Martial Arts Aficionados: Good Martial Arts Books?

[Schadenfreude]

Just curious since there's a lot of book recommendations flying around, thought I might as well join the crowd . . ..

My recommendations:

Angry White Pyjamas

The Tao of Gung Fu

Iron and Silk

Hapkido: Traditions, Philosophy, Technique

Karate Dojo: Traditions and Tales of a Martial Art

On Single Combat: Strategy, tactics, physiology, psychology, philosophy and history of unarmed self defense

There's more, but I don't feel like getting up and looking through my books . . .. Your recommendations?

 

[Lithium381]

who needs martial arts when you could, as so brilliantly displayed in your sig, rip someones arms off?

 

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by: Lithium381
who needs martial arts when you could, as so brilliantly displayed in your sig, rip someones arms off?

Ah, grasshoppah, you need to kill time before you reach the rank of "I'm-so-badass-so-I-can-rip-people's-arms-off". You know one but not the other!

 

[kenshorin]

Zen In The Martial Arts

Living The Martial Way

Essence Of Okinawan Karate-do

Anything by Dave Lowry.

Those are just a few, can't think of others off the top of my head, as I am at work.

 

[MustangSVT]

hmmm...

play some Virtual fighter

 

[dartworth]

I have been many years training in the Way of strategy, called Ni Ten Ichi Ryu, and now I think I will explain it in writing for the first time. It is now during the first ten days of the tenth month in the twentieth year of Kanei (1645). I have climbed mountain Iwato of Higo in Kyushu to pay homage to heaven, pray to Kwannon, and kneel before Buddha. I am a warrior of Harima province, Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Geshin, age sixty years.

From youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen, I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist, Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests.

After that I went from province to province duelling with strategists of various schools, and not once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen and twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

When I reached thirty I looked back on my past. The previous victories were not due to my having mastered strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability, or the order of heaven, or that other schools' strategy was inferior. After that I studied morning and evening searching for the principle, and came to realise the Way of strategy when I was fifty.

Since then I have lived without following any particular Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy I practise many arts and abilities - all things with no teacher. To write this book I did not use the law of Buddha or the teachings of Confucius, neither old war chronicles nor books on martial tactics. I take up my brush to explain the true spirit of this Ichi school as it is mirrored in the Way of heaven and Kwannon. The time is the night of the tenth day of the tenth month, at the hour of the tiger (3-5 a.m.)

 

[MustangSVT]

Originally posted by: dartworth
I have been many years training in the Way of strategy, called Ni Ten Ichi Ryu, and now I think I will explain it in writing for the first time. It is now during the first ten days of the tenth month in the twentieth year of Kanei (1645). I have climbed mountain Iwato of Higo in Kyushu to pay homage to heaven, pray to Kwannon, and kneel before Buddha. I am a warrior of Harima province, Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Geshin, age sixty years.

From youth my heart has been inclined toward the Way of strategy. My first duel was when I was thirteen, I struck down a strategist of the Shinto school, one Arima Kihei. When I was sixteen I struck down an able strategist, Tadashima Akiyama. When I was twenty-one I went up to the capital and met all manner of strategists, never once failing to win in many contests.

After that I went from province to province duelling with strategists of various schools, and not once failed to win even though I had as many as sixty encounters. This was between the ages of thirteen and twenty-eight or twenty-nine.

When I reached thirty I looked back on my past. The previous victories were not due to my having mastered strategy. Perhaps it was natural ability, or the order of heaven, or that other schools' strategy was inferior. After that I studied morning and evening searching for the principle, and came to realise the Way of strategy when I was fifty.

Since then I have lived without following any particular Way. Thus with the virtue of strategy I practise many arts and abilities - all things with no teacher. To write this book I did not use the law of Buddha or the teachings of Confucius, neither old war chronicles nor books on martial tactics. I take up my brush to explain the true spirit of this Ichi school as it is mirrored in the Way of heaven and Kwannon. The time is the night of the tenth day of the tenth month, at the hour of the tiger (3-5 a.m.)

u do know that copying someone without giving due credit is bad, right? so where/who did u copy this from?

obviously u cant type all that in 1 minute and this thread was buried until i replied.

 

[kenshorin]

Originally posted by: MustangSVT

u do know that copying someone without giving due credit is bad, right? so where/who did u copy this from?

obviously u cant type all that in 1 minute and this thread was buried until i replied.

Its the introduction to the Gorin No Sho, better known as the Book of Five Rings. Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Geshin was Miyamoto Musashi's full name.

 

[Sid59]

Daniel tried to learn Karate from books and the Cobra Kai whooped his butt.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Originally posted by: Sid59
Daniel tried to learn Karate from books and the Cobra Kai whooped his butt.

And he deserved it too.