Customer Reviews

San Shou Kung Fu Of The Chinese Red Army: Practical Skills And Theory Of Unarmed Combat

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San Shou is one of the fastest growing martial arts in the the world of competive martial arts. Unlike Wushu, San Shou is supposed to be full contact oriented and generally involves punches, kicks, throws, ground fighting and joint locks.

With that said how well does this manual show it? The various progression of pictures are too small to really let you see the intricacies of the techniques and the blurbs associated with them are very basic. Except for the totally uninitiated I would say that this book is unlikely to add much to ones arsenal. For those that are totally unitiated then this book might just get you through your first trial but you will probably want something more afterwards.

This book is a pretty decent one overall. Like Mr. Hui's other book (Effective Techniques for Unarmed Combat), this book is kind of a "thinking man's" approach to turning Chinese arts into combat form, vs. the art or health aspect. Included in the book are a set of 18 principles, which are very good by themselves, but you could devote entire chapters to most of them, instead of giving little blurbs. The techniques covered in this text are enough to give most people a well-rounded and effective arsenal. I do believe, however, that most of this stuff would work best in a one-on-one situation. That's not to say it's ineffective for self defense, but just a specific kind of defense. There are some reversals from headlocks and mount possitions, and stuff like that which ought to be part of any self-defense program, but nothing really new on the technical side of things. I do like how the author tried to link the one-on-one situations back to Chinese battlefield principles, like creating a localized strength. This book takes some Chinese fighting principles found in Kung Fu, adds some almost western kickboxing, and throws in some common military style locks and escapes. They make a pretty good combination, and if you're looking for a reality-based art with very little mysticism, and have nothing like it near you, this book would be good to pick up, along with the other text by Hui mentioned above. Experienced martial artists may find the principles the most enlightening part of this book.

I found this book great overall. The author show really simple techniques, but still effective and applicable. It's nothing new, but its great in itself. Someone who have no background in Martial Arts could get some basic from this books.