Customer Reviews

Hand-Fighting Manual for Self-Defense and Sport Karate (Fred Neff's Self Defense Library)

5 star:		(3)
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Being a martial arts book junkie, I appreciate the distinctive simplicity and effectiveness for use of Fred Neff's Hand-Fighting Manual. The Hand-Fighting Manual provides a very readable explanation for using the hand and arms in fighting. The text breaks down each blow into component parts along with supplying matching pictures. This is not only useful for learning blows, but perfecting form and power in the techniques you already know how to do. Anyone interested in the martial arts should enjoy this outstanding book.

Fred Neff's Hand Fighting Manual is a seminal book on combining both eastern and western hand blows. This succinct text carries a large wallop in terms of useable moves for fighting. If you keep in mind that this book was written in the early to middle 1970's it is visionary in giving the readers a chance to develop the ability to combine boxing and karate blows into a usable repertoire for fighting. Today we take for granted combining western and eastern fighting techniques because of their use in mixed fighting, but in the 1970's this work was very positively progressive. I happened upon this book in the library and was taken by its clear cut pictures and related descriptions of fighting moves. It was clear that the author intended to give the reader the foundation to be a strong fighter and to stimulate the reader to go farther in studying the arts. After reading the book I ventured into reading others of Master Neff's works and found them to be similarly informative and progressive in approach. It appears from a dedication and further information in other material that I read that one of Master Neff's early instructors was a relative Major Barney Neff. The respect and appreciation for this relative is admirable and I can certainly envision the use of combined fighting moves not only for self-defense but certain instances where it may have been useful for military training. From my study of military history I have found that boxing and wrestling were actually used as training tools by some military units. We often neglect to give proper credit to western fighting sources in our rush to study eastern martial arts. No doubt both areas of the world have produced outstanding fighting moves that can be effectively used. That is one reason this book is so very good it recognizes what others so long ignored the benefit of developing the ability to synthesize both western and eastern fighting moves to make an effective fighting arsenal. I give this Hand-Fighting manual a five star rating and would highly recommend it.

The Hand-Fighting Manual by Fred Neff is a work that explores various uses of the hand for self-defense. Hand blows from Karate, kempo, kung-fu and western boxing are included in this book with clear easy to understand directions and matching pictures. The book is very well organized. Its content includes basic hand positions, stances, body movement,blocks,punches and strikes. This is a book you can read and then come back to again and again while practicing to perfect your execution, so it earns my high recommendation.