Rating: 
Summary: On Martial Musings
Review: The title of the long awaited magnus opus by R.W. Smith says it all, the musings of a martial arts practioner and pioneer that span nearly the whole of the 20th century. Smith seems to say "been there, done that" and when he says it, he means it!Smith draws the reader in with stories of the giants in the world of boxing, early Judo and Chinese martial arts, all in his own inimitable and familiar style. Readers new to Smith's work will be captivated by his tales of the personalities he has met along the way, and those familiar with the man from his earlier work, especially Chinese Boxing, Masters and Methods, will find new tales and more detail on those familiar Chinese boxers he studied with during his several years on Taiwan. Smith pulls no punches, and tells it as he sees it. You may not agree with everything he says, but you sure will enjoy the telling of it!
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money, this book isn't worth it!
Review: This book was such a letdown. The entire book is one long editorial and not a well written one at that. I was hoping to find excellent biographies and insight by someone who experienced it first hand. Instead, I got the author's opinion and lots of heresay. I am glad I am not a friend of Robert Smith's. Who knows what he would write about me after I died. Save your money, buy E.J. Harrison's "The Fighting Spirit of Japan" instead.
Rating:
Summary: Save your money, this book isn't worth it!
Review: This book was such a letdown. The entire book is one long editorial and not a well written one at that. I was hoping to find excellent biographies and insight by someone who experienced it first hand. Instead, I got the author's opinion and lots of heresay. I am glad I am not a friend of Robert Smith's. Who knows what he would write about me after I died. Save your money, buy E.J. Harrison's "The Fighting Spirit of Japan" instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Martial Musings: a martial arts life
Review: This is a martial art memoir, written by a worldly man of vast experience and a knack for writing about it. Smith has studied a variety of martial arts, but primarily Judo and more recently Wushu. He has met a variety of martial notables. He expresses his strong opinions about them, and whatever else happens to strike his fancy, and from that standpoint, this is a wonderfully personal book with asides and comments about this and that. Parts of the book are more like a pleasant conversation. But, at the martial arts level, he has a very low opinion of some well-known martial artists, for instance, and lets you know why in his educated, experienced, analytical way. He has seen a lot of good martial arts and artists, and any number of charlatans. Although he thinks highly of Wushu, he speaks openly of the charlatans in that art as well. Since he has known or met almost everybody, he offers revealing anecdotes about some of the outstanding individuals who have been genuinely devoted to martial arts in the past century. Overall, this is not a book to study, but to read and enjoy. A travelogue through a very interesting life that witnessed and experienced much of the modern history and development of martial arts.
Rating: 
Summary: A Non-Martial Opinion
Review: With all due respect to Mr. Smith as a lifelong devotee of the martial arts, this books sounds like it is written by a dilettante. His quotes of literary figures seem forced or out of context at many places in the narrative. The book's literary allusions read as if Mr. Smith is trying to demonstrate how erudite he is. He does the same thing with his martial arts experience. I found myself wondering if Mr. Smith spent any quality time mastering any one system outside of Judo. I expected the book to be something more than just a name dropping of who's who in the martial arts world. This is the problem with the charlatans he detracts who, upon having met someone of note or taken a few classes with them, think they can list it on their resumes. Mr. Smith rightfully gives respect where it is due, however, he does not provide much insight into the personalities of the twentieth-century's great masters, which I would have utlimately found more interesting than his opinions or complements of them.
