Quality judo books

I have read a number of times that many Western judo books are regurgitations of previous books, perpetuating concepts at odds to the Japanese teachings. That said, are there any books in English that are better than the rest? What would your must-have library look like?

DougNZ wrote:I have read a number of times that many Western judo books are regurgitations of previous books, perpetuating concepts at odds to the Japanese teachings.  That said, are there any books in English that are better than the rest?  What would your must-have library look like?

The books by Kudô, Okano, Kashiwazaki, Mifune, TPL, Draeger, and in terms of technique, those from the Ippon series.

Also note that as common in science, over the past two decades a vast body of authoritative information on judo has not been presented in the form of articles rather than books.

I had a clear out of books and sold them on ebay a few years ago but kept a couple, one I love I picked up in a second hand book shop back in the eighties. Japanese Judo champions by claude thibault there methods and techniques seen many books over the years but this one I love, not sure what its worth or if its ever been reprinted but its one to own IMO. Anyone else got it?

Cichorei Kano wrote:

DougNZ wrote:I have read a number of times that many Western judo books are regurgitations of previous books, perpetuating concepts at odds to the Japanese teachings.  That said, are there any books in English that are better than the rest?  What would your must-have library look like?

The books by Kudô, Okano, Kashiwazaki, Mifune, TPL, Draeger, and in terms of technique, those from the Ippon series.

Thanks, CK.  Sorry, I should have been more specific; I meant books dealing primarily with throwing technique.

Cichorei Kano wrote:
Also note that as common in science, over the past two decades a vast body of authoritative information on judo has not been presented in the form of articles rather than books.

Just checking; to clarify, did you mean to say information has recently been presented in articles or books (not sure if you meant to include 'not', above)?

In a recent scholarly article on ashi waza, Kawaishi was used as a leading literary source; do you rate his My method of judo?

DougNZ wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:

DougNZ wrote:I have read a number of times that many Western judo books are regurgitations of previous books, perpetuating concepts at odds to the Japanese teachings.  That said, are there any books in English that are better than the rest?  What would your must-have library look like?

The books by Kudô, Okano, Kashiwazaki, Mifune, TPL, Draeger, and in terms of technique, those from the Ippon series.

Thanks, CK.  Sorry, I should have been more specific; I meant books dealing primarily with throwing technique.

The books by Kudo and by Okano consist of two volumes; one of those volumes is about throws. Kashiwazaki's contains both excellent throwing and newaza, TPL's books are mostly about kata, but there is also one with Watanabe-sensei I believe that is on one or two specific throws. Each book in the ippon series focuses on one throw.

DougNZ wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:;]
Also note that as common in science, over the past two decades a vast body of authoritative information on judo has not been presented in the form of articles rather than books.

Just checking; to clarify, did you mean to say information has recently been presented in articles or books (not sure if you meant to include 'not', above)?

In a recent scholarly article on ashi waza, Kawaishi was used as a leading literary source; do you rate his My method of judo?

In science, books are usually considered somewhat outdated as the publishing process takes way too long. Secondly, any idiot can write in a book what he wants, which is exactly what happens in judo. Judo books, just explode with errors. In articles though (I mean, articles in scholarly journals, not in magazines or newspapers), there are anonymous peer-reviewers who have to read and critique the work first, there are ethical standards, scientific standards. The process is not perfect, but certainly eliminates a lot more nonsense.  In a book, people who are clueless about judo can claim whatever they want, and the publisher who usually knows even less, will simply publish. Since many book authors are not scholars, they do not have the natural tendency to submit their work to other scholars for scrutiny. Before you were a forum member, on the old forum, we had an incident where plans were announced to publish a book on Busen judo. We were asked if we knew about sources. Some of us expressed our surprise in a sense that if one still had to ask for some sources, then how could one have written a book. We then asked what kind of sources had been used since, and in the end it turned out that not a single relevant or authoritative Japanese source was used. This was no surprise knowing how difficult these are to get a hold of. When I published some excerpts from such sources, they quickly showed that some of the authors' claims were complete nonsense. However, instead of embracing help or scrutiny we were met with a very defensive attitude and it was made clear soon that authors were far more concerned with publishing a book - no matter how nonsensical - than with publishing remotely correct historic and factual information. It is that which is indeed possible, especially, when you publish in-house (like the Kodokan does) or with a nonacademic publisher. With scholarly journals such excesses are simply not possible caveat some major flaw in the system.

Kawaishi IS a leading sources, for historic reasons, as are most historic books. That is different from the information contained therein necessarily being correct. There are some very serious errors in there, but it is still a major source in a sense that he might have been the first or one of the first to publish about that in a Western language. Let's say you want to write about leg lock or neck locks in judo. No way you can get around Kawaishi, at least if your article also has a historic perspective.

However, about the book, I have had conversations with Professor Brousse who knows many details about how the book was produced. It is obvious that Kawaishi did not write that text himself the way it was published. It would have been a surprise for any Japanese to write in flawless French in those days. I would need to consult the details of precisely how the book developed and was published, but there must have no doubt been considerable language confusion. The book also dated from a time it needed to compete with the stuff Yves Klein was doing and who was threatening Kawaishi's hegemony, having studied at the Kodokan and being in the process of obtaining a rank as high as Kodokan 4th dan, an exceptional thing for a Westerner in those days.

