In Funakoshi's Footsteps by John Van Weenan

Shotokan Karate Book
by John van Weenen 8th Dan
Following his life in Karate
Student of Hirokazu Kanazawa
Great read

Funakoshi's Footsteps Description

Twenty years after Britain's best selling karate book 'The Beginner's Guide to Shotokan Karate' first appeared, the author, John van Weenen, is publishing his amazing autobiography. In Funakoshi's Footsteps is a unique work and gives an honest, refreshing evaluation and insight into the 'not so idealistic world of Shotokan Karate', as seen through the eyes of a prominent British teacher. It 'pulls no punches' and exposes the myths surrounding many Japanese and British instructors, and offers a wealth of invaluable metaphors contained in more than two hundred individual stories. Above all, John's autobiography is filled with realism. Mistakes, (and there are plenty of those), humour, tragedy, compassion, romance, heartache and encounters and experiences with what resembles a 'Who's Who' of Japanese and English instructors since the death of Master Funakoshi.

'On the Back' of Funakoshi's Footsteps

In Fukankoshi's Footsteps

The autobiography of John van Weenan 8th Dan

John van Weenan tells the story of his adventurous life with astonishing candour and perception.

After his childhood of poverty in North London John travelled the world and discovered Karate, eventually returning to the Britain to achieve success by sheer hard work, and to meet and marry the love of his life.

He developed his passion for karate, that most artistic and demanding of martial arts in Japan and later under the great Master Hirokazu Kanazawa, himself a student of the legendary Gichin Funakoshi (1868 - 1957), who introduced karate to Japan from his native Okinawa in 1922. Funakoshi saw karate as more than a physical martial arts form - for him it was the key to his philosophy of life: of responsibility to others: 'Make benevolence your lifelong duty.'

John van Weenan modelled his own life on Funakoshi's precepts and followed in the Master's footsteps. He handed down the message of his mentors Kanazawa and Funakoshi to generations of new students of the art: encouraging his followers to help the needy. Ultimately his teaching led to the giving of time and skills by many to a series of epic convoys of mercy during the Nineties to help the starving and dying of Albania and Kosovo.

John's enthralling and romantic record of achievement is an inspiration to all who love and live life to the full.

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