Jodo-Way of the Stick

Rating:
Summary: Consult with care
Review: There are a number of technical errors to watch out for in the text and sequencing of pictures. This book is mainly good only for the historical anecdotes.

Rating:
Summary: Consult with care
Review: There are a number of technical errors to watch out for in the text and sequencing of pictures. This book is mainly good only for the historical anecdotes.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely not comprehensive...
Review: This book is a very low-level introduction to jodo, primarily Shindo Muso Ryu jo. It definitely won't provide good enough instruction to learn any of the basic techniques or kata, and it isn't very comprehensive, only useful for the extreme beginner while they're still in the beginner stages. The book also only covers the forms chosen for the Seitei Jodo set, ignoring the traditional form sets. A much better book would be the book "Jodo: the Way of the Stick" (aka La voie du baton, I think, the book is split into both English and French sections), which provides a much more comprehensive set of explanations, techniques (covers omote, chuden, and ranai: the Seitei forms are miscellaneous kata chosen from these sets), and background on SMR jodo and budo in general.

Rating:
Summary: Could be alot better
Review: While I won't recomend this book as a must have, it is good for reviewing what you have been taught by a reputably instructor. It's ok for helping one remember terms and as a rough approximation of the actual Katas. However the pictures show poor posture and little or no actual idea of what is happening in each Kata. Don't bother with this unless you study Jodo. It's too bad that this is the only book available in english.