Yes, you are right. I made a typo in my sentence. The 'not' was redundant. It should have read:

"over the past two decades a vast body of authoritative information on judo has not been presented in the form of articles rather than books."

Cichorei Kano wrote:However, about the book, I have had conversations with Mr. Brousse who knows many details about how the book was produced. It is obvious that Kawaishi did not write that text himself the way it was published. It would have been a surprise for any Japanese to write in flawless French in those days. I would need to consult the details of precisely how the book developed and was published, but there must have no doubt been considerable language confusion.

More details (from Brousse's book) here :
http://books.google.be/books?id=iu8WIAFFwTgC&lpg=PA218&ots=0p9LR9AsRs&dq=%22Jean%20Gailhat%22&hl=fr&pg=PA218#v=onepage&q=%22Jean%20Gailhat%22&f=false
 

Jihef wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:However, about the book, I have had conversations with Mr. Brousse who knows many details about how the book was produced. It is obvious that Kawaishi did not write that text himself the way it was published. It would have been a surprise for any Japanese to write in flawless French in those days. I would need to consult the details of precisely how the book developed and was published, but there must have no doubt been considerable language confusion.

More details (from Brousse's book) here :

http://books.google.be/books?id=iu8WIAFFwTgC&lpg=PA218&ots=0p9LR9AsRs&dq=%22Jean%20Gailhat%22&hl=fr&pg=PA218#v=onepage&q=%22Jean%20Gailhat%22&f=false
 

Thanks for that, Jihef !

By the way, I made another typo. I was thinking "Michel Brousse", but instead wrote "Mr. Brousse", which evidently should have been "Professor Brousse".

I recently contacted Kodansha USA Inc. and was advised that they intend to republish Toshiro Daigo's book " Kodokan Judo Throwing Techniques ".
An exact date has not been set but it should be available early next year ( 2016 ).
The price will be around $ 27.00

Cichorei Kano wrote:

DougNZ wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:

DougNZ wrote:I have read a number of times that many Western judo books are regurgitations of previous books, perpetuating concepts at odds to the Japanese teachings.  That said, are there any books in English that are better than the rest?  What would your must-have library look like?

The books by Kudô, Okano, Kashiwazaki, Mifune, TPL, Draeger, and in terms of technique, those from the Ippon series.

Thanks, CK.  Sorry, I should have been more specific; I meant books dealing primarily with throwing technique.

The books by Kudo and by Okano consist of two volumes; one of those volumes is about throws. Kashiwazaki's contains both excellent throwing and newaza, TPL's books are mostly about kata, but there is also one with Watanabe-sensei I believe that is on one or two specific throws. Each book in the ippon series focuses on one throw.

DougNZ wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:;]
Also note that as common in science, over the past two decades a vast body of authoritative information on judo has not been presented in the form of articles rather than books.

Just checking; to clarify, did you mean to say information has recently been presented in articles or books (not sure if you meant to include 'not', above)?

In a recent scholarly article on ashi waza, Kawaishi was used as a leading literary source; do you rate his My method of judo?

In science, books are usually considered somewhat outdated as the publishing process takes way too long. Secondly, any idiot can write in a book what he wants, which is exactly what happens in judo. Judo books, just explode with errors. In articles though (I mean, articles in scholarly journals, not in magazines or newspapers), there are anonymous peer-reviewers who have to read and critique the work first, there are ethical standards, scientific standards. The process is not perfect, but certainly eliminates a lot more nonsense.  In a book, people who are clueless about judo can claim whatever they want, and the publisher who usually knows even less, will simply publish. Since many book authors are not scholars, they do not have the natural tendency to submit their work to other scholars for scrutiny. Before you were a forum member, on the old forum, we had an incident where plans were announced to publish a book on Busen judo. We were asked if we knew about sources. Some of us expressed our surprise in a sense that if one still had to ask for some sources, then how could one have written a book. We then asked what kind of sources had been used since, and in the end it turned out that not a single relevant or authoritative Japanese source was used. This was no surprise knowing how difficult these are to get a hold of. When I published some excerpts from such sources, they quickly showed that some of the authors' claims were complete nonsense. However, instead of embracing help or scrutiny we were met with a very defensive attitude and it was made clear soon that authors were far more concerned with publishing a book - no matter how nonsensical - than with publishing remotely correct historic and factual information. It is that which is indeed possible, especially, when you publish in-house (like the Kodokan does) or with a nonacademic publisher. With scholarly journals such excesses are simply not possible caveat some major flaw in the system.

.........

That's pretty much a crock, CK, and you know it. The difficulty is in finding real scholarly journals, which, guess what, typically aren't available for free over the internet. There are multiple pseudo-academic 'scholarly journals' that publish author-subsidized tripe; there are more than a couple now publishing pseudo-academic articles on martial arts, including judo. Perhaps they check for format, compliance with reference standards, etc, but the content wouldn't stand real peer review. They are the modern academic equivalent of vanity presses. You know people that use them to post papers on judo, I am sure.

Yes, it's funny how people claim to write scholarly papers, even pseudo 'peer reviewed academic papers' yet respond with fury and even threats of lawsuits when faced with reality. Not very much in the spirit of scholarship, is that?

Just recently this happened on this very forum, I am told, and certainly entire threads were deleted, but there are a million places on the web where truth - and evidence of lies, multiple lies - can be freely posted.