In the book “How to Read a Book”1, the authors go through different methods and concepts on how to read different kinds of books. These can range from self-help books, philosophy, history, science to novels, poems and plays.
If you are interested in developing an intellectual life where your pen is a sharp as your sword, I highly recommend that you read and study this book. It will launch you to a marvelous world: the world of books.
Having said that, this book inspired me to take the teachings of this very dense and intense book and apply them to Martials Arts books. Please note that a lot of the information comes from the book itself, so I will not refer directly from the book, you can assume that most of the information, except maybe the Martial Arts bit, are from the book.
Rules for Reading
Let’s first look at the general rules for reading books. The author suggested four general rules when reading any books, although these questions might vary in focus and importance depending on the type of books, these 4 questions can be used:
What is the book about?
What is being said in detail and how?
Is it true?
What is its significance?
So, when reading the book, keep these questions in mind.
Categories
Now, let’s look at the different categories as defined by the authors which are expository books and literary works. As we describe the different categories, we’ll refer back to the rules about and clarify them for each category.
Expository Books
Expository books are convey knowledge to the reader, generally with the intention to teach something new, they can be either theoretical books or practical books.
Theoretical books convey knowledge. One example of such books are scientific books (physics, biology, medicine). They explain the “what” but not usually the “how”. Some good examples of theoretical books are What is KO? – Dr. F’s Fightology by Takuya Futaesaku, Karate Science by J.D. Swanson Ph.D. and Fight like a Physicist by Jason Thalken, PhD. Although they do explain some techniques, the bulk of these books is theoretical, explaining the science behind the martial arts and how certain strikes affect the human body.
Practical books show you how to do something and they also tend to convince you to use the methods shown in the book.
A quick search online and one can detect that most Martial Arts boks fit into this category. These specifically talk about to perform specific techniques. I assume that sharing such information in written form started before the invent of video. The Bubishi being a prime example of such books. More modern titles, such as Non Stop Jiu-Jitsu by Stephan Kesting and Boxing for Self-Defense by Wim Demeere, also fall into that category.
Other examples, such as This is Karate from Mas Oyama, include a bit of history, but since the bulk of the book shows how to perform the different techniques, I’m leaving it as a “how to” book.
The challenge with these books is that there is one important dimension missing: the physical.
Martial Arts techniques need to be performed and experienced physically. An author can explain how to throw a punch or perform a certain choke and if he’s a good writer, he might be able to explain how it feels. However, unless you’ve actually done it, you can’t really understand the technique. To reach mastery of these techniques, one not only needs to know how to perform it but also understand it deeply enough to be able to apply the concepts under different circumstances.
History
History books are a challenge in themselves. As such, history means that it’s the story of the past and with that story, a certain point-of-view is presented.
Although stories can be biased, the historian’s role is to tell the story as accurately as possible and there is one historian who comes to mind who does just that: Patrick McCarthy and he has several amazing history books, all worth a good and deep reading.
Within the category of history books, we also have biographies, which are prolific in Martial Arts, especially autobiographies. Many such books have been written recently about the life of prominent profesional MMA fighters, such as Conor McGregor, Ronda Roussey, Mike Bispin, George St-Pierre, Forrest Griffin, just to name a few.
The challenge with autobiographies is that they are incomplete works, simply because the author (the subject of the biography) is still alive… unless his ghost is writing the book. Because they are incomplete, they tend to be biased in favor of the author.
That being said, there is always something learn from these fighters, at the very least, they are good stories. You can also learn more about their personalities, where they come from, what makes them tick, etc. And if you are a fan, you can feel that much closer to the fighter than before.
At the time of this writing, some of my favorite are:
Karate-do My Way of Life By Gichin Funakoshi. This book was quite enlightening about how Okinawan Karate has transformed into what we know Japanese Karate to be.
The Young Lions by Judd Reid. In this book, Judd shares his time as an uchi deshi of Mas Oyama, mixed in, he also shares his experience as he trains and goes through the 100-man hyaku-nin kumite. It is a good complement to his movie named 100 Man Kumite.
Blue-eyed Samurai by Nicolas Pettas. Nicholas was also an uchi deshi around the same time as Judd Reid. These two books complement each other famously and definitely wrth reading in sequence and together, they paint a very good picture of how it was to train under Sosai Mas Oyama and life as an uchi deshi. An uchi deshi (内弟子) is an “inside student”. It’s a Japanese term for a live-in student/apprentice who trains under and assists a sensei on a full-time basis2. There is another book by Nathan Ligo called One Boy’s Flight to Mas Oyama’s Japan: Uchi Deshi, who was also an ushi deshi but I haven’t read it yet. If you are a kyokushin practitionner, reading the books from these authors is a must.
The Fighter’s Heart and Fighter’s Mind series by Sam Sheridan. These two books are written by a reporter who has no experience in martial arts and decided to train in Muay Thai and tell the story as he trains to fight professionally. I feel this story to be raw and very entertaining. I read Sheridan’s book as well as Reid’s and Pettas’ in preparation for my black belt test and they were extremely useful and getting my mind right for the test.
