Customer Reviews

The Best of Dave Lowry: Karate Way Columns 1995 to 2005

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I've read Dave Lowry's column, The Karate Way, for years. It's one of the few things in Black Belt, or any other magazine for that matter, that I'm sure I'll find illuminating and am rarely disappointed. This book is a collection of 70 of Lowry's best columns from the last ten years all in one place. His essays cover just about everything related to traditional martial arts or related Asian culture. Topics are both broad and deep, including the benefits and hazards of martial arts training, budo teaching traditions, lifelong learning in martial arts, profiles of ancient and modern budo masters, tenets of the martial ways, dojo ethics, history, and techniques/applications. If you enjoy Mr. Lowry's columns as much as I have yet have not kept copies over the years, here's a phenomenal opportunity to own the best of the lot.

Lawrence Kane
Author of Surviving Armed Assaults, The Way of Kata, and Martial Arts Instruction

It just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover!

This book really is jam packed with gems of budo (Martial Arts) wisdom, both from Dave's own long experience and that of his and other more ancient masters.

What we have here is ten years of news columns that Dave wrote for the "Black Belt" magazine The information it contains is just as pertinent today as it was between 1995 & 2005 when they were written.

It may seem ironic to say that I've learned more about certain aspects of Karate in the first few stories here than I have teaching karate over the last eight years.

The stories are naturally short and usually cover no more than two page each illustrated throughout with black & white drawings.

Presented in Dave's usual easy to read, interesting and entertaining style, the book is laid out pleasantly and can be delved into at random if necessary from over seventy varied headings. His witty style keeps you captivated throughout and eager to read onto the next chapter.

Although Dave principally trains in Iaido, there are many references of to karate and other martial arts, therefore this book would be of interest to any budoka.

Whenever he writes, Mr Lowry has something interesting to say, whether or not you may agree with him. In this, "The Best of..." what you get is a series of short, easily readable essays on various aspects of the practice of the martial arts; - not a specific art, but elements which are common to all those human activities that could be included under the heading "martial arts." This book is a good, easy read, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the martial atrs.

Like all of Lowry's books, this is easily worth the price. I never read his columns in Black Belt Magazine, but have read all of his other books, apart from the Bokken text, several times. His style is such that I find myself returning time and again to the same piece to glean something new that I either missed from a lack of interest in the particular point, or an inability at the time to grasp the profundity of the observation.

I received this book yesterday, and read it all in one sitting (actually more of a laying on the couch). In seventy-two very short essays, most about two pages long, Lowry provides a humorous, philosophical and high observant window into the martial arts history and practice. Every article was worth reading twice.

My only complaint regards the silly accompanying illustrations. I don't know if they were part of the magazine version, but they are so disjointed from the substance of Lowry's themes that they become distracting. Jaimie Filer is the illustrator, and I certainly (honestly) don't want to hurt any feelings, but I found them more appropriate for a kid's book; not exactly a good editorial match for Lowry's subject matter. Other than that almost inconsequential point I have to heartily recommend this book with the rest of his corpus. Enjoy!

This is a compilation of Lowry's columns that have run in Black Belt magazine for many years. Some of the information is interesting, as long as you are willing to deal with the author's elitist and dogmatic point of view. Still, some of the information is interesting and much would be relevant to any martial artist. This book is a good read as long you keep an open mind regarding the author's sometime biased viewpoint.