Post by kensei on Jul 16, 2011 15:09:36 GMT
Hey Gang,
About four months back I was hunting thru Chapters.ca for books I might not have, we just got access to a handful of Enoeda Sensei books here in Canada thru Chapters and I was very excited. As I was looking thru the available books I came upon this book "Black Belt Karate: the intensive course" By Kanazawa Sensei. I was very excited and ran down to Chapters to order it.
As weeks went on I read a few reviews about it on line by people who had ordered the book and I was getting more and more excited as everyone was saying what a cool book it was. I have been a “Fan” of Kanazawa and his rebellious style of Karate and doing things for a while, maybe not a huge fan but I thought that this book surely would have a tone of things in it that would be different and that I could poach for work outs at home and maybe even run by my instructor to see if we could do it in class.
Weeks turned to a month as the company I was buying it from took for ever to get it to me here and I had almost forgot about it when it finally arrived! It’s a sleek looking hard cover book with a picture of Kanazawa Sensei Smashing some roof tiles on the front…it looked very nice on the outside of the book and I succumbed to temptation, I pulled the car over and opened the book up and began to thumb thru it on the way home.
Kanazawa Sensei does quite a bit of the pictures in the book himself, and they are all new pics, not older pictures used to sell the book, very impressive…but something struck me right off the hop…it’s a book on how to GET your black belt…not what to do once you get it. Also, it only offers up the first steps in training for the Dan levels…not a complete set of info to take you from white belt to black belt.
The book has a strong list of basic training and is set up as lessons. The lessons go over the techniques and have a few ideas on how to build up the techniques, which were interesting, but only a few new things or things that we do not do on a regular basis to keep my going. It also has some great pictures of a young guy, whom I think is Kanazawa Senseis son, with very nice form doing the majority of the movements…but they are very roughly broken down and explained.
The book also only includes Heian Shodan and Nidan, It does not go past that for Kata. If you want to learn more about his Katas to black belt and beyond you can buy his new Kata book however…I guess….
One thing that impressed me the most about the book was the chapter on breathing. I have rairly seen such attention to breathing in a book. I guess with his involvement in Tai Chi I should not be shocked, but it was a nice thing to see in a book about Karate. Often I think we don’t put enough emphasis on breathing and it reminded me to include that more in my teaching as well. He also has a area about Mokuso that you don’t often see in Karate books these days. It presented Karate in such a way that we are reminded of the “DO” in training and not just that we do kicky and punchy in PJ’s a few nights a week.
Kanazawa also has a larger section on use of Nunchuku. It was neat but not really a selling factor for me. It was kind of strange for me to see it. First off most Karate clubs in Canada don’t teach weapons at all. Local laws prohibit most of the weapons and secondly the clubs that do teach the weapons (mostly kung fu clubs) teach the flashy stuff that would never work as a direct to self defense method. His methods were very basic and while nunchuku lends itself to being a bit more exciting even when being done basically, it was like the editors of the book wanted to close with a bang…..and for me that part kind of flopped.
The section on auxiliary training with equipment is only two pages or so long. Not hardly enough time to show and talk about use of the heavy bag, makiwara and weights….a subject most karate books ignore and say is not important. I find it ironic that most Karate books that are put out by Japanese instructors tend towards saying weight training and hitting the bags are not important parts of training at all…but the JKA has a weight room that is always busy!
As for Kumite, the book takes you from three step to one step. And it also mentions drills with partners and finally free style. This is weird for me because the book literally can be used to get a student to Yellow belt…but it talks about free style Kumite in detail near the end of the book. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the reason it has such advanced things in with the basics is the way the book ends…….
The book also ends with some “HOW TO” on building on the book. It talks about how to move past the lessons that Kanazawa has outlined for a student and how to create off of those. Put simply, if a student lived some place that NO Karate or martial arts was being taught….thinking island in the pacific or something….they could use this book and his Kata book to learn enough to grade for Shodan! Granted, most of us live in areas with a decent instructor who can show us that and also…if you were living on that island…how long would it take for Chapters to get you those books? (Dear GOD don’t let them use Canada post…they will never get them).
“Black Belt Karate: The intensive course” also has a tone of old pictures of Kanazawa and the early JKA. Some of which I had never seen before, for me that was enough! I was so happy with this little gem simply because of the history that it shows that I could over look the rest of the books flaws. It is a very basic book and comes off as a coffee table book to generate some conversation with your friends…the kind of coffee table book my wife wont let me leave on the coffee table however!
Was it worth the $45 I spent on getting it, well the pictures that are in the book were most definitely worth the money and for me the chapter on breathing was informative and I got to see a insight into Kanazawas ideas on using breathing in Karate. I did not mind spending the money on the book in the end, but for those of you that think this will be some kind of a revolution in your training, or a “Intensive course” for black belts…No, it’s a very basic book on Kihon Waza, has the first two real Kata from the JKA syllabus and has some other neat dit bits in the book…but its subject matter have been done before, and unfortunately better by dozens of instructors…No recreating the wheel or insight that will cause multiple AHA moments. More just a simple and decent book with some neat pictures in it.
