Hirokazu KanazawaKarate Fighting Techniques: The Complete Kumite

The book is obviously great for reviewing that you are doing the kumite correctly and adjust accordingly. However rather than just look at the pictures read the story at the start. The story goes into Sensei Kanazawa's life as a boy, and as a student. It gives a great insight to the respect Sensei Kanazawa had for his mentor Master Gichin Funakoshi. One story in particular as a young student Kanazawa was riding in the back seat behind his mentor Master Funakoshi.... Kanazawa tells you his thoughts, and the pivotal point in Kanazawa's life when Master Funakoshi said "What are you thinking right now?". There are also some great pictures of a young Kanazawa. and if you have ever wanted to know things like where the word "OSS" came from, there is two pages on that as well as many other snippets of information about things you have always wanted to know. I am only 1/3rd of the way through the book, and I am impressed at what I have read so far. This is a great "Keep Sake" book for any budding Shotokan Karate student through to expert, always on our way to Master.

Hirokazu Kanazawa, President of Shotokan Karate-do International Federation, has complied an outstanding book that balances history and tradition with the different forms of kumite. This book is not the normal primer. If one does not know at least the basic punches and kicks, do not get this book as a novice guide to learning karate. Kanazawa's approach assumes the person has these basic techniques down. If you are one of those people, still buy the book only if you plan on learning karate in the future when the opportunity arises.In addition, while this book is primarily a Shotokan text, he does review the major Okinawa/Japanese karate styles, goes over terminology, and a particularly nice paragraph on p. 19 on the "verbal greeting `Oss'" The photos are of high quality, which is important in a text that demonstrates many sparring steps via pictures. The explanations are thorough enough to get the point a cross, but not unnecessarily tiresome and too detailed to loose the reader or make the book overly cumbersome.A nice companion martial texts to a martial artist's library.

You can get a lot a knowledge from this book.

It's Kanazawa Senior. One of the legends of Karate. Very comprehensive and a great addition to my karate library.

This book is a primer, nothing short of it - it provides excellent detail about Kihon-Ippon kumite, Sanbon kumite, Jiyu-ippon kumite, etc - all standard parts of the SKI training program! Additionally, there's a lot of guidance about how to prepare yourself for tournament or match kumite, via several examples of actual attacks and defence/counter-attack steps. The best book on the subject, IMO!One drawback I found was - I regularly study Soke Kanazawa's Kata book in detail, and I found that that book was much more rigourous about naming each step (the stance, the attack/block, etc) - in this book, some of the steps remain un-named, so you wonder, for example, in Sanbon Kumite 3, whether the stance is a Kokutsu or a Zenkutsu, and need to rely on the photograph to draw your conclusion. However, the book is very detailed in its photographs of each and every step, with several supplementary photographs to show different angles of the same step - so no complaints!

Clear concise step by step explanation Witt outstanding photography. A must have for any student or instructor of Shotokan

A must have by Kanazawa.A good companion to any karteka who's working with a competent instructor.

Excellent as guide document for instructors and practitioners.