This is a reasonably comprehensive and very interesting read. While the focus is on Chinese arts, practitioners of Japanese styles (like myself) can learn a lot from it too. The illustrations and photos are excellent, truly reinforcing the materials. The writing isn't first rate, a bit hard to wade through in places due to the translation no doubt, but it's more than adequate to communicate the essential materials.
The book begins with some fascinating history, principle, and background information about xingyi quan, taiji quan, and bagua zhang. There is a bit about tongbei quan and baji quan too, two styles I'd never heard of before. It then goes into the fundamentals of punching, elbow strikes, shoulder strikes, hip strikes, knee strikes, kicking, body alignment, and movement. The next section covers some basic applications and a good discussion of pushing hands (tui shou) and energy release (fa jin). The next section demonstrates a sixteen-posture form along with its applications. The final section goes in-depth into executing applications, important things like assessing an opponent, range, timing, direction, movement, and protecting your vital areas. There is a tiny portion about real fighting at the very end, but it is nowhere near complete or all encompassing.
Consequently, the title is a bit misleading. Combat implies fighting for your life on a battlefield, back alley, or similar situation. There really is very little about the nature of real fighting (as opposed to training, sparring, or tandem drills) in this book. There is absolutely nothing about important combat issues such as awareness, avoidance, escaping an ambush, evasion, escape, de-escalation, creating witnesses, navigating the legal system, trauma triage, weapons, or any other fundamental aspect of self-defense. There is, however, a lot of great material about fighting applications from the various forms. If that is what you are looking for, you've found an excellent resource in this tome.
Great book; misleading title. Recommended for practitioners of Chinese and Japanese arts alike.
Lawrence Kane
Author of Blinded by the Night, among other titles