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Tag: martial arts training books

Pai Mei demonstrating a basic defence against the sword. From Kill Bill.
Pai Mei demonstrating a basic defence against the sword. From Kill Bill.

Martial arts are not just a set of skills, they are a way of life. I have always felt that to be true, but did not truly understand it until I moved to Finland and opened my school. Since doing so, I have been inspired by many books written by people who have shared the view that martial arts training is about transformation. This list includes seven such books; some deeply serious, some less so. But all have as an undercurrent the feeling that martial arts are not just about being good at hitting people.

These seven are all concerned with Japanese or Chinese martial arts; as yet there have been no similar works by practitioners of the Western way, that I know of. Whenever I teach a seminar on European martial arts in Asia, or when one of my Singaporean students comes to Finland, I wonder whether that will change.

So, martial arts paths, in book form: Here are my top seven, in no particular order:

Searching for the Way by Nigel Sutton

This book is about Sutton’s journeys in Asia, training in traditional Chinese martial arts. It has a lot of the nitty-gritty of training, and some excellent descriptions of life as a martial arts disciple. These people take their arts deeply seriously, and Sutton’s approach to them as a seeker after truth resonated with me.

Dueling with O-Sensei by Ellis Amdur

(Disclaimer: I know Ellis and count him a friend: he is a simply awe-inspiring martial artist, and a very nice man.) I first came across this book when Neal Stephenson described it to me as the best martial arts book he had ever read. So I bought a copy, and it was so good I read it in one sitting, and gave it away the next day. And now it’s out of print. Bugger. (I rate how much I really like a book by how insistent I am that my friends read it too.) This book is partly about Amdur’s training in Japan, and partly about the arts he trains, and partly about the mythology around Morihei Ueshiba. Amdur’s most recent book, Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei’s Power is a thorough description and analysis of the training practices of that extraordinary man.

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

This is a necessary book for all martial artists, because it is not just the story of Waitzkin going from chess champion to winner of the world push-hands title in Taiwan, but it  explicitly details how he did it. It is all about ways of learning skills of any type, with chess and t’ai chi used as exemplars. It should have gone into my post 5 essential non-martial arts books every martial artist should read, and only didn’t because it is not a non-martial arts book. Waitzkin seems to me to be less interested in the path, and more in the glory, which of all these authors makes him the least enjoyable to read. But he has real skills, and a lot to offer.

Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger

The subtitle says it all: “A Scrawny Oxford Poet Takes Lessons From The Tokyo Riot Police”. Basically, Twigger, knowing very little aikido, joined the riot police training course. This is all about developing character, or training spirit, and not so much to do with learning “working” techniques. The book has some fantastic scenes in it, and shines a light on some mad Japanese approaches to training. All my students should read it to realise that really, my warm-ups are gentle, and I am a mild-mannered pussy-cat of a teacher. This book also has one of the best chapter headings ever: “Zen and the Art of Being Really, Really, Angry.”  Great fun.

Fight the Good Fight by Catherine Fox

This is a lovely book, about a vicar’s wife deciding to take up judo again after her kids are old enough, and the trials, tribulations and rewards of getting back on the mat, and working up from white belt beginner to black belt. Most martial arts books are about young men full of piss and vinegar. This is about woman in her forties who, frankly, is a lot more interesting to spend time with than the average 20-something bloke.

Autumn Lightning: The Education of an American Samurai by Dave Lowry

Lowry is one of the best writers on martial arts, and has been a seriously devoted practitioner since the sixties. This book has the classic scene of the student knocking on the master’s door, and being told to go away by the master’s wife, again and again, until finally the master is convinced that he is serious, and agrees to train him. Proof that legends can happen. Lowry infuses his story of growing up as the disciple of a traditional Japanese swordsmanship master with lyric beauty. It’s the kind of book that will either put you off training martial arts (because it’s too hard, or because you will never have the kind of luck Lowry did, finding such a master in the American midwest), or will fire you up to follow the traditional arts, making them not your hobby, but your path. Lowry’s other books are all excellent, and his Persimmon Wind  is sort of the sequel to this one.

And now for something completely different:

The one best fictional young-man-meets-old-master traditional kung-fu but with ninjas and sci-fi (I’m not selling this well, I know, but dammit, this is a brilliant book, one of the few I will pick up to re-read specific fight scenes), is the utterly fantastic in all senses of the word The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. It has old-school training, internal martial arts, secret strikes, and the immortal line: “Ghost Palm of the Voiceless Dragon Style, fucker”. And a twist that I never saw coming. Proof that you don’t actually have to be a martial artist to get traditional martial arts. Fabulous!

