The other day I got copies of Patrick McCarthy's new books "Ancient Okinawan martial arts" volumes 1 and 2. Both are fresh on the market and some of you may not have seen them yet. I would like to give you a short review of both of these books.

Volume 1 is a translation of Taira Shinken's Ryukyu Kobudo Taikan: an Encyclopedia of Ancient Ryukyuan Martial Arts". This book covers several Kobudo Kata.

Bo-jutsu of Shushi (Dai)
Sai-jutsu of Hamahiga
Tuifa-jutsu of Hamahiga
Bo-jutsu of Sueyoshi
Basic kata of Nunchaku Jutsu

There's a brief section at the in the book that gives some very good insights on the life of Taira Shinken.

For the serious student of Kobudo this book should be in your collection. If in your system of martial arts Kobudo is not an important portion of your training this book would give you a very good look at four important weapons of Kobudo. The photographs, although small, are quite clear to the reader. As this is a translation of an older book, it would have been nice to have included the original photographs or drawings.

The second volume is an extremely interesting book. It's one of those books that when you pick it up you just don't want to put it down. In fact I stayed up late last night to finish reading both books. These two books, I hate to say, set standards by which future publications will be judged. The book was well-written and obviously well researched. Patrick McCarthy and his wife did an excellent job on this book. This book covers translations from Japanese a number of important texts by Chojun Miyagi, Kenwa Mabuni, and others. To keep this review short I will not go into great detail about the material covered. However, I will say a great deal material was covered was a "good read". There were some 'tidbits' of information that I jotted down for future reference.

This is one of those books that anyone who practices martial arts, of any kind, should have in their library. One other really good thing is you get a very good book for only $14.95 :-) Its good value for dollar spent as far as I am concerned, well worth the money.

I believe Patrick used the quote from Isaac Newton when he said "we can see further, because we are standing on the shoulders of giants". These books will indeed put you on those shoulders.

Good job Patrick!

Professor Rick Clark, 8th Dan, is a well-renowned Pressure Points expert and founder of the Ao Denkou Kai. He holds seminar tours twice yearly in the UK. For further details of these seminars please contact the editor