Does anyone know if there are any good book on sword work in Aikido? I am looking for anything that can give me new ideas on sword vs. sword and empty hand vs. sword techniques.
The only books Saito sensei has published with Aikiken is his original takmusu aiki books and the body art books , these are very very expensive and hard to get due to there huge populartity. He was going to finish his new takemusu aiki books but he died before he got past volume five which only covers buki dori(weapons taking) jo nage and ninindori. Hopefully his son Hitohiro will continue these
Personally I'd go find a teacher willing to teach you these things or cross train with another art. You'll find it far more useful than anything you'll get from a book.
Totally agree with the above statment. You will never learn anything in a book execpt trying to copy what the person in the looks like there doing. But then we miss the steps it took to get there, the reasons. the angles etc. books are only good if you are using them as a guide with what your teacher is showing. We had a guy come to our dojo years ago, from a different style. We were about to start the 31 jo kata. He said he new it. So great lets start .we had to stop after the first three moves because his moves where so bad. When we asked who taught him he said he learnt it from a book and video. NOT THE BEST IDEA. Video is definatly better than book but no where near perfect, who is going to tell you when your right or wrong?
nothing replaces a qualified instructor. Books are written for reference. I find reading books very enlightening reminding me of the concepts that i do but never really knew how to put it to words hehehe.
