Tsuyama Katsunori
Part I
Video: The Guide to the Karate-do of Tsuyama Katsunori, Part I: Tsuki, by Champ Videos
Reviewer: Mark Groenewold
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| The Cover of Tsuyama Katsunori Part I |
When I talked to Taniguchi-Sensei many moons ago about writing a book about karate and explaining some of the more technical aspects of how karate is done in Japan to beginners he insisted that I purchase these videos. I am glad he did. They are excellent. You may see a bunch of Japanese characters on the front of this video. What they read as is: “Tsuyama Katsunori no Karate-do Nyumon: Kihon Renshu no Subete”. What that means is, “The Karate Primer of Tsuyama Katsunori: The Complete Practice of Fundamentals.”
Tsuyama Katsunori is a Professor at Takushoku University and the Head Coach of the Japan National karate team. He is an excellent instructor and an accomplished karate man. Born in 1936 he is a man who has been around for a few years and it shows throughout this video.
This is the first video of a two-video set. The first video focuses completely on punching technique. It is very thorough and extremely well produced. The tape begins with a lot of material about forming the fist, proper postures in standing, and movement while punching. The video also has a lot of excellent training drills as well and breaks the technique down in detail. Very interesting.
The not so interesting part of this video lies primarily in its production. Someone, for reasons unknown, thought it would be a good idea to have Tsuyama-Sensei talk about karate, what karate is all about, and to give some thoughts on training while having fake sakura (cherry blossoms) falling all over him in the studio. I thought that was a little hokey and weird. Let's just get to the karate and get on with it. We don't need to have studio produced “zen” moments force-fed to us.
Besides the price (7,619 yen!!) the video is great. I highly recommend this video and its companion.
Mark Groenewold
Kanazawa, Japan
October, 2002
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