Here’s the official carnival link: Carnival of Martial Arts #6 Great Books

My comments on this month’s carnival:

First, John Vesia’s review of Martial Arts Madness on his Martial Views blog caught my eye. Martial Arts Madness is a book which I had bought some time ago and never read after cracking it open and seeing what Morris was about. Glenn Morris passed away in 2006, so I’ll temper my comments, but suffice it to say he was pretty far out there with his talk of qi, psychic powers, etc., and that’s not really my thing.

OTOH, John points out that even if you don’t agree with it, Morris is an entertaining writer, and his book contains chapters like "The Jean-Claude-Killing-Machine Syndrome" and "Martial Master as Sex Stud" that do sound pretty interesting, so maybe I’ll give it a second chance.

In the same vein, Patrick Parker at Mokuren Dojo always has something interesting of his own to say, so I read his post discussing Richard Strozzi-Heckler’s Warrior Spirit. Looks like Dave at AikiThoughts reviewed the same book, along with Angry White Pyjamas. Warrior Spirit was yet another one I picked up based on some random recommendation and quickly realized that it was not going to be for me. Pat and Dave both hit a number of points, and both reinforce my conviction that I won’t be reading it unless it becomes relevant to some article I end up writing.

I better stop there while there’s still plenty left in the carnival for you to discover on your own. To see the rest, check out Black Belt Mama’s site. Also, don’t forget to submit an entry for next month’s carnival. It will be hosted by me and the theme is going to be "Spread the Love." Well, the title will actually be something that sounds less potentially pornographic, but the idea is that I would like everyone to tell their readers about a martial blog or three that they read and enjoy, especially if it’s someone we don’t normally see in the Carnival.

Lastly, as for my personal recommendations, I’m interested in the whole spectrum of martial arts and I find myself going back to these three works most often (click on the covers for more info and ordering):

Martial Arts in the Modern World (edited by Green & Svinth). This is a collection of well-researched essays that discuss the transmission of martial arts from the countries of origin to where they are practiced today. For example, it covers Taekwondo’s origins in Korea and its transplant to the U.S.; how judo proceeded to South America, became Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, then traveled to the U.S. with mixed martial arts; how African martial arts were carried through the Diaspora, and plenty of other topics. Highly recommended.

Martial Arts of the World: an Encyclopedia. Warning! This two volume set is insanely expensive. On the other hand, this and the encyclopedia listed below are the only martial arts encyclopedias worth a damn. If you have money to blow, pick it up, otherwise pester your library until they buy a copy. This is without a doubt the single best serious resource covering martial arts across the globe.

The Original Martial Arts Encyclopedia (Corcoran & Farkas). This is an oldie but goodie. Some of the info is dated, but it is still the best source for the introduction of martial arts, particularly karate, to the U.S. over the last 40 years. Best part about it is you can usually get it for a song.

Go check it out at Mokuren Dojo where Pat was kind enough to host it this month. He did a special theme issue on “Warriors of Peace and Justice” and received a nice response.

There are many quality posts, but here are a few that caught my eye:

Patrick Parker included an older Nonviolent self defense that matched this month’s theme. I love the photo he links to, check it out!

Chris also hopped into the wayback machine to post his thoughts on Conflict Resolution: A Casualty of Non-Violent Martial Arts. Pretty amusing in that he immediately takes a shot at any art that doesn’t free spar as being “inadvertently harmless.” I found myself nodding my head in agreement at first, but then I began to think of exceptions, such as some forms of silat, combatives, etc.

Dave Shevitz posted on Jury Duty and Ki Tests, which I thought was an interesting look into the deliberation room through an aiki filter.

I found some common ground with Eric Frey this time after reading his How to Spot a Punch Coming a Mile Away post. I once had an excellent boxe-francaise instructor that I finally had to agree to disagree with because I simply refused to focus on my opponent eyes when kickboxing.

The next Carnival (#6) will be hosted by Black Belt Mama so be sure and get your submittal in by February 23. Submit your post here.

Just as exciting, the next edition (#5) will be hosted by Pat Parker over at Mokuren Dojo. Pat has chosen a theme for edition 5, which is “Warriors for peace and justice” to coincide with MLK day. So be sure to submit a post by January 19, 2008.

Go ahead and check them all out, but I wanted to single out a few of the submissions and add a couple comments:

Eric Frey wrote Why Head Kicks Are A Really Bad Idea For 90% Of Fighters and Do Martial Arts Really Work?. It took me a bit to figure out where he was coming from on the first one. I mean, I appreciate the general principle, but I think I come at it from a different approach. His reasoning is more that most martial artists can’t capably kick hard that high, which I don’t know that I agree with. I had to look around on his site to figure out that he is a kenpo karate guy. My approach is more from the Muay Thai side, so I suspect that we may be picturing different things when discussing high kicks. My problem is more with the environment and opportunity than that I think it couldn’t happen or couldn’t be effective.

