Customer Reviews

The Spirit of Karate-Do: Teachings of Masami Tsuruoka

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was excited about a book written about Tsuruoka Sensei, but was really expecting to see more information about his Sensei, Dr. Critose Tsuyoshi, who I consider a one of the last generations of great masters.

In fact, some of the only information about Chitose himself centered around the split between Tsuruoka Sensei and Chitose Sensei which placed what I considered a dark shadow over their entire student/teacher relationship (as one side of a bad breakup always does) and something probably best left out of the book altogether. Some of Chitose Sensei's teachings coming from one of his oldest students would have been fantastic reading. Hopefully Mr. Bowerbank will include some of this in a future publication.

Some of the other poorly presented material was the glossing over of karate history in general which did nothing to eliminate some of the long standing misunderstandings, even going so far as to show a cartoon of a karateka kicking a samurai off a horse (something completely historically inaccurate by the way). For an otherwise well written and lucid karate book, this was a sore point for me.

Travis Cottreau

The author states this to be a book intended for the beginner, and enjoyed by all levels. He does a great job of explaining karate concepts without over packing the pages with flowery terms and statements. Other karate books I have read seem to work as a means of displaying the author's self proclaimed talents. Mr. Bowerbank enjoyed exploring karate from a fresh perspective, while illustrating the skills of his teacher -Mr. Tsuruoka. I Understand Mr. Tsuruoka is a great karate man in Canada. It is good to see a work dedicated to his efforts. I also enjoyed Mr. Bowerbank's attempt at showing the enjoyable, upbeat side of karate. His illustrations offer the reader a view almost akin to politcal cartooning -a good companion to the written text. A well written overview of karate -this is a book I will recomend to my students. Mr.Bowerbank's second book -Spirit of the Sensei is also a great work and picks up where this one left off. It is intended for a more mature student with a somewhat more indepth tone to the text and illustrations.

The author states this to be a book intended for the beginner, and enjoyed by all levels. He does a great job of explaining karate concepts without over packing the pages with flowery terms and statements. Other karate books I have read seem to work as a means of displaying the author's self proclaimed talents. Mr. Bowerbank enjoyed exploring karate from a fresh perspective, while illustrating the skills of his teacher -Mr. Tsuruoka. I Understand Mr. Tsuruoka is a great karate man in Canada. It is good to see a work dedicated to his efforts. I also enjoyed Mr. Bowerbank's attempt at showing the enjoyable, upbeat side of karate. His illustrations offer the reader a view almost akin to politcal cartooning -a good companion to the written text. A well written overview of karate -this is a book I will recomend to my students. Mr.Bowerbank's second book -Spirit of the Sensei is also a great work and picks up where this one left off. It is intended for a more mature student with a somewhat more indepth tone to the text and illustrations.

As a relative beginner (orange belt level now), I found this book helpful in explaining further the nuances in all our moves as well as adding depth to my understanding of karate. It was both informative and an easy read. It was also quite nice that one could read particular sections at a time, ie, one didn't have to read progressively from start to finish.