One of my students asked me today what are some good judo books that I'd recommend for his off-mat time. The following five are invaluable and indispensable. If you're going to be reading about judo then you pretty much have to start out with these books.
Ok! So I said you'd get five books and I gave you six. Actually the last two are sort of a tie. The Path to The Blackbelt book is more of a how-to techniques book (and about the best I've seen), while the Mastering Jiujitsu book is more of a conceptual book about why the system is designed to work the way it does.
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Which books other than these would you guys recommend?
Fixe!
ReplyDeleteMy darling wife, who's long been a big Dick Cavett fan, sent me this link to something he wrote about how, when a child, he'd almost killed another kid with a judo move he'd learned--you guessed it--from a book.
ReplyDeleteThought you might find it interesting.
Wow, Dan. That's a great story...
ReplyDeleteAs a beginner, I'll take your recommendations. I have the Canon by Mifune and Kodokan throwing Methods already. Both are superb. I was shocked at how much like Mifune's book. I figured it would be out of date. But his ideas about creating throws from the principles of judo was fascinating. Some of those throws didn't make it into the official curriculum, bu they look brilliant anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe two that I would add are Dave Camarillo's Guerilla JJ and Passing the Guard. Dave's book is a great blend of judo and BJJ and is the only I know that covers the transitions from the throws to ne-waza.
Passing the Guard is one of the best MA books I've ever seen. The picture layout makes it even clearer than video. It has all the pluses of a book and a video at the same time. You have to see it. I rely on it for my ne-waza since no one in judo is interested in putting out materials for those techniques. It also has two sequels that cover other ne-waza positions.
Highly recommended.