Readers of this blog will know that I am quite fond of books. Reading deeply is good, reading widely is good too. I am often surprised by the extraordinary usefulness of books that on the face of it have no connection to martial arts, historical or otherwise, in my work recreating historical swordsmanship. These five books have been especially influential in the way I teach, train and research the Art.

1) The Inner Game of Tennis, by W. Timothy Gallway

This book has massively influenced the way I teach, because it highlighted for me for the first time the major differences between the part of your mind with which you analyse things, and the part of your mind that actually gets stuff done. Thanks to this book I talk less, explain less, and demonstrate more; and try to always set up a clear feedback mechanism inside every drill. And I have noticed that my students pick up new skills much quicker now than they used to. I found this book going for a euro in a bargain box at Arkadia books. I despise tennis as an utterly pointless waste of time, but can forgive the sport for taking over my TV every summer because it has produced this book.

2) Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman lays out an much of the theory that actually supports the thesis of the inner game of tennis. It has been hugely helpful in putting the lesson of The Inner Game of Tennis into practice.

3) Bounce, by Matthew Syed

I have always felt that the notion of inherent talent is fundamentally counter-productive, as well as being inaccurate. There is no such thing as natural talent. I’m sure there are some disciplines in which a certain amount of genetic advantage is required: if you want to play professional basketball but are under 6 foot 4, you’re unlikely to get there. Or if you want an Olympic gold in gymnastics but you’re tall and heavy boned, again you are unlikely to get there. But the point and the essence of swordsmanship is it transcends physical limitations. The sword is an equalizer and a labour-saving device. If you need to be big and strong to use it then a) what’s the point owning one, and b) I am not interested in teaching it. The physical threshold for us is really, really low. No legs? No problem. Didn’t stop Douglas Bader, it shouldn’t stop you. The first book I read that demolished the myth of talent was Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which is a good book, but this one is more specifically targeted to people trying to master physical skills. Syed was an Olympic-level table tennis player so knows a thing or two about the process of becoming exceptional in a physical art. Really it is only attitude, luck and discipline that matter. And this book proves it.

4) On Killing, by Lt Col. David Grossman

This book is essential reading for anyone involved in any kind of martial art because it outlines the process of conditioning a person to be emotionally capable of taking life. He demonstrates that most people (thankfully) are emotionally incapable of killing. And this is how it should be. But the psychological barriers to killing must be addressed by any martial art that pretends to be seriously martial. This book is also very useful for its discussion of stress response, and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is also the source of “combat breathing” which is a hugely useful tool for reducing your sympathetic nervous system’s response to stress. I have much to thank Col Grossman for because I have used his advice in this book to keep myself useful and sane in some hugely stressful situations.

5) Meditations on Violence, by Sgt Rory Miller

Okay, this is kind of a martial arts book. But he never tells you how to throw a kick, or execute a joint lock, so I’ll let it slip in. I do so because this book, amongst other things, is the best, most complete, system for analysing what your martial art is actually for. I would go so far as to say that if you have not read this book there’s not a lot of point in discussing combat contexts with me. This is the bullshitometer every martial arts teacher must have in his toolkit. Thanks to Ken Quek for putting me onto it.

Now, go forth and read them!

 

 

The works of Dave Lowry should need no introduction to readers of this blog, who, I assume, have at least a passing interest in the martial arts. Mr Lowry has been training since the late sixties and writing about it since the early eighties. His latest book, The Essence of Budo: A Practitioner's Guide to Understanding the Japanese Martial Ways, ought to be bought and read by anyone who thinks of their art as martial, regardless of its origin.

The book is in three parts: Refining Training, Contemplating Tradition, and Reflecting on the Way. Each is comprised of a series of related articles; at times it feels like a book of a blog rather than a more conventional monograph, but this does not detract from the overall, underlying message: traditional martial arts are way too valuable to be treated superficially: give them your life, they deserve no less. Amen, brother. Yet at the same time he states outright that family, work and studies should come before training. Amen again.

I could fill this blog to the brim with useful and provocative quotes: Lowry has the authority and argument to get away with a whole lot of long overdue home truths. He is at times clearly annoyed by folk who he feels don’t train properly or understand their art as they should, which can make his tone a bit grating at times (unusually for this author, who is capable of sublime prose), but in his defence he is sorely provoked. How many martial arts authors can open a chapter with a line like “You do not have enough stamina”? Or with stating bluntly that karate is not a martial art?

Go, read this, you are guaranteed to learn something.

 

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