Product Review

Karate as Calligraphy offers a wide-ranging discussion of the technical, historical and philosophic aspects of Funakoshi’s karate. Karate as Calligraphy presents the case against the sportification, commercialization and militarization of karate with reference to the budo karate of Ari Anastasiadis, father of Shotokan in Canada. The author discusses the karate of Asai, Egami, Kanasawa, Kase, Kobota, Nakayama, Oshima, Oyama, Plée, Tokitsu, Yokota and others in and around Shotokan. The author discusses various Shotokan karate organizations and their positions relative to the budo karate-sport karate debate. Karate as Calligraphy discusses the ‘natural’ natural stance, Nakayama’s hard-soft personal style, Mabuni’s 5 principals, classic ipon kumite, the 20 Chinese precepts and much more. Karate as Calligraphy explains how Funakoshi conceived karate a non-competitive, community-oriented form of personal and social development in the Okinawan tradition. The author concludes that Funakoshi’s karate has never been well understood in Japan let alone in the wider world. It is the author’s hope that Karate as Calligraphy will contribute to the revival of the budo tradition in Shotokan.