Product Description

Burton discusses the concepts that bind all martial arts together. He provides information on martial philosophy and tactics; he then explains in detail five components shared by all martial arts - ranges, postures, attributes, techniques and training.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #544399 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 137 pages

Customer Reviews

Does not deliver
The first half of this book does a pretty good job of scientifically breaking down martial arts and training. The book starts off showing different symbolic jestures in the martial arts, such as bowing, and then explains the meaning of Bruce Lee's JKD symbol, then Richardson's JKDU symbol. Whoopie. Next is a list of the tennets of JKDU's philosophy, as well as it's fighting philosophy/tactics. Interesting that the two should be separate. There's actually some good stuff here, though. Next, the five ways of attack are explained, as well as the three ways of defense; all very scientific, and all are included in any good JKD book elsewhere. Mr. Richardson then gives his seven ranges of combat. There are four empty-hand ranges and three weapons ranges. I've grown out of the whole range concept thanks to "Mastering Jiu-Jitsu" by Renzo Gracie, and I'd recomend that book to any martial artist. Six different postures are then classified; this does little more than make you aware that your body can be in at least six different possitions. Then there's three pages on how there are billions of techniques, and a good bit about techniques as words, and how you learn to write your own sentences. Different methods of training are classified next, including a section on spiritual training. Once again, this is more or less to classify what you are doing. Then, from pages 56-137, there is nothing but crap. Not really crap, just a bunch of techniques to show you how much the author knows, really. There wasn't much here that was related back to JKD principles. If you don't know a lot of techniques, then this section might interest you. Overall, though, I didn't see anything really new on the JKD front, and it seemed like the author just wrote this book to promote himself and his "style", not to help others grow in the martial arts. Nothing at all like the other JKD books out there. It's a shame, because I do like Mr. Richardson's articles in IKF, and I hear that he's a good instructor. Shame none of that showed in this text.

Weak
Not the best work on JKD. Padded with pictures this book does convey the essence of JKD Concepts but I was looking for more of a techniques oriented text. Try Entering to Trapping to Grappling by Hartsell if you're like me and want to see some techniques you can add to your repetoire.

Very limited
Usually Richardson is a bit more eloquent in his monthly writings in IKF but this is one of the worst books on "Concepts" ever conceived.

The text is rather pointless and shallow while most of the book is pictures of techniques that IMHO only work on a still training partner.

Save your money. I bought this used and feel cheated.