I am EXTREMELY interested and intriguied by this book. It is compilation of ancient Korean martial techniques. It's a book with illustrations and text with various weapons techniques as well as bare hand techniques.

The bare hand methods in the Muyedobotongji are from the ancient Korean martial art of "Kwon Bup".

I'd love to buy a translated copy of this. It's available at www.turtlepress.com

I was just wondering if any of you have ever read it and what you thought about it. How good do you think the bare hand methods described are? Do you have exp. with this book?

I am Korean but I only have limited knowledge about this book. If you know detils about this book please don't hesitate to add them here. Please tell me what you know, opinions etc etc..

Just dicuss this book in this thread in general.

Its like any number of period "martial" books found in China, Japan etc.

The basic problem is the same one that they all seem to have.

They only show/list static positons with little indications of how they got to those positions or how to get to the next one.

They are more or less "notes" for people that already "know" what is going on.
A "diagram" to be used by folks that already "know" the sequence.
Its of little use to people that don't.

It would be like me handing you several pages of drawings from a totoaly unfamiler "style."

You might see things that "look" familier--certian postures and hand postions etc.

But without knowing the specifics of the style--you would simply have no clue as to how they were supposed to be used.
The principles involved, the fundamentals the techniqes are based on, in what situation they are to be used. etc.

You can't learn martial arts from a "new" book---you can't learn any better from an "old" one.

Interesting text----they all are.

Just don't get caught up thinking it means more than it does.

Just a tip--and probably worth every penny you paid for it--exactly nothing

I'm asking because I'm looking to study one of those ancient styles.

From other posts I was under the impression that you just took up Judo and that you still wanted to keep training Taekwondo. How will you fit in another martial art without getting too burned out or too confused as too much is going on? Not saying it is not possible but just curious.