My Reading List

I believe that true training is both physical and mental and I could always use some new advice so I ordered some books from Amazon a few days ago. Since I haven't started them, we'll call it the reading list. I'll review the books when I finish them.

One, recommended by Black Belt Mama (one awesome butt-kicking woman, I can assure you) is Living The Martial Way: A Manual for the Way a Modern Warrior Should Think by Forrest E. Morgan. She mentioned it as a result of a discussion we had on Kata/Poomse/Forms on her blog - it was so timely I de-lurked to tell her so! Well, this book is first on my list just as soon as I can pry it from the Sarge. I think he likes it.

Ultimate Fitness Through Martial Arts is another of my purchases. After a quick glance through, this one will wait until I've progressed a bit further in my physical conditioning. Over the long-term, however, I expect this to be useful.

Tae Kwon Do: The State of the Art is a nice reference guide for TKD fundamentals. It will be handy as I begin the boys' training. I never learned the Korean words for things so it will be fun to learn them together. It will also be nice to study the history of the art as well.

Official Tae Kwon Do Training Manual disappoints me. It goes into USTF forms in great detail but my forms are of the ITF variety. I will re-read and see if there is anything of use here.

Of course, no brush up on Martial Arts knowledge would be complete without
A Book of Five Rings
The Art of War
The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master

Am I missing anything?

I also recommend visiting Century's website occasionally looking for videos on sale. Our class is weak on weapons so I have to teach myself. I've gotten Eskrima, Arnis, Sword, Sword and Dagger, and Tonfa videos for as little as five bucks. Well worth it. I love when the student (me) can become somewhat of a master and share what the videos have taught me with my teachers. I tend to focus on single- and double-stick stuff, but I do like the sword as well. That is one weapon I would try to pay money to learn (remembering of course that I have no money).

Now its your turn, my as-yet-unknown readers. What books and videos do you recommend? What motivates you when your resolve is low? Show me the way and I will follow!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't miss "Journey with the Grandmaster" by William Hayes. If you search him online you can find an order form that you send directly to the author.

"Zen in the Martial Arts" by Joe Hyams is also pretty good.

Have you read "Karate Do: My way of Life" by Gilchin Funakoshi. That's another one that can't be missed.

Lisa said...

I thank you Black Belt Mama and Amazon.com thanks you too! Great suggestions. I think I may have had the Zen in the Martial Arts book once upon a time but I can't find it! So I'm ordering another copy and if I find the first, I will share it with another martial artist I know.