Edward L. Allen's system of American Jiu-Jitsu

 Do a search on Abebooks!

rom time to time you are fortunate enough to find books where you can see that there is some "life" or "aliveness" to the techniques being used. All too often it is simply a lot of still shots with little or nothing to it.

This book is of the first variety, lots of grat action. The techniques are put on properly, and it is possible to see that the techniques might in fact work in "real encounters" (whatever it is that we may perceive as real - "in reality" is a term that is being misused a lot in self-defense arguments..).

The techniques in the book at hand is performed on a lawn. The defender seems to be Allen himself, a robust gentleman in his fifties (?). He's wearing polished shoes, suite and tie - naturally.. A gentleman will never settle for less! His attacker is sporting a light-colored suit. I wouldn't be too surprised if that one (or those suites) went straight to the the cleaners or to the thrash can after the photo session. This guy hits the dirt pretty hard, and rather often!

First off we are introduced to a few come-along holds. These should absolutely be of interest to police, bouncers, correction officers etc. But as a means of self-defense for you and I...?  The last thing I personally would want to try in a self-defense siutation was to put a come-along hold on someone. A lock or restraint maybe, but this?

Apart from this there are lots of great techniques in the book - stuff that might actually work in a given situation. Each of the methods are shown in a long sequence of shots, with text added to each picture. In addition there are close-ups here and there to further illustrate details. This book is recommended to you, both as a historical manual, as well as for it's methods and the way they are presented.

Anyone about to publish a tutorial or manual on the martial arts, could do a lot worse than to study this book! I would encourage everyone to study closely how the "aliveness" is brought into the pictures, and how that adds a sense of reality and efficiency to the methods being presented. I really do advice you to get a copy of this book! The best place to search is always over at Abebooks. I have also seen this book on E-bay from time to time.

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