Avis sur le produitNinja Shadowhand : The Art of Invisibility by Haha Lung, Christopher Prowant and Christopher B. Prowant (2004, Paperback)

Not very detailed

I purchased this book on the chance that there would be a fair amout of discussion about 忍び歩き (shinobi aruki), the methods of stealthy walking and stealthy transition through open or semi-open spaces. I wanted to describe how my fiction book character knew these techniques, and describe how she used them in my own story. This is, after all, supposed to be a book about stealth. But there seems to be only a little bit about techniques of moving, other than those that involve ambush and fighting. The book spends an inordinate amount of space to discuss fighting, presumably because when it comes to ninjitsu, obsession with its combative aspects is common. Thus, the author may well hope that if he talks a lot about fighting, this book will sell better. Although I cannot put my finger on the exact reason for this feeling, and you may feel differently, the style of the writing seems to me vaguely flashy, sensationalist and condescending,

In general, this book moves from topic very quickly, so that it provides a tiny amount of data on each subject in its table of contents, which gives a different effect that what a reader would be expecting from a professional. It seems more than likely that the author used that approach to sidestep the need to actually have detailed knowledge of any particular subject. Citations don't seem very extensive or detailed. When Japanese terms are referenced, they are only given phonetically in Roman letters -- no Japanese characters are provided. This can made it very hard for students to attempt followup research. Additionally, this book rehashes a fair amount of information already explained in the same author's other books, for example "Knights of Darkness."

Moreover, I feel it is hard to take this book as seriously as the author would like is because the author tells almost nothing about himself, making it almost impossible to follow up or ask questions. Moreover, when someone presents himself or herself as being qualified to professionally teach or explain a martial art, it is customary for those who want to be taken seriously to explain WHO they learned from. Then, in reverse chronological order, they ought to be ready to explain who taught the antecedents, all the way back to the founder of whatever school the person teaches. "Doctor Haha Lung" -- whomever "Doctor Haha Lung" may or may not be -- does not even attempt to explain who taught him, or who taught those who came before, wether it was Hatsumi-sensei, Hayes-sensei, Kim-sensei, Bussey-sensei, or anyone else. Simply to take claims about martial arts on faith is not a logical thing to do. It like searching for a Western medical practitioner, then deciding to become the patient of a person on a streetcorner who cannot show the right diploma, cannot point out colleagues, and cannot give references.Lire l'avis complet...

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