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The Neil Adams Guide to Better Judo
144 pages, Paperback
First published September 2, 1988
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April 5, 2022
I have to admit that I generally love Neil Adams's work - I think he's one of the Judoka all-time greats; he's done some fantastic work as a Judo ambassador and his life-time of Judo makes him a leading authority on this wonderful combat sport.
This book was published in 1988 just before his first coming out of retirement and back onto the world competition circuit. The title suggests it's a book for advanced Judo which I found it not to be the case - there's a lot of detail which is more suited to the new practitioner.
There are some points in there that Adams has corrected himself since - he's mentioned on his podcast decades later that excessive running is a bad idea for training regarding wear and tear. In this book he was still at the point where he was recommending it. He also fell into the trap of over-training (from his reflections years later) but the book doesn't cover this adequately (because he was right in the middle of this overtraining period I presume).
There are some great black and white photos of the Judo champions of that day: Yamashita, Ray Stevens, Karen Briggs etc. and some of the step-by-step breakdowns are quite good - I particularly liked the newaza detail. The Judo history section is also well covered.
It's out of print now, but it is worth seeking out if you're a bit of a Judo nut as it's a good snapshot of where competition Judo was at, back in the late '80s.
This book was published in 1988 just before his first coming out of retirement and back onto the world competition circuit. The title suggests it's a book for advanced Judo which I found it not to be the case - there's a lot of detail which is more suited to the new practitioner.
There are some points in there that Adams has corrected himself since - he's mentioned on his podcast decades later that excessive running is a bad idea for training regarding wear and tear. In this book he was still at the point where he was recommending it. He also fell into the trap of over-training (from his reflections years later) but the book doesn't cover this adequately (because he was right in the middle of this overtraining period I presume).
There are some great black and white photos of the Judo champions of that day: Yamashita, Ray Stevens, Karen Briggs etc. and some of the step-by-step breakdowns are quite good - I particularly liked the newaza detail. The Judo history section is also well covered.
It's out of print now, but it is worth seeking out if you're a bit of a Judo nut as it's a good snapshot of where competition Judo was at, back in the late '80s.
Displaying 1 of 1 review