Secrets of the Samurai, by Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook

his magnificent book: "Secrets of the Samurai" by Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook is considered to be amongst the very best on the subject - if not the definite study of the martial arts of the feudal times in Japan. Ratti and Westbrook has also written the very well known book on aikido: "Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere".

This huge book (close to 500 pages) was printed for the first time in 1973. It is a detailed study of the number of strategies, weapons, techniques and combat tactics that made the classical Japanese warriors (the samurai, or rather bushi) into the feared and respected opponents that they were.

The authors presents the various ryu (schools, traditions or families), how they were structured, the frequent conflicts of the warrior cast of Japan, the development of the combative systems through the history, armed and unarmed systems, moral, ethics, culture and much, much more. You have enough here for countless hours of investigations...

If you want one solid book on the classical martial arts of Japan, then you may very well go for this one here - it is simply great!

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