# A Quick Review of Karate: The Complete Kata



## dancingalone (Apr 26, 2010)

by Hirokazu Kanazawa.  

I picked up a copy at my local Borders last Saturday.  I do not practice Shotokan karate but I generally buy any martial arts book published if only to support the industry.  Most MA books are poorly executed with bad photos and uninspired content.

I am pleased to give a generally positive review to this book however.

The Good:  quality binding and presentation.  On a cursory reading I haven't come across any grammatical errors or misspellings which indicates the publisher had a careful editor.  You can tell this is an important book to them and they paid attention to detail when producing it.

The Average:  the photos were a bit small for my tastes.  I understand there is a real estate issue since the tome covers all the kata used in the SKIF organization, but at times the hand positions and even the hand technique can be unclear due to the small size of the picture.  Fortunately, the accompanying text is clearly written and both stance and technique are given in the  romanized Japanese words.

The Bad:  Well, the bunkai is a little uninspired.  A small quibble I suppose since few kata books ever show the good stuff.  

Buy it or Not?:  Yes.  I think Kanazawa's book is a worthy mate to Karate Kyohan and it's a handsome book that will look nice on any karate-ka bookshelf.


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