Reviews for Mastering Kempo

The average rating for Mastering Kempo based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-26 00:00:00 Christopher Anderson This is a very odd book - it has some info about how to execute specific strikes but overall, I'd put this in the category of more "philosophical" books about martial arts. There are also some rather odd historical claims about the genealogy of kempo itself (karate, kung fu, and tae kwon do are all treated as species of kempo? Big if true). This might actually be a great book for a serious kempo practitioner looking to learn more about its philosophical basis, but I believe it fares poorly next to the other books in this series that I've read (Mastering Judo, Mastering Jujitsu, Mastering Karate). While those other books are noteworthy for including both technical "how tos" and reflection on the evolution of their respective arts (and especially for the karate and jiu-jitsu books, serious reflection on how modern competition in the form of kickboxing and MMA have modified the conception of what "works" from within the style itself), "Mastering Kempo" seems to treat kempo as a basically mystical discipline that, despite any practical evidence, is also the most "realistic" and "effective" martial art. tl;dr: This is probably a great book for any kemp practitioner wanting to go deep on kempo's mystical/philosophical foundations. For people who practice other martial arts already, this probably isn't the book you are looking for if you want to learn what makes kempo distinct from, say, karate.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-29 00:00:00 Chris Marshall Very excellent description of Okinawa based martial arts history, fills in a lot of gaps in other readings of Karate history. Descriptions of Durban's Kempo basics are ok but the photos of those basics are terrible. Worth a second reading and use for reference.