Danjo
Master Black Belt
I just finished this book, and am going over it for a second time...
It is an interesting read, however there's something about some of Mr. Clayton's suppositions that is nagging at me...Something's just not right, and I don't know what it is, that's why I'm re-reading it...
Boomer! Have you read this book? What do you think?
I think it has do do with something I noticed while reading this book. It seems that the author is using the 1950's model of Shotokan as his example. When he talks about the ultra low stances etc. being for use in a hall fighting through crowds of people were not present in Funaki=oshi's original Karate. If you look at Funakoshi's first book "Karate Jutsu" his stances are high and shallow compared to what he was doing later on. This would throw the theory of the author out pretty conclusively. It's as though the author was looking at modern Shotokan and trying to explain why it looked so different than the other Okinawan styles in terms of how deep the stances etc. were and came up with this explanation. If he'd have looked at Funakoshi's original works, he might not have drawn the same conclusions.