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Rating: 
Summary: My Friend Was Right
Review: I can't believe how great this book is. My friend Judah who is a fourth degree black belt recommended this book to me. He is a master of Jujitsu and everything that he showed me in person was explained very clearly in the book. Thank you Judah.
Rating: 
Summary: I hate giving two stars, but...
Review: I have to in this case, because this book was useless to me. I was expecting (Maybe I was looking at the wrong book?) a book stepping through major holds, locks, takedowns etc, but what I got instead was a situational jujitsu book that covered (badly) the basics of the system (How to handle a punch, a knife etc). Not recommended, even for beginners. There are more comprehensive books out there.
Rating:
Summary: I hate giving two stars, but...
Review: I have to in this case, because this book was useless to me. I was expecting (Maybe I was looking at the wrong book?) a book stepping through major holds, locks, takedowns etc, but what I got instead was a situational jujitsu book that covered (badly) the basics of the system (How to handle a punch, a knife etc). Not recommended, even for beginners. There are more comprehensive books out there.
Rating:
Summary: Becoming a Man
Review: My friend Dov was extremely concerned about his obesity, as well as his femininity. Dov was constantly tormented by kids at school and felt that he had to do something about it. I recommended George Kirby's book to him because I felt that it would help him get in touch with his masculine side (if he actually had one). Since that time Dov has gone down in weight from 425 LBs to 375 and he has been acting somewhat more manly...Don't worry Dov, you"ll get there... keep jujitsuing
Rating:
Summary: Weak in comparison...
Review: Nothing much to say about this book, in fact there is very little inside. It is more like an introduction. I never pratice jujistsu but I trained for karate (with some self-defense) for years, and I don't think this book bring me much, except for the ground-fighting chapter (but you will find a lot more ground techniques in "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Theory and Practice" by Renzo Gracie, Royler Gracie). I did not like at all the weapon defense part, which shows you how "easy" it is to get rid of someone with a knife or gun ! Please, don't show that in an introduction book, people are gonna get killed trying it !
Rating: 
Summary: A solid overview of a complicated art
Review: Taking a martial art as complicated as jujitsu and making an accessible text for beginners is no small task. There is much more to the deep art of jujitsu, but the authors chose a subset appropriate for a beginner. I think that this book is a solid selection of the most common jujitsu practices, with chapters on beginning preparation work and techniques, jujitsu history, competition and training methods.
I've been impressed with time spent on the basics in jujitsu programs: safely falling & rolling, stances and dojo etiquette. This is out of necessity; jujitsu techniques are very effective and without the basic rules, accidental injuries during training are a certainty. On the downside, this means most jujitsu books (including this one) have to spend a large part of their text on common material.
This is mainly a reference material, as Books and DVDs do not make good primary instructional material for martial arts, so plan on attending a seminar or finding a good local school to get the most from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Weak in comparison...
Review: The only valuable part of this book was the list of Japanese terminology in traditional Ju Jitsu, plus a decent history section. Overall, though, the number of moves they offer is miniscule compared to other books on the market, and the pictures are so infrequent that, in a photo sequence, I often had no idea how the person got from their position in Photo 1 to their position in Photo 2. It's actually pretty funny. You'll have some guy doing something -- and, next picture, they're in an entirely different position. With the recent spate of Ju Jitsu and BJJ books, this is very outdated and I think would serve only as a broad introduction (like an extended Encyclopedia article).
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