New Judo Only Website

[MarkF]

http://www.bestjudo.com

This is the latest website put up by Ben Holmes, a too infrequent poster here.

This website is intended for people all ready familar with judo, but he has some fifty judo clubs and sites registered on his list, such as Encino Judo Clubs.

Ben had originally posted this board for book reveiws on some of the better judo books, but there is also a discussion board there.

Anyway, I thought I would post it to see what y'all yhink of it.

Mark

[Ben_Holmes]

Thanks for the advertisement!! (How much do I owe you?)

I've got a fairly large collection of Judo books, and I've often thought of how nice it would be to have someone's opinion before shelling out $20 for a book. So I just put up a review of a bunch of books. I hope to keep the site targeted to a small niche market, I'll never be competing with http://www.judoinfo.com, so why try? (And Neil has a vicious Taiotoshi, why provoke him?)

And, like everyone else, I enjoy the opportunity to have a place to spout all my own particular nonsense, so be sure to look through the articles I've written.

As with all novice HTML-coders, I've played around with frames, and I'm going to spend the next few days changing my site back to something that can be linked to... any comments welcome!

[kusanku]

Looks good, Ben. Many thanks for the trouble of putting that up.

Regards

[MarkF]

Hi, Ben,
Well, I thought by sending me the link you were groveling so I put it up.:) So far, it appears to be nice, book reviews is a good idea and if not all ready set up, it may be a good idea to post others' comments on certain books. You will probably get them anyway from the guest book, but perhaps a separate section on the message board for this particular purpose?

Other than the frames, I liked the site enough to go back.:D

Mark

BTW: Judoka and friends, while not being off the board, so to speak, with critiques of Ben's website, I think that would help also.

BTW: Ben, since you put the site through a verification, there is a forum on E-budo you could have it checked. The moderator works for IBM and seems to know his stuff pretty well, and is helpful with critiques. You can just post it there with a message saying the purpose of posting as in "please go here and tell me what you think." You may get some more input from others, as well.

[Ben_Holmes]

For the publicity you're giving me, I'll grovel, Mark!! :moon: (Bowing is groveling... isn't it? :) )

I couldn't figure out any way that I liked of having others review books (and merge into the site), so that's the reason for the discussion area. I'm hoping people will use it for that, since my whole site revolves around Judo books!

And, in haste to comply with your dislike of frames, the site (100 pages or so) have been completely redone without frames.

And I welcome all the helpful critiques I can get, just don't hurt me when you look at the html, I'm learning as I go!

[MarkF]

Don't worry, Ben. I went ahead and started your first flame thread.

Gotta get in shape if you are going to compete.:)

As long as you get the credit, can I use some of the photos, pretty please?

Mark

[Ben_Holmes]

"As long as you get the credit, can I use some of the photos, pretty please? "

Absolutely!! What better way to pick up a few more people to view my site than for them to see something unusual coming from there! Snag anything you want!

Perhaps I should put up a page of just interesting photos from some of the older books. I don't think there would be any copyright problems, it would be a fair use as long as I reference where they all come from.

[MarkF]

I know where some come from, but a page devoted to photos is not a bad idea.

Anything we use here is another link to your website.

Mark

[Ben_Holmes]

I started to scan some in last night... look for a "photos" page by this weekend. Probably a commented article type, (another opportunity to spout off! :D ) but you'll be able to link or swipe to your heart's content! As long as a few people wander back to see the review of the book the photos came out of, we all win!

[Scanderson]

Thumbs Up to the "Best Judo" Site by Mr. Holmes. I have read several of the Books at the Best Judo site (at least the ones I can afford or borrow) and find his reviews honest, well informed and indepth. Brutally honest, with no breaks to authors that he studied with....

I only wish I had access to his library!

Best regards.

Stephen C. Anderson

[Joseph Svinth]

Not to take anything away from Ben's reviews, another very nice judo book review website is Kim Sol's, at http://www.bstkd.com .

Ben --

IMO, you were much too kind to Dennis Helm. Two stars? Zero would be closer to the truth. Be that as it may, for two dollars less at full retail, you can find Helm's entire text, typos and all, in Corcoran and Farkas, "The Original Martial Arts Encyclopedia: Traditions, History, People." Since the latter also includes lots of great pix, I believe that it represents a much better buy.

[MarkF]

Regarding texts, the most popular ones have tons of pictures. Those whose lips move while reading love lots and lots of pictures and photos.:D

Mark

PS: My nephew is nine years old now and has stopped "speaking" his books.:)

[Ben_Holmes]

Stephen: I couldn't have BOUGHT a review as good as that one... I just hope my site will live up to it!

Joseph... If I'd had that Corcoran & Farkas book handy, my rating might have gone down... I'll look out for that book. But two stars is a pretty low rating anyway. Take a look at the reviews by rating, .... hmmm... perhaps I should move 7 Kata's by Kawaishi up, that book doesn't belong with the others... oh well, perhaps I'll 'tweak' the ratings a tad. Thanks for your comments!

Mark, added another page filled with photos. You can link either to the article, or directly to any photo you like. The thumbnails have a "t-" in front of the name of the larger photo. Here's an interesting Osotogari, for example:

<img src="http://www.bestjudo.com/t-osotogari1.jpg">

By the way, thanks for your tip about the website help found right here on e-budo, turned out to be the best place and most useful place I've been to yet!

[MarkF]

I remember going through books such as Uyenshi's jiu jitsu book, and thought the pants was, well, cute.

In this photo, are they wearing any at all?



When I was a kid, I posed for photos and the more times we did it, the worse they got. The ones printed were really bad, as by that time we were getting just a bit slap happy from all those throws (about one-hundred). In fact, the photographer put three together which were supposed to appear as though we were in motion, but he never noticed that we were doing a different throw in the middle picture.

In the end, that is just how they came out.:)
*****

Thanks, Ben, for allowing access to the pictures from your website. If I had one, I'd reciprocate and put a link to it, but I am way out of the loop when it comes to building anything more than a playground right now.

Mark