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| The Cover of Injury-Free Karate |
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Buy this book at Amazon.com |
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| The Cover of Injury-Free Karate |
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Buy this book at Amazon.com |
I dug this book out of my bookshelf after being prompted by a reader for a book recommendation on body mechanics and the use of correct posture to reduce injuries. Well as the title suggests the book does elucidate some of these facts and does so in a clear manner with black and white photos and further skeletal drawings for backup. I must just add that this book was on my bookshelf due to it being presented to me by someone who had introduced me to karate many years ago and obviously felt some remorse at the possibility of me getting injured.
The contents of the book cover, firstly the warm-up, however anyone with a couple of books on stretching, such as “Stretching Scientifically” by T. Kurz or “Sports Stretch” by M.J. Alter will find these 14 pages fairly basic. There is a Goldilocks amount of explanation between photos not too much and not too little, however some of the photos are just too big (not a bad fault) but I don’t think it takes a full page to show a karateka bending his head forward and another full page showing him bending it back! I would have preferred to see more content in the book, for example it took me 2 hours to read this book from cover to cover to complete this review.
There are 10 chapters in all, including warm-up, punching, stances, blocks from front stance, kicks, movement, selected moves from kata, practising with a partner, breathing and the conclusions. The book is written by an experienced karate instructor (who has trained with Sensei Kanazawa), not by a specialist in body mechanics per say and therefore the content is easily understood by any karateka having done 6 months of lessons twice a week. The book would serve as a gentle reminder of the principles of knee and ankle alignment for anyone more advanced and this concept is repeated in almost all the chapters. On the negative side after reading about knee and foot alignment and lumbar extension in almost all chapters (several times) I just wanted to shout “OK I got it already!”
The chapter on selected moves from kata focuses solely on the Heians and Tekki Shodan and would be the most interesting chapter, introducing a wider range of techniques although the book does stop where it starts to get more interesting. I think the book makes a good start in an area not often covered by texts, and probably received better reviews in 1992 when it was published. The most excruciating aspect of the book is the statistics on the photos.
| Number of photos | = | 109 |
| Number of photos of men dressed in a Gi | = | 79 |
| Number of photos of women dressed in a Gi | = | zero |
| Number of photos of men dressed in shorts | = | 4 |
| Number of photos of women dressed in a leotard | = | 26 |
| Number of photos of men doing bad technique | = | 11 |
| Number of photos of women doing bad technique | = | 25 |
| Number of photos of men doing good technique | = | 68 |
| Number of photos of women doing good technique | = | 1 (not in a Gi) |
I think that this says it all, when will karate move on?? As a coloured belt I may have bought this book myself but only if I was receiving a level of instruction which I thought might incur injuries. I would really recommend a few minutes with an experienced instructor who could probably put any stance problems correct within a few minutes, or regular training with any experienced instructor who can keep you on the straight and narrow.
Dr. Selina Farwell
2005
This review is copyright © 2005 Dr. Selina Farwell
This page is copyright © 2005 Mark Groenewold