What U looking for in a book?

[BlueTravesty]

While I voted "all of the above" I usually like MA books that are light on technique structure, and discuss more of the principles and theory. The history/legend is good, but ideally a good book should draw the line between the two (a style's verifiable history, and the legends surrounding it.)

The techniques and apps aren't bad, and can help enrich a book; but ultimately, books are better at communicating tangible aspects of the art it is about. I am somewhat biased, as I've never been able to learn from book images- at least not enough to REALLY understand the technique.

My two favorite books are "The Sword Polisher's Record" by Adam Hsu, and "Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals" by Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo. Technique is almost absent from them, but they are rich in all the other aspects. Despite the lack of technique though, Adam Hsu's book helped me to understand "Silk Reeling" better than any other media available.

[John Takeshi]

Hehe, yeah.

But to actualy answer the question, I tend not to like MA books anymore. I already have a huge collection, and it always seems like, "Those who say, don't know." I like techs, but theory is just fun for a psuedo-philosophical debate with myself.

But if you actually say: "Those who say don't know," aren't you admitting that you don't know? I think it's better just to not know, and never say. That way, nobody can ever say you don't know without admitting, perforce, that they don't know, because they just said it.

[SPJ]

w/o derailing the thread too much.

2 things:

1. MA books may be further categorized. MA-history; MA-techniques; MA-theory etc

even further subcategorized: MA-technique-throws etc.

2. If we are a beginner, we would like to look at the moves and "see" what they are like.

If we already know and practice for a while, we would be looking into more theory and apps.

--

[Becca]

If we already know and practice for a while, we would be looking into more theory and apps.

True; every time I run across a technique I already know and have it explained from another point of veiw, my understaning of it increases exponetially.