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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Good in places!, 13 Mar 2000
As a former student of Mark Bishop, I see this book as a reflection of his personality and beliefs, a personal commentary on Okinawan martial arts history, culture and significant personalities, rather than a proper academic analysis.The most useful factual aspects of the book are in the earliest chapters which outline the history of the islands and provide probably one of the most useful classifications of the martial arts weaponry found there. Other than that, like many before and after, Bishop is reduced to speculating about the wheres, whens and whys of how Okinawa came to produce three distinctly different martial arts systems - the aiki ju jitsu system of Okinawa Ti, the Chinese based system of Karate and the Chinese based system of Kobudo. Similar to his previous book on Okinawan Karate, Bishop also chooses to emphasise those philosophical and technical aspects which appeal to him most and to disparage or ignore those which do not. Thus he avoids the paradox that is contained in all martial arts training - that both the violence and the spirituality are real and that one cannot be soft soaped on account of the other. While I respect his intentions, he does the truth a disservice in hiding aspects of the sometimes bloody nature of martial arts training on this island and elsewhere. A good read but not the gospel!
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