 3500 terms from the Chinese. If you envision yourself decoding some neat old manual and getting up just once to look up each word here (and I guarantee you that you will get up a lot more than once a word) you will see what a bargain this is in time saved and hair left unpulled.\nFor instance, look up "Liu," which means "Willow Tree," and you not only get that but "Willow Leaf" (the hand formation,) and "Willow Leaf fist" from Southern Kung Fu, and "Willow Leaf palm" from Northern Kung Fu, plus the Chinese characters and a short description of how each hand formation is held.