Book Review: A-Z Judo by Syd Hoare


41J6BZAXNJLIf you want a good encyclopedic catalog of named judo techniques look no further than Syd Hoare’s A-Z of Judo. There are many other books out there that list judo techniques but most concentrate on the gokyo no waza. Sometimes you can find the Shinmeisho no Waza. Hoare’s book contains over 100 named tachi waza and over 90 named ne waza. It includes things like hiza-hishigi (knee crush) which is forbidden in competition. He indicates which techniques are forbidden in competition at the time of publication.

Coming from a more self defense oriented judo background and aikido background a lot of what is shown I have some familiarity with but still there are some that I have never seen. A lot that I have seen but not known the Japanese name. Just a casual glance through the book will reveal the difference between judo and jujitsu is more teaching style and rule concentration than on an inherent difference in the available technical repertoire.

Also nice is that he identifies a source for each technique – weather from the official Gokyo or Shinmeisho no waza, Kotani’s writings, Mifune’s writings, or from one of the kata like koshiki, etc. The book only includes one picture of each technique so it is not a manual to learn to affect each technique.

http://www.amazon.com/A-Z-Judo-Special-Interest-Hoare/dp/1874572704/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1362103233&sr=8-4&keywords=hoare+syd