Rating:
Summary: Sustainer of the Spirit
Review: With the exception of politics, few human pursuits are filled with as much egotism, chicanery, and sheer nonsense as the martial arts. And like politics, few human pursuits are as capable of cultivating the highest levels of the human spirit. Robert W. Smith captures this human drama in this book. Part autobiography and part historiography, Martial Musings will appeal to all who prefer delicacy to raw meat in the martial arts. Students of the martial arts will immediately recognize Mr. Smith's name. In addition to nine articles appearing in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts, he has published numerous articles and fifteen books devoted to taijiquan, xingyi, bagua, Shaolin Temple boxing, judo, wrestling, and Western boxing, as well as overviews of the fighting arts and those who practice them. His range of scholarship and practice is extraordinary. As much as anyone, he has been responsible for popularizing authentic versions of judo and Chinese martial arts in the United States. Martial Musings provides the capstone to his career. In it he describes the story of his life interspersed with reports of his encounters with high-level martial artists throughout the world. He employs prose that sings on the page, scatting like Ella Fitzgerald when improvising on the martial melody with literary asides and opinions pungent as Szechuan chili peppers. Only Faust enjoyed such a range of talent and opportunities, but to far greater disadvantage. Born in 1926 on a small Iowa farm, he grew up in an orphanage in Galesburg, Illinois. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, leaving high school after his second year. Upon completion of his military service in 1946 he began to work for a railroad and started to promote wrestling and boxing matches in the Midwest. He went on to receive a high school equivalency certificate, an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois and a graduate degree in Far Eastern Studies from the University of Washington. His martial arts education began in Chicago. Upon entering the Chicago Judo Club in 1947 and exaggerating the judo prowess he gained in the Marines, he learned quickly how to make friends with the mat. Hik Nagao, a third degree black belt made the introduction, and study with Minoru "Johnny" Osako deepened the friendship. It was while working out in the Chicago Judo Club that Mr. Smith first met Donn Draeger, one of the foremost Western martial artists of the twentieth century. Their partnership led to publication of Asian Fighting Arts, in 1969, and reprinted in 1980 as Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts, five years before Mr. Draeger's death in Hawaii. Mr. Smith's involvement with Judo lasted thirty years. He was instrumental in popularizing judo in the U. S. through teaching, promotion of tournaments and publishing his "Complete Guide to Judo" in 1958. In 1953, Mr. Smith gave a speech at the first U.S. Judo Championships. The topic-retaining Jigoro Kano's ethics while improving American judo-foreshadowed a theme that runs throughout Mr. Smith's career. This theme is his unrelenting emphasis on the spirit and integrity of the martial arts. Henry Miller once said that what distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs. Despite his positions of authority, both official and unofficial, Smith has never been a member of the martial arts majority. He has always walked alone, listening to the beat of the Dao, and never playing to the house. This book is littered with choices he has made between fame and fortune, on the one hand, and preservation of the traditional spirit of the martial arts on the other hand. Never suffering fools well, Mr. Smith describes his rebuffs of those who sought him out to gain egotistic or economic advantage. He tarnishes the tinseled reputation of screen stars, such as Bruce Lee, revealing them to be small men, standing Wizard of Oz-like behind marketing artifices, who are willing to trade martial integrity for market share. And he saves his highest praise for those, such as Zheng Manqing and Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo, who recognize that their possession of the martial arts is only a loan from their teachers, to be repaid by selfless sharing with others. Mr. Smith peels away the glitz and glitter to reveal the underlying substance and spirit of the martial arts. After hiring on at the CIA (intelligence, not operations), Mr. Smith enjoyed the good fortune of a posting to Taiwan (1959-1962). Like deflecting a powerful attack with "four ounces," this synchronicity provided a pivot point on which his life turned and changed direction. It was during this assignment that Mr. Smith met, interviewed and filmed scores of top Chinese boxers. It was also during this time that he met Zheng Manqing, who, after the obligatory snubs, accepted Mr. Smith as his student in taijiquan. Like all that encounter a genuine taiji master, Mr. Smith became awed by Prof. Zheng's artistry. Enchanted by the master's skill, Mr. Smith began to devote his efforts to popularizing Zheng Manqing's 37-posture version of the Yang family form in Bethesda, Maryland, after his return to the United States. Although he didn't know it at the time, his days of practicing judo were numbered. As Mr. Smith states in this volume, if the softness of judo is high school, the softness of taijiquan is college. He decided at this point to go to college, ultimately graduating summa cum laude. It is clear in this volume, that decades of practicing the principles of judo and taiji have shaped Mr. Smith's character. Marlene Deitrich, the famed film actress, once remarked of Ernest Hemingway, "He is gentle, as all real men are gentle; without tenderness, a man is uninteresting." Mr. Smith demonstrates in the pages of this book how years of serious study and practice of the martial arts under the tutelage of an authentic teacher can make a man interesting.
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