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Loy Machedo's Book Review - Chi Running by Danny Dreyer

656 views · Published 6 March 2013 · 8:51 · Indexed 20 October 2026

Channel: Loy Machedo · 2013 · Education

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My foray into the world of sports & fitness began with the fateful yet accidental meeting of my School Fitness Coach in a garden one early morning. How I bumped into him -- well I was 'trying' to jog behind a group of girls whom I identified as girls from my school and Volia! What do you know!!!.

(I know...I always got myself into situations like these.)

From that meeting on, he introduced me to a world of running and that lead me to one of the biggest achievements in the world of competitive sports to date -- Winning 3 Silver Medals at my School Sports Meet in the Final year of my School. Considering the fact I never thought I was an athlete, this small achievement was a big thing in my eyes.

As time progressed, Running got replaced with Body Building and Big Muscles. You see, Arnie was the most happening thing those days and I too wanted to be part of the action. So goodbye running - Hello Big Hard Muscles.

15 years passed since that day.

Now that my joints have endured the endless abuse of lifting heavy weights, I no longer enjoy the adrenaline high - which sadly disappears once I leave the gym. So I decided, it was time to go back to my roots -- Jogging & Running.

But here starts the problem.

Try jogging after 15 years of abandoning the experience. Not a very pretty sight. The first day of 'walking' around 6km, lead me to grab on to anything in sight as I huffed and puffed blue and black nearly fainting in exhaustion. Slowly after a week as my body got used to the stress of exercise, I started jogging. But here, I was reminded of my aging joints and found myself wanting to commit to research on the science of Jogging. I had to take an intelligent approach to losing weight and minimize injury. I was not getting any younger you see.

Surprisingly, one of my potential students and friends who was a dedicated marathon runner told me about Chi-Running. That lead me to this amazing book and I will be the first to say, Chi-Running by Danny Dreyer is a great book.

Danny Dreyer is the co-founder of Chi-Running and Chi-Walking, revolutionary forms of moving that blend the subtle inner focuses of T'ai Chi with running and walking. He is also an accomplished Ultra Marathon runner and has raced every distance from a 10K to 100 miles.

The book is divided into the following chapters:

- Chapter 1: Compares power running to Chi-Running
- Chapter 2: 5 principles upon which Tai Chi and Chi-Running are based
- Chapter 3: The Inner skills of Chi-Running
- Chapter 4: The Physical & Mental part of Chi-Running "focuses"- which are the specific physical and mental methods used to run more efficiently.
- Chapters 5-9: Program Development, Peak Performance Training, Injuries and Diet.
- Chapter 10: How to incorporate the Chi-Running principles into your everyday life

So now the moment of truth.

Do I recommend this book or not? And why?

I found this book having logical explanations for what it was preaching. And yes, given the credentials of the author, I would no doubt take his word for it.

But now comes the experimentation with me as a Guinea Pig.

I have been dedicatedly jogging 6.14 km since the past 3 weeks following his techniques. (Disclaimer - By jogging continuously --I mean I am practicing the jog-for-some-time-&-walk-for-some-time approach). And yeah, it seems to be working for me as of now. Although I have a nagging weak-knee-joint (thanks to years of power-lifting), I believe with correct form I would be able to strengthen it. This book does prove to be a guide and until I would say otherwise, I am pretty happy with what the author has had to offer. So given the fact that I am doing what the author has recommended and it is giving me positive results -- well the book gets my vote of confidence.

Overall Rating
So given its research, the step-by-step guidance, the wealth of knowledge and the experience the author has imparted, I would give this book a 10 out of 10. I think if you are planning on losing weight, getting in shape, focusing on your health and looking forward to avoiding injuries, this is a worthwhile investment.

Loy Machedo
loymachedo.com | loymachedo.tv

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