Flashing Steel, 25th Anniversary Edition

Author: Masayuki Shimabukuro
Publisher: Blue Snake Books
ISBN: 1623175046
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 593

Book Description
Revised and updated, the classic guide to the techniques, philosophy, and applications of iaijutsu--the art of self-defense with the Japanese sword. The 25th anniversary edition of the best-selling, highly acclaimed classic Flashing Steel introduces updated techniques, drills, and practices for students and practitioners of iaijutsu (or iaido). This complete essential resource on the Japanese sword arts expands on the two previous editions with additional practices, deep attention to foundational elements, and practical techniques--including 55 ways of deploying a samurai sword in self-defense. Expanded and revised, the memorial edition of Flashing Steel includes updates on promotion guidelines, tournaments, extended series of solo quick-draw exercises, and more, plus two added sets of solo techniques and three added sets of partner exercises to develop timing, distance control, angles of attack and defense, mental focus, and attitude. It provides a deep survey of fundamentals like training progression, preparation, etiquette, and proper sword nomenclature. Students will learn realistic defense and attack scenarios with wider applications to martial arts like kendo and aikido, while absorbing the philosophical tenets that inform and infuse the warrior's life with meaning and fulfillment. Organized into 23 chapters with black and white photographs throughout, this anniversary edition also includes an expanded history of iaijutsu, and an updated biography and tribute to the late Masayuki Shimabukuro, with personal anecdotes from the making of Flashing Steel that reveal his life and character.

Flashing Steel, 25th Anniversary Edition

Author: Masayuki Shimabukuro
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1623175038
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Karate as the Art of Killing

Author: Masayuki Shimabukuro
Publisher: Blue Snake Books
ISBN: 1623176611
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
This comprehensive overview of karate connects the dots between its philosophical and spiritual foundations with its original purpose: to kill an attacker swiftly—and brutally. Prior to 1900, karate-dō was exclusively an art of unarmed self-defense. Its practice was designed for life-or-death situations—effectively, an art of killing. Here, authors Leonard Pellman and the late Masayuki Shimabukuro restore karate to its original intent. They move karate away from its popular modern-day sporting applications back to its deadly origins—and to the restraining philosophy of peace, self-sacrifice, compassion, and service to others that necessarily accompanied it. Readers will learn: • The purpose and meaning of karate-dō • The origins and major precepts of bushidō • Training methods, preparation, and etiquette • Fundamentals, spiritual power, training patterns, and analysis and application of kata • How to understand the body as a weapon With chapters on kokoro (heart, mind, and spirit), ki (spirit and energy), and the 7 major precepts of bushidō, The Art of Killing demonstrates how karate is more than a method of bringing an enemy down—it’s a philosophical and spiritual system grounded in essential lessons to guard against abuses of power. Together, the authors showcase how purity of intention matters, and how compassion and respect are the essence of karate training.

Samurai Swordsmanship

Author: Masayuki Shimabukuro
Publisher: Black Belt Books
ISBN: 9780897501996
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Demonstrates and explains the history, construction, sword etiquette, basic targeting and mat cutting using the Samurai sword.

Iaido

Author: William De Lange
Publisher: Weatherhill, Incorporated
ISBN: 9780834805002
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
For over a thousand years the sword has played a crucial role in Japanese society. Even today it remains a ubiquitous and venerated object, whether cherished as a work of art, admired as a feat of technology, or wielded in one of the many schools of fencing that have survived Japan's feudal era. This book not only explains the techniques of that era's most prominent school, it also gives the reader a fascinating insight in the history and martial ethics that underpin the modern day practice of Japanese fencing, an art known to the Japanese as Iaido.

Iaido Sword

Author: Richard W. Babin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781581603774
Category : Iaido
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Iaido is the classical Japanese discipline of drawing and cutting with the long sword in defence of an unanticipated attack, throwing off the blood and returning the sword to its sheath. It is the direct inheritor of techniques perfected by centuries of samurai whose life and honour depended upon their spirit and prowess. Author Richard W Babin brings together all the practical and theoretical information needed to pursue a formal study of the classical Japanese martial art of Iaido. You will learn how to choose a sword, how to cut with it, how to take care of it, how to assume the clothing and how to enter a dojo. He covers not only the basic moves and positions, but the entire curriculum of forms of the muso shinden ryu of iaido. Equally important, he puts the art in its historic and social perspective, helping to clarify for the reader the spiritual pathway that the way of the sword offers.

Flipped

Author: Wendelin Van Draanen
Publisher: Ember
ISBN: 0375825444
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
A classic he-said-she-said romantic comedy! This updated anniversary edition offers story-behind-the-story revelations from author Wendelin Van Draanen. The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. Juli says: “My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss.” He says: “It’s been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort.” But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down: just as Bryce is thinking that there’s maybe more to Juli than meets the eye, she’s thinking that he’s not quite all he seemed. This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny voices. The updated anniversary edition contains 32 pages of extra backmatter: essays from Wendelin Van Draanen on her sources of inspiration, on the making of the movie of Flipped, on why she’ll never write a sequel, and a selection of the amazing fan mail she’s received. Awards and accolades for Flipped: SLJ Top 100 Children’s Novels of all time IRA-CBC Children’s Choice IRA Teacher’s Choice Honor winner, Judy Lopez Memorial Award/WNBA Winner of the California Young Reader Medal “We flipped over this fantastic book, its gutsy girl Juli and its wise, wonderful ending.” — The Chicago Tribune “Van Draanen has another winner in this eighth-grade ‘he-said, she-said’ romance. A fast, funny, egg-cellent winner.” — SLJ, Starred review “With a charismatic leading lady kids will flip over, a compelling dynamic between the two narrators and a resonant ending, this novel is a great deal larger than the sum of its parts.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Author: Frederick Douglass
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Abolitionists
Languages : en
Pages : 628

Book Description
Frederick Douglass recounts early years of abuse, his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves. It is also the only of Douglass's autobiographies to discuss his life during and after the Civil War, including his encounters with American presidents such as Lincoln, Grant, and Garfield.

Freak the Mighty

Author: Rodman Philbrick
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1409591050
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
Max is used to being called Stupid. And he is used to everyone being scared of him. On account of his size and looking like his dad. Kevin is used to being called Dwarf. And he is used to everyone laughing at him. On account of his size and being some cripple kid. But greatness comes in all sizes, and together Max and Kevin become Freak The Mighty and walk high above the world. An inspiring, heartbreaking, multi-award winning international bestseller.

In the Time of the Butterflies

Author: Julia Alvarez
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616200995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, internationally bestselling author and literary icon Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies is "beautiful, heartbreaking and alive ... a lyrical work of historical fiction based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, revolutionary heroes who had opposed and fought against Trujillo." (Concepción de León, New York Times) Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "This Julia Alvarez classic is a must-read for anyone of Latinx descent." —Popsugar.com "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." —People "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." —Los Angeles Times "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —St. Petersburg Times "Alvarez does a remarkable job illustrating the ruinous effect the 30-year dictatorship had on the Dominican Republic and the very real human cost it entailed."—Cosmopolitan.com