Location: United States
Member Since: May 01, 2010
Michael Drane
Books
This member has not published any books.Smashwords book reviews by Michael Drane
- The Ultimate in Women's Self-Defense.
on May 21, 2010
Hello, My name is Michael. I first took an interest in this author’s books when I listened to the audio version of his book titled “The Birth of the Peacekeepers.” When he released a woman’s self defense book, I decided to check it out because of my own martial arts background that spans thirty years. I studied Shin Nagare Karate and have a third degree black belt in that style. I also studied Shin Shin Jujutsu and have a third degree black belt in that style. Furthermore, I am familiar with, and have studied the following martial arts to varying degrees. Tae Kwon do, Aikido, Eagle Claw Kung Fu, Judo, and Tang Soo Do. I am not ranked highly in these arts, but as I said, I studied them enough to be familiar with them all to varying degrees. I am also familiar with Wing Chun, but don’t hold high rank in the style. Based on my own experience in martial arts, I will state that much of what this book contains is common to all of those arts. There are variations in technique, but that is to be expected during any comparison of various martial art styles. The techniques are sound, or else they wouldn’t be so widely in use. The conditioning to taking a blow and being able to respond with a defensive technique is perhaps the most common element in any comparison. That prevents the victim from panicking and failing to do anything to defend himself after taking a hit. And I don’t care how good you are, if you get in a fight, you will get hit. This book is a good primer for anyone wanting to learn self defense. Much of the advice and techniques are obviously customized so that they focus on women, but the techniques are as applicable for males as they are for females. The mental preparations advocated are a necessity if a student is to be prepared to defend him or herself. There is one thing that makes this book stand out in my mind. Of all the martial arts books I’ve studied, this one best covers taking a person from beginner to intermediate skill levels, provided the instructions are followed closely. I disagree that one training partner is enough for the students. I believe that they’d be much better off with multiple training partners so that they could get used to different sized adversaries and different fighting abilities. This would lead to a better trained student. But I understand that the author was attempting to make this as simple as possible. I doubt he’d advise against multiple training partners. Even so, I’m not sure that one is enough to adequately train a person. For that reason, I can’t give the book 5 stars. I do agree with the statement that even if you never do a single exercise recommended in the book, the knowledge it contains could potentially save your life. For that reason, I can’t see giving the book less than 4 stars. There is some very good advice in this book.