My two cents on the book, “Daito-ryu Aikibudo: History and Technique” by Antonio Certa – great book.
Now on to other things…….
To Nathan, Buddha said it best. Moderate. Moderate the e-forum and moderate the tone. Yes, you bring much to the discussions, but remember it’s e-budo aikijujutsu forum, not Nathan‘s super right opinions page. (writer’s note: have met Nathan and he is a good guy – there.)
To Giacomo, you guys hit it out of the park. A few quibbles here and there, but Certa sensei and the team (putting the book together and translating) should be proud of themselves! Just tell me there is going to be a second book – please!
So, what is my review?
1. Appearance is excellent, cover and quality of printing is first class. Pictures inside are nice and bright, with a mix of instructional shots (yeah, yeah!) to personal shots of training in Japan.
2. Material in the book is topnotch. A combination of material from the Daitokan newsletters, personal experience, and that valuable commodity – explanation. This volume gives an overview of the curriculum, atmosphere, personalities and history of the Takeda Tokimune branch.
3. Weak point is the translation. A good extensive run through in Word (English) would have smoothed out readability. Live and learn. Still not bad.
Some comments have come out about the book, so this is my rant.
Start off on the translation. Mentioned the use of Word, I even caught an Italian word that had been passed over at the bottom of one page. But consider the task here. Go to Japan, train hard, gather material in a very xenophobic language, translate into Italian this material and then compile and write about it. Take the step farther and translate into English, and publish. Wooah. You guys bit off one hell of a piece, and still hit a homerun. I bet there are some good beer-drinking stories about this enterprise.
To Nathan on the translation, I agree on the readability. On the fine points of kanji, get a life! I am reminded of two tales of wonder and delight. The first is “Canon of Judo” by Mifune which is unbelievably great (the original – which I have and you readers don’t!) I have never seen such a hatchet translation into English in my life. But still a classic.
The second concerns the must have series of “Sword & Spirit” edited by Diane Skoss. She or her husband had written a review (AJ) of Lovret’s “Budo Jiten” and pointed out what were essentially nitpicking things about kanji this and in use it would be this instead of that and so on. Out comes her excellent first volume and soon after on their webpage (I don’t know if it is still there) comes out an extensive list of kanji errors found in the book.
There is a reason Japanese is not the language of the world (besides losing WW II). They have three “alphabets’, need one for foreign words, need one of them to put cheat codes on to know how to pronounce uncommon words, have changed meanings over time, and have dialects making it difficult for even native speakers to understand. (I’ve trained with a guy that was on the mat with O’sensei and said his presentation was as difficult to follow as his new age other worldly philosophy.)
On price of this book. Well, what do you expect? I have dropped some big change on videos, DVD’s and books to get a better idea of Daito-ryu. Come on! It’s a small market for Daito-ryu (talk to Pranin about that) and the laws of economics have something to say here. For what you get – reasonable cost. ‘Nuff said.
On the succession issue and such. For Nathan (the fine TV star), just imagine if someone went and trained with Obata Sensei only in Aikijujutsu and no sword and then said he’d mastered the system, not mentioning or knowing Shinkendo, I think you would raise an eyebrow. Kondo sensei is great on the mat but I have never seen him do Ono-ha Itto-ryu (he may very well know it). From Certa’s account in this book, not only did they do this often, but kept in both original and Takeda Sokaku henka (variations) in the curriculum. Seems pretty extensive and essential there for the art.
Regarding Kondo sensei and succession, the book is actually quite tame. In a perfect world, Takeda Tokimune would have had a big party, Pranin taking photos, and transferred the ryu to one man (or perhaps many). He did not do this due to poor health. We (the e-budo forum guys) were not there and also we should have no particular input either. (But it makes great dish.)
It’s interesting that Nathan comments about how much time Certa trained from Italy but the same rationale doesn’t apply to Kondo who commuted from Tokyo. Or Seishinkan guys who didn’t commute at all.
Having never met Certa Sensei myself, on his skills I cannot comment. But from the book, it seems he had done quite a lot of Aikido before making the leap. Just imagine putting on the white belt, starting a new climb up the mountain where there were remarkable similarities and strange differences to what he’d known before. He had more background in Aikido (whether a weathered down version as some claim or merely a spinoff from Daito-ryu) than Ueshiba had when he began his studies and got his first scroll in record time.
In closing, “Daito-ryu Aikibudo” should be on the shelf of every Aikido and Daito-ryu student if he wished to be fully aware of the art that Takeda Sokaku left. And like Waldo, find that loose Italian word at the bottom of a page.
Scott Harrington
co-author of “Aiki Toolbox: Exploring the Magic of Aikido”