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Description:

In 1853, before the American Civil War, the king of Okinawa was caught in a brink-of-war confrontation between the shogun's implacable samurai and an invading force of U.S. Marines. Trapped between katana and bayonets, the king's unarmed guards faced impossible odds and narrowly avoided a costly bloodbath.

Karate masters Sokon Matsumura and Yasutsune Itosu spent decades reliving that day in their imaginations. They designed a new martial art for the royal bodyguards, making bare hands the equal of razor-sharp steel. This was the first emergence of the hard-style karate that became shotokan, a full generation before Master Gichin Funakoshi took his first karate lesson.

The bodyguards taught Funakoshi their kata, but they didn't teach him their applications. They taught him their high-impact techniques, but they didn't explain why they needed them. They handed him the most ruthless combat art ever seen, but didn't explain what it was for.

Shotokan's Secret explains, once and for all, where karate really came from and what its purpose truly is. It lays bare karate's most puzzling mysteries, allowing us to finally see the people we are fighting, know how they are armed and learn why shotokan is obsessed with multiple-enemy scenarios. Finally, Shotokan's Secret explores karate's hidden flaws and how we can repair them to create a self-defense art for the 21 st century.

Shotokan's Secret brings karate to life through painstaking historical research, extensive footnoting, archival lithographs and artwork, rare sketches and practical guidelines for developing modern-day shotokan-empowered warriors. Hundreds of books on shotokan have been published since Funakoshi's To-Te Jutsu in 1920, but Shotokan's Secret is the first book since then to dissect the lore and make significant new statements about the art, its origins and its purpose.

Product Description:

Learn how the hard-style karate that became shotokan took shape in 19th century Okinawa as an embattled king with an unarmed force of bodyguards faced an armed invasion from overseas. In this new 328-page book, author Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D., uses rare sketches, footnoted historical research, archival lithographs, period photographs and contemporary technique demonstrations to reveal shotokan’s deadly intent and propose modern practical applications of such knowledge. Achieve a new level of theoretical understanding and fighting ability by learning Shotokan’s Secret for yourself!

Summary: AWESOME BOOK!!!

Rating: 5

What a great book! Imagine staring at a picture you had never seen before, into the eyes of someone you had never met, only to find out later that the person was your great great great great great grandfather? Shotokan's Secret gave me a very similar experience, although the person was not my relation by blood, but perhaps by something even stronger. Even though he lived a hundered and fifty years ago and half a world away, he was in a very real way my martial arts master, teacher of my teachers, and the creator of a discipline that I have dedicated much of my life to mastering.

If I sound a little fanatical, I don't mind. I have always enjoyed researching the history of the martial arts, and to me Shotokan's Secret was like finding lost treasure. The book presents what I found to be a very plausable theory of the origins of modern hard style karate, including the who, what, when, where, and why. I have read many books on the martial arts, but none have provided such a complete and thorough history of Karate. As if this were not enough, the book included a technical analysis of the kata, including bunkai (applications) to well-known kata that I could immediately employ and share with my students.I must admit that I buy left into the Shuri Crucible Theory. Dr. Clayton seems to have done an outstanding job at piecing the story together, providing many pieces of historical evidence to back up his ideas. Of course we will never know for certain if everything he hypothesizes is correct, but I find it hard to believe that he is far off the mark. I found Shotokan's Secret to be a mesmerizing work, shedding light on kata and techniques that I had known but not completely understood before. In my opinion this book should be mandatory reading for any karate practitioner. It already has a position of favor in my martial arts library.

Summary: A "must have" for every Shotokan practitioner

Rating: 5

I have been involved in Shotokan Karate for 46 years. I have taught thousands of students, and because I am a voracious reader and student, would have told you I knew a great deal about Shotokan Karate. This book proved me wrong. Oh sure, I knew the stories we are all told, but those stories are just passed along as gospel from one person to another. Author Bruce Clayton did the research himself, even teaching himself to read the Japanese characters.

This book will open your mind in a way in which NO KARATE BOOK ANYWHERE can. You think you know the origin of your art? Guess again! You think you know the applications of your Kata? Wrong again! You think you know the place of Gichin Funakoshi to your art. Wait until you read the truth!

Students of Shotokan are used to participating in NO CONTACT tournaments. We are told that Karate is too dangerous to allow hitting. In fact the rules of a match say that if you gain one full point, you win, because that one point would have killed an opponent. Like me, I'll bet you laughed at that idea. Wait until you read this book before you laugh again!!

This book belongs in the collection of any serious student of Shotokan Karate, and since Shotokan is the source of so many other styles, I can say beyond a doubt that practitioners of any style of karate will love this book.

couldn't recommend this book highly enough. By all means buy this book!

* Publisher: Black Belt Communications

* Number Of Pages: 329

* Publication Date: 2004-07

* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0897501446

* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780897501446

* Binding: Paperback

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Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123