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Title: Practicing Shinkendo or plan to? Grab this book
Review: As my title suggests, if you plan on or are currently practicing Shinkendo, you need this book. Every single sensei of Shinkendo I've spoken to, as well as current students (quite a few, I assure you), all recommend picking up this book as soon as you can. The first half or so is about the history of the katana as well as a brief history of Japan itself. The rest of the book it seems are frame by frame kata movements. Obata Sensei doesn't recommend trying to learn Shinkendo from a book, and he clearly states that early in this book, so anything you draw from this in terms of movements, shouldn't be set in stone in your mind. Use them more as a guideline to prepare yourself for the true movements you'll learn from a Sensei.p.s. Just as a sidenote, this book is a bit larger than I expected in terms of it's height and width. Think of a large magazine size and you'll have a good picture. Just thought I'd mention that since it suprised me.
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