About four months back I was hunting thru Chapters.ca for books I might not have, we just got access to a handful of Enoeda Sensei books here in Canada thru Chapters and I was very excited. As I was looking thru the available books I came upon this book "Black Belt Karate: the intensive course" By Kanazawa Sensei. I was very excited and ran down to Chapters to order it.
As weeks went on I read a few reviews about it on line by people who had ordered the book and I was getting more and more excited as everyone was saying what a cool book it was. I have been a “Fan” of Kanazawa and his rebellious style of Karate and doing things for a while, maybe not a huge fan but I thought that this book surely would have a tone of things in it that would be different and that I could poach for work outs at home and maybe even run by my instructor to see if we could do it in class.
Weeks turned to a month as the company I was buying it from took for ever to get it to me here and I had almost forgot about it when it finally arrived! It’s a sleek looking hard cover book with a picture of Kanazawa Sensei Smashing some roof tiles on the front…it looked very nice on the outside of the book and I succumbed to temptation, I pulled the car over and opened the book up and began to thumb thru it on the way home.
Kanazawa Sensei does quite a bit of the pictures in the book himself, and they are all new pics, not older pictures used to sell the book, very impressive…but something struck me right off the hop…it’s a book on how to GET your black belt…not what to do once you get it. Also, it only offers up the first steps in training for the Dan levels…not a complete set of info to take you from white belt to black belt.
The book has a strong list of basic training and is set up as lessons. The lessons go over the techniques and have a few ideas on how to build up the techniques, which were interesting, but only a few new things or things that we do not do on a regular basis to keep my going. It also has some great pictures of a young guy, whom I think is Kanazawa Senseis son, with very nice form doing the majority of the movements…but they are very roughly broken down and explained.
The book also only includes Heian Shodan and Nidan, It does not go past that for Kata. If you want to learn more about his Katas to black belt and beyond you can buy his new Kata book however…I guess….
One thing that impressed me the most about the book was the chapter on breathing. I have rairly seen such attention to breathing in a book. I guess with his involvement in Tai Chi I should not be shocked, but it was a nice thing to see in a book about Karate. Often I think we don’t put enough emphasis on breathing and it reminded me to include that more in my teaching as well. He also has a area about Mokuso that you don’t often see in Karate books these days. It presented Karate in such a way that we are reminded of the “DO” in training and not just that we do kicky and punchy in PJ’s a few nights a week.
Kanazawa also has a larger section on use of Nunchuku. It was neat but not really a selling factor for me. It was kind of strange for me to see it. First off most Karate clubs in Canada don’t teach weapons at all. Local laws prohibit most of the weapons and secondly the clubs that do teach the weapons (mostly kung fu clubs) teach the flashy stuff that would never work as a direct to self defense method. His methods were very basic and while nunchuku lends itself to being a bit more exciting even when being done basically, it was like the editors of the book wanted to close with a bang…..and for me that part kind of flopped.
The section on auxiliary training with equipment is only two pages or so long. Not hardly enough time to show and talk about use of the heavy bag, makiwara and weights….a subject most karate books ignore and say is not important. I find it ironic that most Karate books that are put out by Japanese instructors tend towards saying weight training and hitting the bags are not important parts of training at all…but the JKA has a weight room that is always busy!
As for Kumite, the book takes you from three step to one step. And it also mentions drills with partners and finally free style. This is weird for me because the book literally can be used to get a student to Yellow belt…but it talks about free style Kumite in detail near the end of the book. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the reason it has such advanced things in with the basics is the way the book ends…….
The book also ends with some “HOW TO” on building on the book. It talks about how to move past the lessons that Kanazawa has outlined for a student and how to create off of those. Put simply, if a student lived some place that NO Karate or martial arts was being taught….thinking island in the pacific or something….they could use this book and his Kata book to learn enough to grade for Shodan! Granted, most of us live in areas with a decent instructor who can show us that and also…if you were living on that island…how long would it take for Chapters to get you those books? (Dear GOD don’t let them use Canada post…they will never get them).
“Black Belt Karate: The intensive course” also has a tone of old pictures of Kanazawa and the early JKA. Some of which I had never seen before, for me that was enough! I was so happy with this little gem simply because of the history that it shows that I could over look the rest of the books flaws. It is a very basic book and comes off as a coffee table book to generate some conversation with your friends…the kind of coffee table book my wife wont let me leave on the coffee table however!
Was it worth the $45 I spent on getting it, well the pictures that are in the book were most definitely worth the money and for me the chapter on breathing was informative and I got to see a insight into Kanazawas ideas on using breathing in Karate. I did not mind spending the money on the book in the end, but for those of you that think this will be some kind of a revolution in your training, or a “Intensive course” for black belts…No, it’s a very basic book on Kihon Waza, has the first two real Kata from the JKA syllabus and has some other neat dit bits in the book…but its subject matter have been done before, and unfortunately better by dozens of instructors…No recreating the wheel or insight that will cause multiple AHA moments. More just a simple and decent book with some neat pictures in it.