Customer Reviews

Spirit of the Empty Hand

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Looking firstly through the eyes of his students, and later through his own eyes, Stan Schmidt skillfully takes the reader through the process of starting to learn karate through to achieving black belt and beyond. Students at all levels will be able to relate to at least some of the experiences in the book.

A well written and thought provoking book about the inspiring journey of the author through his early days in the practice of Karate. Recommended reading for the Shotokan karate practitioner at any level of training

An earnest effort was made in describing the ardious process of "training", and developing skills in Martial Arts. Tragically, a-r-d-i-o-u-s is the CORRECT word to describe the end result of Mr. Schmidt's efforts in this work. TEDIOUS would be an equally apt description. C.W. Nicol in his work "Moving Zen", described the same process MEMORABLY and far more flamboyantly.... Randall Hassell (in any of his works Karate Spirit... Karate Ideals...), described the process with biting & pity humor. No single page of this book is memorable, one single second after that page has been turned ! If books were described in terms of geographical locals....the most barren depths of the Sahara Desert would accurately describe the flavor of this literary attempt