If you are a kyokushin karate practitioner, another excellent kyokushin book is Budo Karate of Mas Oyama by Cameron Quinn, which is hard to classify, but I’d say it would mostly fit into the next category: philosophy.
Philosophy
Philosophy deals with the big questions in life: who are we? why are we here? That kind of thing. One good example of that is the Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. Although Musashi specifies some techniques and strategies, I feel that his book is really about mindset and requires several reading to get a grasp of what the book tries to convey. As you read the book, you’ll clearly notice that some sentences and expressions do not make too much sense. Many Japanese words and phrases cannot be easily translated because it is linguistically and culturally distinct from English,3 and any other languages for that matter. So, an annotated translation might be a good start for such older books.
I mentioned Quinn’s book earlier and indeed, as a Kyokushin practitionner, I personally feel that understanding the philosophy of my practice and its Founder to be important, albeit not indispensable.
Literary
Next, we have literary works or fiction books. As the word defines it, these are works of literature, such as novels, poems and plays. In the Martial Arts world, I haven’t seen many literary works specific to martials arts in English. I have no doubt there would be plenty tales, legends and stories in Asian languages, but in English, I have seen mostly children books that could be classified as such. Some are for very young children such as The Black Belt ABC by Melissa La Cour and Jiu Jitsu and Me by Robert Wilson. We could also consider the Warrior Book series by Jocko Willink as well since he heavily discusses BJJ in his stories.
There is one though that I really did enjoy called Dragon and Tiger by Kuhn and Henke. I highly recommend it, it is sure to delight not only children, but adults as well.
From my very limited experience, literary works in the Martial Arts tend to be more philosophical, trying to teach lessons as well as entertain and entrain readers into worlds of wonder and magic. One specific story I liked from the book Dragon and Tiger, is the story of Master Cho’s Tiger Academy written by Eric Mbarga (page 111 of the book). In this story, a family moves to a new city for work. This family has 2 daughters, both having difficulty adapting to the situation. The one that had most trouble was Olivia, the youngest of the two. On her way back to school, she discovers a Tae Kwon Do school called Tiger Academy. A discovery that would help her in so many ways.
Literary works could also include movies, however, since this post is about books, we will not elaborate on this kind of media.
I might missing some categories. However, I feel that most books in the Martial Arts fit in the categories above. If I might have missed some, please let me know in the comments section below.
Critical Reading
It is easy, especially nowadays, to criticize other Martial Arts as well as teachers outside your own dogma. However, if you are truly a budoka, then having an humble and open mind is important in order to grow and evolve.
In order to do so, it is important to suspend judgment when when you first start reading a book until you fully understand the book.
To fully understand the book, you need to be actively read in order to:
Determine what the message of the author is. Another way to find the message is to define what is the problem the author is presenting and the proposed solution. As an example, a self-defense book’s problem might be how to defend oneself against one or various attacker. The solution would be the different techniques and strategies they offer in the book.
Understand the terminology and key sentences used. Some examples would be the difference between self-protection and self-defense. Self-protection usually refers to non physical confrontation such as home safety. It is important to understand what these terms mean in order to understand the context in which they are being used.
Once you fully understand the book, you can technically say the following:
I understand but I agree, then there is nothing else no say.
I understand but I do not agree and then follow-up with:
You are uninformed, meaning that the author lacked relevant information.
You are misinformed, in other words, that the book contains incorrect information, as long as its relevant to the main argument and conclusions.
You are illogical, that the statement is inconsistent.
Your analysis is incomplete, meaning that the author has not solved the problems he set out at the beginning of the book.
Saying that you do not like the book is not judgment. It’s an opinion based on emotion and not judgment based on facts.
Let’s go back to our self-defense book example.
If the book does not include information on criminal behavior, then the book could be judged to be incomplete.
What if the book states that criminals like to dance before attacking someone, that information could be judged to be incorrect.
That statement could also be considered to be illogical. How can a criminal be dancing and then attack someone. Criminals tend to attack by surprise.
If the author then shows self-defense techniques that don’t work against a particular attack, then the analysis is incomplete because the author did not solve the problem at hand.
Conclusion
Books are a gateway to our past, they can offer magical words to be lost in or learn in the inner thoughts of an author. The amount of information is limitless and I highly encourage that sharpen your pen by engaging with books.
Suspend your own judgment, allow yourself to dive deep and learn as much as you can from these sources.
References:
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book. Rev. and Updated ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.
“Uchi-Deshi – Wikipedia.” Uchi-Deshi – Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org, 1 Mar. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchi-deshi.
McNulty, A., Satō, E., Goldberg, R., 2018. Japanese stories for language learners: bilingual stories in Japanese and English = Shōto sutōrī de manabu Nihongo, First edition. ed. Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore.
