Book: "Aikido - Tradition and the Competitive Edge", by Shishida / Nariyama

[Nathan Scott]

Hi all,

Per a mention in another thread in this forum, I ordered this book from amazon.com and wanted to let ya'll know that I found it to be a pretty interesting book:

"Aikido - Tradition and the Competitive Edge"
By Fumiaki Shishida and Tetsuro Nariyama
Shodokan Publishing, USA 2001.

This book is basically a translation of an earlier Japanese book (don't know the name, but it was published in 1985 by Taishukan Publishing) written by Fumiaki Shishida - a Waseda University professor. It is a semi-technical book on Shodokan (Tomiki) Aikido, but contains some valuable historical discussions as well. Apparently the author was friends with Hisa Takuma and contacted him, some of his students, and Takeda Tokimune for information about Daito-ryu. As such, there is interesting commentary about Daito-ryu thoughout the book, including a small section on the origins of the term aiki.

Whether you are interested in Aikido or not, many of the Shodokan Aikido techniques are pretty old-style, and the comments on Daito-ryu are worth reading.

Thanks go to e-budo member Peter Rhese, who assisted with this English publication and mentioned it here on the forum. Nice one.

Anyone else have this book that would care to comment?

[don]

I also found it very interesting for the history.

[Chris Li]

Originally posted by Nathan Scott


Anyone else have this book that would care to comment?

I haven't seen the English edition - the Japanese edition is entitled "Aikido Classroom", which I like a lot better, but probably wasn't thought to be exciting enough for the US market. Anyway, it gives a pretty good overview of Aikido from the Shodokan point of view (a little history, a little theory, a little technique, etc.). Great for Shodokan practitioners, or for people looking for some basic information on Shodokan Aikido.

Best,

Chris

[morpheus]

I recently picked this book and have found it to be a great book. INteresting stuff indeed.

Jeff