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Best Karate Book, Volume 4, KUMITE 2, by M. Nakayama |
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Best Karate Book, Volume 4, KUMITE 2, by M. NakayamaThis book is the second kumite book in the Best Karate series, and just like all the others, a must-have for the serious Shotokan karate book collector. This text has quite a few exotic techniques and approaches to kumite that karate students and teachers may enjoy, maybe not easy to replicate mind you, but to just appreciate as interesting, fun, athletic, and fierce-some. The book is broken down thusly: * Kumite: Types and Meanings * Kuzushi: Leg Sweeps * Changing Technique * Cutting Kick * Responses * Last-Chance Techniques * Continuos Techniques * Blocking Kime The first section, Kumite: Types and Meanings is a quaint little chapter. Some of the material is useful and practical. Other material is superfluous, effusive, and a little on the artistic side. There are quotes from a variety of sources including Musashi and Munemori. More samurai material for the modern-day samurai. Sigh. Then we get onto the more useful, and applicable material with leg sweeps in the Kuzushi Chapter. Enoeda-Sensei is highlighted here and there is some impressive material. One small criticism is that there seems to be quite a wind-up with the rear leg before the leg sweep in initiated. I think that it is very important for intermediate karate students to learn right away how to make shorter leg sweeps without telegraphing the attack so much. A very cool part of this chapter is the photo of Enoeda-Sensei using both the knee and the instep for the double-leg sweep on pages 32-33. Nicely done. Changing Technique is the next chapter in this text that features Toru Yamaguchi. The man is extremely nimble and likes to stay airborne as much as possible while performing kumite. Very impressive and perhaps has some uses for a smaller man fighting a larger man. The man has a great vertical leap. What is disconcerting is some of the kneeling material to attack low. It looks cool, and works great on video games, but I wonder to what extent you get stepped on or bowled over with such a commitment to sticking to one space on the ground. Be cautious about trying this one at home. Yamaguchi-Sensei also has some impressive blocking technique with the feet. Here again, I think that this kind of stuff is not for the regular rank and file of Shotokan clubs. Tanaka Masahiko takes over in the chapter entitled Cutting Kick. Tanaka-Sensei, in his prime was extremely impressive. One of the toughest men ever to put on the white dogi. It is a pleasure to see him demonstrate changing his feet before launching his patented punch and mae-mawashigeri. Cool. There is an excellent exercise for developing the mae-mawashigeri on page 65. Great hiki-ashi. The next chapter, Response to Punch and Kick, awkwardly named though it may be is basically a dueling match between Osaka-Sensei and Kawazoe-Sensei. It's fun to flip through and to see some of their technique in action. Kawazoe-Sensei has a beautiful maegeri on page 79 and Osaka-Sensei has a wonderful flowing block combined with oizuki on Kawazoe's face on pages 82-83. There is a mistake in the print in my edition. Osaka does not strike his own jaw, but rather, Kawazoe's. Yahara Mikio takes over in the next chapter for Last Chance Technique. It is quite amazing material. The man looks pretty scary. He demonstrates one of the most athletic techniques in Shotokan take down and that is the kanibasami-the dreaded “crab claws”. I love that name. It sounds like it comes right out of Japanese anime. Anyway, you are cautioned not to try this at home, even with the family dog. Personally, I think that if you were in a similar posture as Yahara-Sensei is in these pages, you should just elbow your opponent in the head. But that is just me. There is another simply spectacular demonstration of athleticism on pages 96-97. The man JUMPS OVER his opponent. It's freakish. It's wild. It makes me wish I had some kind of vertical leap. Cool! The next chapter features Shouji Hiroshi in Continuous Techniques. This chapter, in contrast to Yahara-Sensei's incredible spectacle is pretty tame. But there are some short-range techniques that are useful for the regular Shotokan karate student. In particular I like the foot-sweeping of the front foot of your opponent, as well as the back fist technique. Now THAT I can do. The last chapter features Nakayama-Sensei in Blocking Kime. Here he is fighting Osaka-Sensei in demonstrating some techniques that pre-empt your opponent from hitting you. I think that much of this particular chapter was staged as Osaka-Sensei in his prime would have easily squashed his teacher in all-out kumite. Nevertheless, as a teaching chapter, it is interesting enough. Not necessary reading for the Shotokan student, but enjoyable nonetheless. You will probably want to get it to fill in the gaps of your Best Karate series so you will have to bite the bullet and buy the book. Fortunately, this bullet is not too hard to bite and you might pick up a nifty technique or too.
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