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Rating: 
Summary: A fun overview but nothing deep
Review: All of us who study karate are lucky that Funakoshi wrote all he did. Except for a very few others, Funakoshi is the only early written information about karate and the earliest material that was translated into English.Unfortunately for myself and many others who study karate history, Funakoshi never goes into much detail about much of anything. He almost never gives a date and he rarely, if ever says where he learned any of his kata or other practices. The material on his teachers (Itosu and Azato primarily) is in summary form, never mentioning more than anecdotes. There are no dates, mentions of other students they had, what they taught etc... Over all, this kind of book is about real karate, certainly enough to get a young mind going in the right direction about karate. It is well written, we can probably thank the translator for that. It contains some interesting material that is fun to read. Beyond that, it lacks detail to keep you interested for long. Most of Funakoshi's books are like this for history. For the real meat of Funakoshi's karate (rather than this introduction), take a look at "Karate-do Kyohan", which contains much more technical information.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reading material.
Review: Myself being a student of Okinawa karatedo and this book being one by the great Funakoshi Gichin himself, I must give it a good rating, because it is a good book. His tales of his teachers are a very good read, and the chapter on Karate in Ryukyu tells people exactly what all these kyusho-jutsu people are telling us now: that there ARE "secret" movements in the kata! (Unfortunately, Funakoshi Sensei does not go into details). :)
Rating:
Summary: Living History
Review: So, there's some nice stories about Funakoshi and his masters, all with some kind of morality in them. Well, not that bad. Than there's the presentation of Ten No Kata. So, that's interesting because this Kata is not practiced anymore formally in the JKA and few karatekas even know it exists, and personnaly I think it's a great method of training basics. So at least the book shows this kata, but the performer has (seems to me) a very weak technique compared to the performer in karate-do kyohan the master's text (see this title). Sometimes the postures and techniques seem to be shocking for modern shotokan standards. Maybe it has to do with the evolution of shotokan since the book was written, but then again the performer in kyohan looks much more the way we are used to for modern shotokan karate-Do. All in all, I was a bit disappointed with this book. I give it 2 stars for the Ten No Kata and maybe a little nit for the stories.
Rating:
Summary: The Master does it again!
Review: There are certain books in which EVERY true martial artists should have in their library. A few of those books are "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do", "Karate-Do KyoHan", "Zen in the Martial Arts", "The Book of Five Rings", "The Art of War", and last but not least, "Karate-Do NyuMon". Gichin Funakoshi has a view of Karate-Do that most practitioners do not see. He wants it more of a way of life...a whole excesize of mind, body, and spirit. In this book, he expands on this belief and even includes the almost forgotten (but SO important) Ten-No-Kata. It is short and worth the study. VERY IMPORTANT! This book contains a lot of "Do" as well as technique. Funakoshi is the "man" in my book, along with Lee, Inosanto, Ueshiba, Rhee, and Hatsumi. I HIGHLY recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Master does it again!
Review: There are certain books in which EVERY true martial artists should have in their library. A few of those books are "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do", "Karate-Do KyoHan", "Zen in the Martial Arts", "The Book of Five Rings", "The Art of War", and last but not least, "Karate-Do NyuMon". Gichin Funakoshi has a view of Karate-Do that most practitioners do not see. He wants it more of a way of life...a whole excesize of mind, body, and spirit. In this book, he expands on this belief and even includes the almost forgotten (but SO important) Ten-No-Kata. It is short and worth the study. VERY IMPORTANT! This book contains a lot of "Do" as well as technique. Funakoshi is the "man" in my book, along with Lee, Inosanto, Ueshiba, Rhee, and Hatsumi. I HIGHLY recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Introductory Text
Review: This book begins with history of te and a couple of masters. Of course in Funakoshi style there is no in depth details nor any dates. Ten no Kata is revisited, which is no longer practiced with frequency today. Funakoshi's books were the text book of karate in the early 1940's. Good for their time, but still a good addition to your library.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful text, very clear translation
Review: Written by Gichin Funakoshi, Shotokan Karate founder and "father of modern karate", and translated by John Teramoto, president of Shotokan Karate of America's Black Belt Council, this book was originally published in Japanese in 1943. The first half of the book is full of wonderful history and entertaining anecdotes, advice on training, and photographs of practice during the first half of the (20th) century. The second half contains descriptions of basic techniques, ten-no-kata, and kawashi as practiced recently by senior Shotokai members. The text concludes with wonderful 'vignettes' of Funakoshi's teachers, Yasutsune Itosu and Yasutsune Azato, and of their teacher, Matsumura Sensei. Very highly recommended!
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