Quote:
Chris Western wrote:
Hello Gentleman,
Richard Kim's lectures on Yoshida Kotaro are interesting/entertaining. I've also seen a DVD of his called Ki. He shows the eight brocade chigong and also the five tibetian rites. With some good stories thrown in. Mr Kim seems like a intresting character. I would have liked to meet him.
Which of his books would you recomend? Thanks.
Take care,
ChrisW
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Richard Kim had quite the illustrious career, earning karate black belt as a peer of Mas Oyama, training for many years with Yoshida Kotaro (a direct student of Sokaku Takeda, and the man who introduced Morihei Ueshiba to Takeda), training in Baguazhang in Shanghai and with many masters of many arts. He was peers with and senior to many people who later became much more famous than he, but I doubt many of them had the kind of intellect Kim had. Frankly, he doesn't look like much, but anyone who hung out daily with Mas Oyama and trained with him under Yamaguchi must have been incredibly tough.
As far as books, I know of only two: The Weaponless Warriors and The Classical Man, both being well worth the cost (in my opinion).
But here is a site dedicated to him, created by people who knew him well. I've just spent a few hours perusing it and I'm even more profoundly amazed at his life and work:
http://www.richardkimmartialartist.com/home.html
Extremely interesting.
One thing I learned that puzzles me, though: Kim actually trained, apparently, with Morihei Ueshiba and he was good friends with Tamura, Ueshiba's famous student.
Kim speaks incredibly well of pretty much every martial artist he ever met, including Mas Oyama, Hidetaka Nishiyama, Yoshida Kotaro and many others; and he speaks incredibly well of the many great Okinawan karate masters. But I have never seen him mention Morihei Ueshiba even once in all that I've read of and about him. And I wonder why that is.
Guess I'll hit Google again and see what I can learn.
Best wishes.
David