The second post was (generally) not applicable to the places I’ve trained, so I think I’ll chalk it up to different training experiences. I did happen to catch his Stand up Martial Arts vs. Grappling Arts post, which I almost completely disagreed with, but I’ll save that for a post of my own. Sometimes reading stuff you disagree with is more fun than the usual preaching to the choir, though, so give his site a look.

Bob Patterson posted some thoughts about Women in the Martial Arts. I see where Bob’s coming from and agree with much he says with exception to his last point. At the same weight, I’d put someone like Lucia Rijkers up against any untrained man, and against almost all trained men including most professional male fighters in boxing and kickboxing.

One Punch KO at Ultimate MMA Videos posted his New Top 5 Pound for Pound Rankings. I generally find these sort of things ho-hum. I’m glad I checked this out, though, because I liked some of the discussion, especially for Fedor Emelianenko. That led me to checking out the Fedor-Crocop documentary and the 2005 fight between them, and some Urijah Faber fights just because he’s been tearing it up lately. For the last year or so I haven’t had cable, so I have not been following professional MMA much lately. And I never watched many Pride fights just because they were never as accessible as the UFC. I’m definitely bookmarking this site and getting caught up.

I will link to it here when it is posted, but we are looking at a December 15 submission deadline and a December 17 carnival posting date. Don’t forget, readers can nominate posts they’ve read and enjoyed as well; you don’t have to be a blogger to participate!

I think this is a great step forward for the carnival and I hope other bloggers will also consider guest-hosting. It’s a win-win situation for all our participating bloggers and their readers because it allows readers to take a quick look at the best posts of the month in the martial blogosphere.

Remember, though, if you submit a post, you need to link to the carnival when it is posted because that’s the only way this thing really works. So go ahead and

Submit posts to the next edition of the Carnival of Martial Arts.

You can also check out past editions of the Carnival of Martial Arts via the submission link above or by clicking on the “Carnival of Martial Arts” tag below.

Welcome to the October 1, 2007 edition of carnival of martial arts.

Patrick Parker presents Mokuren Dojo: Fences, hard challenges, and strategy confusion posted at Mokuren Dojo.

Renli presents Review of Chen Xin’s Book (Part 2) posted at 仁力的網頁, saying, “A review of the most sought after Tai Chi book, ever, recently translated into english.”

Black Belt Mama presents Black Belt Mama: Nunchaku, you are DEAD to me posted at Black Belt Mama.

Joel Samildanach presents Book Review: Arnis Self-Defense: Stick, Blade, and Empty-Hand Combat Techniques of the Philippines « Lone Mage posted at Lone Mage, saying, “This is a book review I did a while back. The book is still relatively new in the market and still relevant, so the review isn’t too dated (I hope!)”

Adam presents 10 Greatest Martial Arts Movies of All Time posted at Experience Martial Arts, saying, “A list of 10 top Martial Arts Movies”

And, because I’m the current host and poor grammarian, I present someone else’s article, namely Joe Svinth’s somewhat oddball piece on Turkish Oil Wrestling in Algiers posted at Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences, saying, “what an interesting piece!” It’s early accounts of the practice of Turkish Oil Wrestling, a traditional albeit homoerotic practice wherein guys wearing nothing but thick black leather pants coat themselves in oil and wrestle. Due to the difficulty of gaining purchase on the oiled skin, common maneuvers include digging into your opponent’s trousers for a handhold on the genitals or hooking a finger into the anus for leverage. For a relatively family-friendly view of the sport, check out the 1964 film Topkapi for the authentic Turkish oil wrestling clips.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of martial arts using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.Technorati tags: carnival of martial arts, blog carnival.

Welcome to the September 1, 2007 edition of the Carnival of Martial Arts. I’ve been pressed this month and haven’t been able to beg, borrow, or steal as much content for this edition as last month, but hopefully that will turn around next month. I give you our contributors:

Patrick Parker presents Mokuren Dojo: The best self-defense skill there is posted at Mokuren Dojo.

Jimson Lee presents The History of Capoeira - Brazilian Martial Art posted at Speedendurance.com, saying, “A good read on The History of Axe Capoeira, better known as Brazilian Martial Art (with photos).”

Chris presents What Every Martial Artist Should Know About Chi and TCM posted at Martial Development.

baiguai presents Weather’s Affect on Training posted at Kung Fu Artistry, discussing “Weather and its effects on martial arts training.”

Spencer Burns presents Yachigusa Ryu: Aiki-BULL-do posted at Yachigusa Ryu.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Martial Arts using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

carnival of martial arts, blog carnival.

I am pleased to welcome you to the first edition of the Carnival of Martial Arts. To avoid playing favorites, the submissions below are presented in the order of receipt. (more…)