The Cover of Best Karate 3

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Book Review: Best Karate 3: Kumite 1

Author: M. Nakayama

Reviewer: Mark Groenewold

Date: March, 2003

This is the first of two books in the Best Karate series that deals with kumite, the fighting or sparring of karate. This is a fun book, and has such a dramatic presentation to it that you simply must have it with your karate book collection if you hope to have any sense of completion with it. For those of you who already have the book, I encourage to blow the dust off the cover, open it up and revisit an old treasure of a book.

This first kumite text focuses on 7 different elements:

1. Sen no Sen
2. Go no Sen
3. Types of Kicks
4. Striking in Close Combat
5. Kicking in Close Combat
6. Rotation, Tai-Sabaki, Throwing
7. Two-Level Attack

This book features the legends of Shotokan karate and you can really enjoy just a taste of what they have to offer. Osaka-Sensei in his stoic attacks, the savagery of Yahara-Sensei, the incredible flexibility and distancing of Tsuyama-Sensei, the grace of Kanazawa-Sensei, and the absolute zen-like visage of Abe-Sensei. These are really cool photos to take a good look at, and although arguably staged to some extent, also demonstrate some of the raw and brutal effectiveness of karate technique. It is a real treasure.

In this book you can see Ueki-Sensei and Yahara-Sensei mix it up with their kicks. You can see Tsuyama-Sensei execute incredible close-range kicking (he is also featured in the video section too for instructional karate http://www.karatethejapaneseway.com/videos/tsuyama_katsunori_part_i.html ), as well as Asai-Sensei and Osaka-Sensei mix it up. It almost makes you want to see those two guys go at it today. LOL! Also in this text there are a few smatterings of sage-like wisdom in how to approach the mentality of sparring and conflict. You get the whole gamut of samurai wisdom from Takuan Zenji to Yagyu Munenori to Miyamoto Musashi.

As a note here I must say that the irony of having quotes from Takuan Zenji, Yagyu Munenori and Miyamoto Musashi is truly bitter-sweet, considering that Munemori and Musashi were great rivals in life. The fact that quotes from such divided men are used to present a unified JKA whole which has, since the date of publication of this text, was prophetic to say the least.

This book is very cool. You should get it. Go on. Call on your local bookstore today!

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