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Places to Go
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Here are my references, sources, related web sites, and good reads
for the karate and kobudo section of my web site.
The primary source of historical information for my karate pages is from these books written or translated by sensei Ernest Estrada, Ph.D. (Asian studies):
Another significant source is from the book, Karate's History and Traditions, by Bruce A. Haines. This excellent book traces the history of karate all the way back to the origin of all Asian martial arts. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic. The book, Okinawan Karate: Teachers, Styles and Secret Techniques, by Mark Bishop was also instrumental. This is a very useful book for tracing the lineage of many of the Okinawan martial arts, as long as you take some of the stories told about early karate masters with a grain of salt. Gichin Funakoshi's autobiography, Karate-Do, My Way of Life was an interesting read, and contributed to this web site. Patrick McCarthy's translation and commentary of the Bubishi called, The Bible of Karate: Bubishi also has very useful information of both historical and technical natures, and was used as a source for this web site. Shoshin Nagamine's Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters (translated by his student, Patrick McCarthy) is a great read for any serious karateka, or anyone simply interested in the history and personalities of karate as told from a true karate master. This book was also used as a source of information for my website. The two volumes of Ancient Okinawan Martial Arts by Koryu Uchinadi (compiled and translated by Patrick McCarthy) were also excellent books that influenced the content of this website. Another source for the karate and kobudo history pages is the book, Zen Kobudo, Mysteries of Okinawan Weaponry and Te. Unfortunately, this book has far too much emphasis on Zen and too little on Kobudo (and it's history) for my tastes and purposes. An excellent book about karate is Advanced Karate-Do, by Elmar T. Schmeisser, Ph.D. It's aimed at black belts, but Dr. Schmeisser states that brown belts (intermediate students) can benefit from the reading of this book. I agree wholeheartedly. He hits the nail on the head for me several times, explaining things that I've noticed in my practice of the art, and wondered about. Bits of information that may influence the content of my karate pages have also been obtained from articles found in the karate magazine, Dragon Times, and the Journal of Asian Martial Arts. Dragon Times is an excellent magazine for people interested in karate who want good information, rather than stupid, glitzy fluff found in many other martial arts magazines. The JAMA is an impeccable source of martial arts information. A very good book to lean more about karate history, and with some very different information than what you find in most books is Shotokan's Secret: The Hidden Truth Behind Karate's Origins by Bruce D. Clayton, Ph.D. I highly recommend this book.
More books will be added to this list as I have time to
research the topic.
Of course, another source of information for this site are all of the
instructors I've had, and I wish to thank them for not only teaching
me karate, but also passing along knowledge.
Finally, I gathered much information from many other web sites around
the world (some of the sites I used no longer exist). |