On 2010-03-05 Mr. V. Lee, wrote: Nishiyama sensei was 9th Dan black belt when he passed away in recent years. He is Kancho Kanazawa´s senior by the way. One of my university club black belts say his sensei says it was the only time he saw Kancho bow to a sensei regarding as a senior :)
Aside from that, Kancho once was not greeted by the attention and Rei/bow of the students in a club in Cork. Kancho proceeded to have them all sit in seiza and lecture them for the whole two hour seminar on Rei, respect, and reasons for it. What a fun story, one my instructor is fond of from hearing from his senseis.
Back to the book. Can I compare this to Nakayama sensei´s book? Well, they are similar in ways, but also equally inspiring. It covers the basic foundations of karate syllabus, albeit with the energy of a metal cut lean karate-ka in his prime. The Bruce Lee-like body we sometimes associate with Kanazawa´s youth is shown here in Nishiyama´s equal zeal for perfecting the body. Actually a young Kanazawa features in may of the photos :)
Further into the book it covers various kumite techniques from basic, to freestyle, and these are a little different from what I saw in Kancho Kanazawa´s ´Karate Fighting Techniques´ book, which is pretty much the whole SKIF syllabus bar the 25 or 26 Kata. Worth investing in for the variaion.
Some may find it outdated for its references to women for taking karate to ´improve their figures´ but hey, I truly advocate that (add a little blush here and fond memories of getting own butt kicked). Or its small finishing sections in the back on self defense, knife defense, pistol defense, club defense. But hey, that was the way it may have been taught in the days when karate was first big in Japanese Universities.
Any Karate-ka must have this in their collection, if not to be inspired for training, but to aspire to be like them.. And summed up by saying Nishiyama Sensei´s book - classic. Currently Karate the Art of ´Empty-Hand´ Fighting has an overall rating of 10 over 10.
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