Fundamentals of Freestyle Goju-Ryu

Chris Sajnog is one of the American military's finest skills trainers. It should not surprise anyone to learn that this Goju Ryu black belt has written the best karate tutorial manual in the English-speaking world.Many readers will not actually "get it," missing the core philosophy. More will miss a core principle. So reviews and reader experiences will vary. Westerners collect techniques and tactics, rarely bothering with why and usually dismissive of fundamentals. We want quick fixes for the problems we wish to solve.Authentic karate is a foundation from which ALL problems may be solved. This book is the first written by a Caucasian that expresses this reality in a flawless and well-organized presentation.

Still in the process of reading it and so far it is a good read.. The only bad thing is there are no picture references to go with the text.. My instructor in the Philippines studied Goju ryu in Japan and this system has always had my interest for research

It was cheap so I bought it but, useless- no sequential pictures or drawings of katas....I know basics of Goju ( went as far as green belt) and want to continue learning but this dry text requires a lots of imagination and visualization effort to work out werbalization into visual. You get what you pay, i guess.....

I am a martial artist in my 50's and have studied since the middle 1970's. I've seen much and read even more about the martial arts. Over the years I gravitated toward the traditional Japanese/Okinawan arts. This book was recommended by my military "brothers in arms." It is a great source for detailed kata information and a wonderful addition to my library.

Very good information. Will work well with my other reference books.

Great material and easy to read with realistic approach to Goju Ryu Karate. I definitely for karate practitioners to read it.

Nice story

no illustrations but wordy descriptions

Very well written book for beginners. I think not much valuable information will find someone who has years long experience in karate or any other martial art.

Absolute rubbish. Includes description of kata that can be gained from any Internet search.

The book is fine, as far as it goes but a major "draw" of this book is the fact that you are supposed to be able to log onto a website to see videos of each technique and kata described. Unfortunately, the website no longer seems to exist. The descriptions of the techniques are fine but many are hard to visualize without a video (p.s. there are no pictures in the book to illustrate techniques either...probably because the book was designed to have videos to accompany it). Just a quick example: in the list of strikes, many descriptions like "elbows pointing out with forearms across abdomen" are included. Try to use that as a strike. If that's a description of a simple strike, imagine some of the kata descriptions.The book is ok and obviously Sensei Sajnog knows his stuff. But without the videos it's much less instructive than others I have read.

GOOD