If there's anything guaranteed to prompt someone out of 'lurking', it's seeing one's name as a thread title...Might I suggest that Peregrine or the forum mods change the title of the thread to something along the lines of "Book: Knightly Martial Arts" or somesuch?
I appreciate the remarks here, and pleased to see some discussion about my work taking place. Thanks to Jake and Bill for their thoughts - I'm pleased to see that you guys appreciate what I was attempting to achieve. One of the most interesting points which stood out for me was:
Rakkasan wrote:...James's ideas are so eye-popping...
What parts of the work did you find particularly "eye-popping"?
It seems I have gathered some critiques here, which I feel obliged to address. One of the reasons for self-publishing was that few traditional publishers were keen to consider a work on martial arts for a) such a niche market, and b) which wasn't full of pictures. My aim was to get beyond technique, but also to get beyond "source" discussion and begin teasing away at the Combat System at the basis of all those documents. It seemed that my Systemic approach to this topic was worthy of sharing, so I embarked upon writing, proofing, editing, laying-out, designing and illustrating myself (I did receive some help, but the bulk was done by myself). It was a tall-task for one man to complete, but I was pleased with the final work. For this reason, I will be the first to admit some problems with aspects of the work, but as an entity in its own right, in context with other works hitherto produced on the same subject; I'm still rather pleased with it.
It was produced for a mainstream martial arts audience, and so citations or academic style references were kept to a minimum. It's a real shame that martial artists tend not to read. Therefore books of this nature are not common, but I'm very pleased to say that based upon feedback I've received over the last few years, it's certainly extended Liechtenauer's Combat System to a wider martial arts audience!
On the matter of 'self-referencing', I was inclined to reference my own work on the topic of Systemics, since application of this field of understanding to the topic is rather thin on the ground. If anyone is aware of a work which discusses the martial arts in terms of translational force (volumes and direction) as the model for strategic technique, then I will be the first to cite this instead.
I for one am looking forward to your review Keith...Any objective, substantiated criticism is welcomed heartily from me. If you are able to steer the work in a much better direction, then I'll be excited to hear your thoughts! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
All the best,
James