The essence of a martial art is competition. The spirit and skill of competition is the foundation of our successful daily lives in society in which we are often confronted by aggressors. Thus, we see the essence of martial arts is to cope with these situations. Since any martial art is a means of self-defense against an aggressor and further, a defense against injustice, the competition of martial arts should thus be accompanied with spiritual refinement and a sense of patience.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Hapkido at its finest. Comment: To the very best of my knowledge, without a question, this book is the best work on Hapkido I have had the good fortune to study. But at the outset, I must confess that my black belt rank is in Combat Hapkido, regardless this is well organized, illustrated with good, but black and white pictures. I am exceptionally happy that many of the joint manipulative techniques have the Korean names as well as the English. This is going to help round out the curriculum which I teach.
For younger people, there are some fantastic acrobatic techniques included, and I think that this might appeal to many. But as I am not young, and not as flexible this does not concern me as much. Yet, the sections on self-defense with joint manipulations was fabulous. There were several sections of this material, and the exceptionally logical sequence and pacing is a testament to Kwang--Sik Myung 10th Dan status.
This book is not simply included into my large Martial Arts section of my personal library, more accurately it is now taking "centre stage".
Customer Rating: Summary: Excellent Reference Book Comment: This is a continuation of material covered in his "Ancient Art of Masters". This one is a good sized book with a softbound cover, making it very portable and easy to use, yet covers a lot of material. There is a great depth of detail covering the basic strikes as well as combination and special combination strikes. There is a wealth of material covered for specific self defense situations ranging from wrist grabs to garment grabs to kick defense (and everything in between). Reagrdless of the editorial comments, this is a book about self defense skills, not martial competition.
The photo layouts and such are very clear and well done, making it very easy to reference the material. For students of GM Myung's system, I imagine this is a very handy reference. For martial artists of other Hapkido schools (or other traditions) it presents a grand survey of what Hapkido is from its physical techniques.
Of special interest is that the book is in English and Korean (Hangeul) with the text repeated in each language side by side in columns, making references to Korean words and such very, very easy. For anyone interested in such things, this book is a must-have (most books either are all Korean or all English w/ romanized Korean).
The only complaint I have is that the history section was not updated (and corrected) since the previous book. As a "newer" book, it would have been a good time to fix this. But don't let that prevent you from buying this book. This book, along with "Anceint Art of Masters" and Dr. Kimm's "Hapkido I" would make for an excellent reference library for Hapkido enthusiasts.
