The Way to the Martial Arts, by Peter Lewis

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his overview: "The Way to the Martial Arts" is written in England by one Peter Lewis. The book here is printed in 1990, while the first issue is from 1986. Naturally there's no problem that a book such as this has been out for some time - after all we're talking about arts ( at least some) that have existed hundreds of years. The book also states that violence have been here since the dawn of time, something that makes it probable that methods of protection have been around equally long.  In such a perspective I guess a couple of years isn't much to talk about :-)

The various chapters list the following main themes: The Chinese heritage, the popular kung fu styles, karate - Okinawa "hand", the weapon arts of Japan, Japanese unarmed combat systems, the ninja, the Korean martial arts, and finally "a World of martial arts".

This last chapter deals with arts such as Muay Thai (Thailand), Capoeira (Brazil), Kali (the Philippines), Sambo (Russia), Kalaripayit (India) and Savate (France).

Throught the chapters you are shown typical techniques from the different arts, styles and regions, and you will find some of the masters and legends being presented.

For those who have been around for some time (ok, then... a long time), it will be nice to see soke Tsuyoshi Munetoshi Inoye from Hontai Yoshin Ryu being presented here. You may remember that he visited Norway in the 1980's on one of our summer camps. And you may recall having a rather sore throat from being taught 1 (one) strangulation technique for a whole class. But did we learn the technique? Yep. Some will also fondly remember how he did kata with partner involving a razor-sharp, 400 year old katana.

You will also find soke Richard M. Morris, Debbie and other familiar faces from "last century". I may be wrong, but I do believe some of these pictures are taken from the Norwegian summer camp mentioned earlier. If you're interested you may download a sample page here (including pictures - 750 Kb). Use right-click and "save as".

This book does not have the same superb quality as some of the others dealing with the martial arts. Not that it is an inferior book, it just lacks that "wow" factor. "The Way to the Martial Arts" presents lots of information, it is thorough and correct. You can do much worse than getting hold of this book!

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