100 Deadliest Karate Moves [Paperback]

Ted Gambordella (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1982

Learn how to fight to the death utilizing the 100 most lethal kicks, shutos and blows known to the world's greatest karate masters. More than 100 dramatic photos cover snap kicks, heel kicks, vital points of the head and chest, shutos, palm heels, ridge hands and streetfighting with karate.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Paladin Press (January 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873642457
• ISBN-13: 978-0873642453
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,555,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A horrible reminder of the 70-80ies martial art craze, February 25, 2005

By 

ShinKyokushin (Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 100 Deadliest Karate Moves (Paperback)

Wow. I bought this book by mailorder during the mid 1980ies, before starting to practice karate, and even knowing nothing about karate back then, I immediately realised it was worthless and that I had wasted my money.

Now after practicing karate for close to 20 years, Im amazed that this junk is still in print.

I actualy gave my copy away to a friend who collects "questionable" martial-art litterature, because I was ashamed to have it on my bookshelves. I borrowed it back for this review.

It starts out with a 1 (or 2 if you are lucky) picture description of a few very basic karate techniques, This means you are shown the moment the technique hits and nothing more. Together with this is a short description of its effect. One example is a picture of a knee touching the face, with the text: "Damage: broken nose, crached teeth, broken jaw

Result: attacker will be knocked out for several minutes."

That is all the description or explanation there is, and that is fairly typical for the "100" techniques listed in the book.

The technique shown on the cover, is described in the book with that picture (and only that single picture) and the text

"Damage: loss of breath.

Result: death, unless pressure is released."

And nothing more!

At the end of the book are a few "situations" where the techniques are shown applied. If I ignore the horribly unrealistic situations and applications, I question the knowledge in how you can learn how to defeat 3 opponent in three pictures and the text:

"Situation Two: You are getting into your car with your wife when two thugs attack you with a crowbar, trying to kill you.

Response: You both react with kicks; the man with a SIDE KICK to the face; the woman with a BACK KICK to the groin. You then finish them off with STOMPS to the throat and neck."

I could also question the legal aspects of recommending stomping on a downed opponents throat and neck.

All in all this book is to be avoided by anyone who wish to learn martial arts of any kind -be it for self defense or competition.

There are many good books about karate and martial arts out there, but this book is not among them. The only use for this book is as a source of amusement over how incredibly bad it is.

You learn more Martial Arts by playing computer fighting games on your PC.

If it was possible to rate something a negative star, I would!

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great information for the advanced student, February 2, 2001

By 

Clint Simpson (MCAS MIRAMAR, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 100 Deadliest Karate Moves (Paperback)

To begin with, this book is not "How to Learn to Kill People After Just One Reading!" In fact, the author often stresses his disapproval of deadly force. However, for those who have at least intermediate martial arts training, this book offers ideas on how to repulse an attacker.

The book begins with a brief introduction to the karate moves used in the book. It is only to show the reading what the author is writing about. He describes a snap kick but does not instruct you on how to do one. Like I said, you need at least intermediate level skills. The bulk of the book is the 100 moves. They seem a bit redundant, as there are only so many strikes and so many targets, but the effects may be different so they are listed that way. This arrangement also simplifies the material to better understand it. The last part of the book gives a few generic examples of how one would use these moves to defend oneself. They are simple, but it is impossible to cover every possible situation. These pages are only to give the reader an idea of what to do if one cannot avoid a life threatening fight.

There are other ways to kill people in hand-to-hand fighting. The famous punch-their-nose-into-their-brain move is not in here and for good reason. Even at best, it working is a luck-of-the-die and the advance instruction needed is not he kind one learns in a book. If you are looking for an "I touch you and you die" book, look elsewhere. Most importantly, that is not what this book is about. It is for the martial artist who wants to know what the consequences of non-tournament moves are.

The part about being an advanced student is important. The author leaves out information on how to use the moves in a sequence or details of technique. This effectively prevents would-be punks from hurting people just because they read this book. For example, one move is "side kick to jaw." The average thug can't do a side kick at all and a beginner will find it impractical. He will either miss or not have enough power to the kick for it to be useful. The advanced student however, will first, practice; second, be able to link the moves in a useful order. Such as 1) a strike to stun the attacker 2) a strike to drop the attacker and 3) a strike to harm (very seriously) the attacker IF he still tries to harm you. The last chapter broadly covers these applications.

My favorite part is the descriptions after each move stating in brief the Damage and Results of each move. Examples range from "broken shin, bruised shin" (depends on how hard one kicks) to "broken neck, loss of consciousness" for damage. Results vary from "attacker may die" to "attacker will be unable to breathe for several minutes." This information is vital for understanding what one is trying to do when repeating the photographs and how to incorporate it in a sequence. It is also important in understanding what level of violence the move is.

But this book receives five stars not only for what it has, but also for what it does not. The author showed great moral conscious by making his book a reference of examples rather than a step-by-step training manual. After all, advanced students should already know the technical details and thugs wouldn't use this knowledge, as they do not like to think too much.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I can kill someone so can you!, April 19, 2006

By 

Darius Jimbles "Hospital Enforcer" (The Future) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 100 Deadliest Karate Moves (Paperback)

This is the best book I have ever seen! I found it under a pile of reading material in a monk's bathroom while visiting Mongolia. I read it cover to cover during one morning's crap. Immediatly, I felt its power! I killed the monk and his whole extended family (who were over for a birthday party). I killed my way out of China south, through Laos then into Thailand, all the way down to Sinapore, over into Indonesia and eventually into East Timor. I killed over 400 Chinese, 350 Laos, 190 Thai, 50 or so in Sinapore (I was fearful of arrest), 2900 Indonesian and at least 96% of the population of East Timor and a panda. I tried useing each move equally but found certain moves far more deadly than others. 1 particular move took far too long to kill, over 30 minutes of exersion, but I'll let you learn on your own which one - you will get more out of it. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to break out of their mind numbing media fed brainwashed self absorbed paralysing fearful state of insta-gratification consumeristic oil buying loser existance and start killing.