Monarch Illustrated Guide to Ju Jitsu

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ichael DePasquale Jr. has also written the book: "Streetwise Safety for Women". you can read about this one elsewhere on these pages (click here).

This illustrated guide from Monarch is from 1977. According to the preface this is Hakko-Ryu ju jitsu. Personally I can't quite figure that out, all the time this is nowhere close to the things I've seen on hakko-ryu before. But what do I know - not a lot, I'm afraid :-)

The style that is being shown here would be quite familiar to us. Or rather, the way that many of the techniques are shown, makes the system not that different from our own JJN-style. Techniques seem to be clean and strong, and you also find traces of things that are typical of karate and judo. Speaking of which: There is a section in the book, named "Judo Throws".

In the preface you find the regular "sales-pitch", stating that the purpose of the book is to help the reader mastering the art of ju jitsu. Maybe that would be considered to raise the expactations just a little high? But, like I said, what do I know?

It may seem that the book is an overview of the grading syllabus, containing techniques from yellow to black belt. There are techniques, or kata (being the term used here) to be shown on each of these levels, plus selected judo throws. It is specified which techniques that belongs to each belt level. As a teaching aid I am sure its biggest benefit is/was to the students of this particular style. Still there are some great techniques in this book, beneficial to anyone doing ju jitsu/martial arts.

For anyone doing ju jitsu, or a similar martial art, this is absolutely a good book. Along with lots of other books on martial arts, budo, self-defense and other topics, you will find it here, on Abebooks.

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