Advanced Jujitsu -The Science Behnd the Gentle Arts BY George Kirby

Advanced Jujitstu -The Science Behind the Gentle Art, Black Belt Books, Ohara Publications, inc. copyright, 2006,

ISBN-10:0-89750-152-7

Professor George Kirby has been teaching jujitsu longer than many other martial arts teachers have been alive. A lifetime's of thought and understanding emerges from the pages of his new book, “Advanced Jujitsu -The Science Behind the Gentle Art”. Professor Kirby reveals core elements, both physical and mental, which power Budoshin jujitsu. The book is clearly written and the technical sections are well illustrated with explanatory photographs and diagrams. Professor Kirby excels in explaining the biomechanics, physics and kinesthetics which lie behind martial arts. A skill no doubt honed during his years as a school teacher, and through the countless martial artists he has trained.

The book is divided into three sections: Part One: Physics and the Martial Arts, Part Two: Meditation and Part Three: how to Make Techniques Work. Within these three sections Professor Kirby explains key concepts, building to a profound understanding of martial arts as a way of life.

Physics and the martial Arts, covers basic biomechanics, the biomechanics of ki, or energy, and kinesthetics -how body movement works in techniques. Professor Kirby stars with the observation that every body can be overlayed with a graph that starts at a person's center of gravity, just below the navel, in an area identified in jujitsu as the saiki tanden. A horizontal X-axis runs across the top of the hip bones, A Y-axis runs up the spine and Z-axis runs front-to-back from stomach to sacrum joint of the spine. Profess Kirby then shows how each individual joint also rotates around its own axes.

Professor Kirby discusses ki from this graphical framework, too. Ki, the energy or momentum of an attacker's body, rotates around the central axes of the body. In essence ,a martial artist uses his ki by aligning his axes and with the opponent's motion and then redirecting both axes. For example, in a simple shoulder throw, the core of the technique is that both people's Y-axes are parallel. Each move in the shoulder throw involves shifting the opponent's axes to redirect his motion, or ki. Thus, when the martial artist bends, his opponent must bend, also, and so flies over the martial artist's shoulder. The shoulder throw, like many other techniques, is illustrated with an eight picture sequence, that clearly shows how the axes line up and create the flow of the technique.

Advanced jujitsu also gives detailed attention to individual joints and how they connect in what is known as the “joint hierarchy”. The joint hierarchy describes the progression up a limb from joint to joint. For instance, from wrist to elbow to shoulder. As stress is applied to the wrist, the elbow eventually locks and then the shoulder, causing the spine to bend and lock up the sacral joint which results in the simple twist of the wrist causing a person to fall sideways. Professor Kirby shows how understanding the joint axes can help a martial artist exploit the joint hierarchy.

The book provides a detailed discussion of levers, as well. Every limb in the body is a a series of levers, the muscles supply force and the joints act as fulcrums. Using clear examples and pictures, Professor Kirby shows how a martial artist gains power through the use of leverage and mass.

By examining the physics of jujitsu and explaining with such clarity and depth how techniques work, Professor Kirby demystifies the martial arts. More importantly, he also gives readers a concise way of understanding situations. Imagine you have to suddenly apply a wrist throw from flat on you back, with a sprained knee -- not the typical position-- but if you understand the levers involved you can easily throw a larger, stronger aggressor off yourself.

The Second part of the Advanced Jujitsu deals with meditation. Professor Kirby considers meditation fundamental to being a martial artist and distinguishes between martial artists and those who are merely martial arts technicians. His teachings on meditation are again simple and easy to follow, starting with relaxation and control of breath and moving into visualization exercises. Professor Kirby states that the key to martial arts is the ability to remain calm and think clearly. To use leverage and execute technique, one needs to be in control of one's senses, otherwise the situation degenerates into a contest of force and instinct. From Professor Kirby's perspective, meditation is as important as practice because it trains one to remain clear and relaxed in the same way repetition trains the body to perform a technique properly.

Part three: effective techniques, covers muscle versus mass, breathing, force versus leverage and the cone concept. These four ideas give the reader a good understanding of how to train and what to focus on in training. This is the section in which the physics and psychology of being a martial artist are combined to help martial artists develop, powerful, fast techniques.

Traditional Asian martial arts teach by technique progression. A student learns a technique and then a variation or advanced version and, as knowledge accumulates, the student may develop insights or generalizations about how those types of techniques works. Western thinking, being deeply influenced Aristotle moves from the theoretical, or general, to the specific. One of the great benefits of “Advanced Jujitsu -the Science Behind The Gentle Art” is that it explains techniques form a general physics perspective that is familiar to westerners and allows students to learn, adapt and improvise in typical American fashion.

I recommend Professor Kirby's book for martial artist's of all styles and levels. Even if you are into a completely percussive art, like boxing, this book will still give the reader insights into balance, body mechanics and power. But I also think this book should be used in middle school, high school and college physics classes. These books offer a lot of easily digested science and also give students a chance to experience the physical effects of leverage first hand.

You may find more information about Professor George Kirby at www.budoshin.com