Customer Reviews

Ultimate Training for the Martial Arts

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This book wasnt what I expected it to be or what it was told to be. It was bunch of articles of magazines and because of that subjects were short. Its has some good tips but it wont help you make a workout or something similar. It was thought really fun to read and intresting and it gave some ideas which I will maybe use later. Therefore I give it 3 stars.

Dont buy this book expecting to get a workout program or something like that or youll get disappointed. I think this more for people that are intrested in martial arts, already know alot of it and search for something fun to read about it.

This is one of the Ultimate Guides that Inside Kung Fu Magazine has been publishing in recent years. There is so much infrmation here that it would be difficult to summarize, so I will focus on three articles in different areas that I found most helpful.

Before I do that, I want to say that the articles run the full gamut, covering almost every martial art you can think of, from external to internal training, conditioning, diet, health, exercise, technique training, practical applications, strategy, weapons, advanced theory, internal energy, martial arts energetics, and the usual articles on various styles. Often by recognized experts, the level of difficulty varies quite a bit and also in coverage and depth of detail, but that's to be expected in a book like this. Someone with an already extensive background in the martial arts might find the average level of the articles a bit too basic, but overall, there's a lot of good information here. (Besides, someone that expert should probably be writing their own articles and publishing them in this book or similar books).

The first is Tim Tackett's "Wing Chun Meets JKD." Having recently attended one of Tim's seminars (and also at age 53 having recently received my own instructor certification in Kali/JKD, I read his article first. I am also a karate, kung fu, and kali-escrima instructor, so I of course was interested in any articles on those subjects.

Since much of my martial arts career has been spent training on my own, I've always liked forms and the idea of a dummy set, although I've never had a chance to learn it, out of the many forms I've learned. Tim discribes how Bruce developed his own version of the form (he never quite finished the actual form). Later, when Inosanto visited Hong Kong he finally had the opportunity to learn the whole form. Upon returning, he then developed a 125-move JKD form consisting of Bruce Lee's modified Wing Chun set and the boxing phase of JKD.

Tim also mentioned that JKD isn't comprised of 26 different arts, as has been claimed. It is mainly based on Wing Chun, western boxing, and western fencing. As always, Bruce was a master of assimilation and simplification, which the ability to strip everything down to the essentials, hence his famous dictum about using what works, disposing of what doesn't, and simplifying what you have learned.

The second article I wanted to mention was June Castro's on boxing ringmanship. Miss Castro does an excellent job discussing the different skills and ring strategies, which consist mainly of using the center, using the corners, and using the ropes, and how different fighters may try to take advantage of them, how to defend yourself accordingly, and then use them to your advantage.

I am also a fan of Marco Ruas, whom the redoubtable Norm Leff discusses in the third article I wanted to mention. Master Leff discusses in detail Ruas's training and diet regimen and how he trains for a fight. However, at age 53, I would be happy to accomplish 1/5 of what Marco does in a day, as he often trains for 5-6 hours, 6 days a week.

Overall, a fine collection of articles on many interesting topics in the martial arts.

As much as I'd like to admire the people from Inside Kung-fu magazine for trying to cover a lot of ground in this book, none of it is very cohesive and what it does cover, it mostly skims over. Articles are rarely more than three or four pages and nothing is gone into in-depth.
I also take an issue with putting Chapter 18 in the book, which deals with auras, prana, and other scientifically unsound ideas that have become a large source of ridicule to kung fu.
So this book is not a guide for the "Ultimate Training for the Martial Arts" but rather a series of semi-related articles.