Martial arts carries as integral components time-honored principles of personal mastery and athletic performance. Tennis, the sport for a lifetime, has much to learn from accepting and adhering to basic martial arts fundamentals, not only physically and technically but also personally, emotionally, and psychologically. Examining martial arts sheds light on common denominators of athletic performance, which transfer and apply to every sport. An athlete cannot fulfill his potential without focusing on the full panoply of fundamentals: physically tangible and the psychologically and emotionally intangible. Mastering tennis requires completely committing to each and every fundamental, including those that improve attitude and learning skills. Mastering each fundamental represents a journey into improvement and excellence not only for tennis and martial arts as specific disciplines but also for overall personal fulfillment and mastery in life. Embrace a learning mind-set and look for the opportunity to learn from everything. Learn purposefully and with discipline. Stay in the present and focus on what is happening now. Dispense with your ego and go with the flow, fearing nothing. Stay calm and relaxed as the moment is the only thing. Feel yin and yang, flow and force. Breathe fully, relaxing in the present without the self, without fear, and with the mind and body as one. Be ready. Look to the greatest threat. Move from the ground, staying balanced. Set up, and use the earths power to stroke from the ground, driving and rotating through the legs, hips, core, shoulders, arm, and racket. Mastering these fundamentals unlocks the power of action, unleashing the fulfilling power of the self. Paradoxically, dispensing with the selfs ego leads to self-actualization and fulfillment. Learn and master these fundamentals and youll not only become a much better tennis player; youll become a better learner, performer, and athlete. Much more importantly, youll become a better person.

This is the account of the experiences of a farm boy from the western prairie and a girl from the Bronx. These two spent 35 years in Japan. No two societies could be more different This is the story of their struggle to understand, their mistakes, the humorous situations they find themselves in, all against the background of the American occupation and the Korean conflict next door. It contrasts American and Japanese life and tells the story of many courageous Japanese and their response to life situations. It tells of their being ushered in to meet the Emperor and of his kind words of thanks. It is the account of the trip from culture shock to true bi-cultural living.

The oldest and most respected martial arts title in the industry, this popular monthly magazine addresses the needs of martial artists of all levels by providing them with information about every style of self-defense in the world - including techniques and strategies. In addition, Black Belt produces and markets over 75 martial arts-oriented books and videos including many about the works of Bruce Lee, the best-known marital arts figure in the world.

When Andy Murray finally overcame Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller to secure the 2012 US Open, it was a dream fulfilled for the man from Dunblane. After four previous defeats in Grand Slam finals, Murray had finally achieved what no British man had managed since the 1930s. But the story of how he got there was just as compelling as the final itself, with as many twists and turns along the way. Writer Mark Hodgkinson has been covering that story since the start - he was actually the first person to interview Murray for a national newspaper back in 2004, and has worked closely with Judy Murray in the past. In Andy Murray: Champion, Hodgkinson explains how Murray first emerged as a tennis player of true quality, and how his rivalry with his brother Jamie spurred him on. He looks at the close relationship Murray has with his mother, and the various coaches who haved worked with him to assess their influence on his game. In a hugely competitive era of tennis, with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic all counted to be among the greatest tennis players of all time, Murray has earned the right to be ranked alongside them all - and this book explains how and why he has done so, becoming a true national sporting icon in the process.

Cyrus is a genius child brimming with talent with a bright future, loving parents, and a younger sister he adores. But on his thirteenth birthday, everything changed. Emerging from a coma, he finds the world irrevocably altered, haunted by the memory of his parents' murder. His screams for his sister are met with confinement, and the boy he once was faded to grey, replaced by someone cold, consumed with revenge. This book is a raw, visceral journey through the eyes of a psychopath serial killer, an exploration of the darkest corners of human nature where the thrill of the hunt and the complexity of the human mind are laid bare in their most primal ways. Cyrus is a creature carved from vengeance and pain. His life, a relentless quest for retribution, blurs the lines between justice and brutality. Each step he takes is an opus of violence, pulling him deeper into a world where the lines between predator and prey are erased. This book invites readers to a chilling realm where psychopathy and serial killings are not just actions but reflections of the soul's deepest, most hidden fissures. It's a world where the quest for vengeance becomes a labyrinth of moral ambiguity, and the possibility of redemption is as elusive as the darkness in which Cyrus dwells. This is more than a tale of revenge; it's a haunting portrait of humanity's most profound dilemmas, painted in shades as dark as the night itself.

Learning to Bow has been heralded as one of the funniest, liveliest, and most insightful books ever written about the clash of cultures between America and Japan. With warmth and candor, Bruce Feiler recounts the year he spent as a teacher in a small rural town. Beginning with a ritual outdoor bath and culminating in an all-night trek to the top of Mt. Fuji, Feiler teaches his students about American culture, while they teach him everything from how to properly address an envelope to how to date a Japanese girl.

This introductory guide to health and fitness for men is a user-friendly source of information, techniques, and images. It explains the basic elements of health and fitness, how to combine aerobic activities with a weight program, and how to put together a personalized workout. Photos.

The linguistic study of Japanese, with its rich syntactic and phonological structure, complex writing system, and diverse sociohistorical context, is a rapidly growing research area. This book, designed to serve as a concise reference for researchers interested in the Japanese language and in typological studies of language in general, explores diverse characteristics of Japanese that are particularly intriguing when compared with English and other European languages. It pays equal attention to the theoretical aspects and empirical phenomena from theory-neutral perspectives, and presents necessary theoretical terms in clear and easy language. It consists of five thematic parts including sound system and lexicon, grammatical foundation and constructions, and pragmatics/sociolinguistics topics, with chapters that survey critical discussions arising in Japanese linguistics. The Cambridge Handbook of Japanese Linguistics will be welcomed by general linguists, and students and scholars working in linguistic typology, Japanese language, Japanese linguistics and Asian Studies.

A mystery unfolds in rural Japan. “Mezeske’s debut is quietly ominous, the tension rising like steam off a freshly made cup of tea.”—Heidi Lang, author of Rules of the Ruff Jordan Howard moves to the Japanese countryside to become a high school English teacher, not an amateur detective. But when Jordan’s students are murdered one after another, she resolves to find the culprit, fueled by lingering guilt over her own brother’s death. Toshihiko Sakurai, the ambitious police detective investigating the murders, warns Jordan against getting too involved, both with the case and with him. Yet, the two of them cannot seem to disentangle. As Jordan gets closer to uncovering buried secrets surrounding the deaths, the murderer closes in on her too. And she just may be the next victim of the serial killer’s deadly brew . . . “Red Tea is written as intricately as a puzzle box is carved. There are twists around every corner and thinly veiled evil lurking everywhere . . . The world building is delightful and gives one a nice view of what living in rural Japan could be like.”—InD’tale

Two women. Two cultures. One music. The word sensei in Japanese literally means “one who came before,” but that’s not what Janet Pocorobba’s teacher wanted to be called. She used her first name, Western-style. She wore a velour Beatles cap and leather jacket, and she taught foreigners, in English, the three-stringed shamisen, an instrument that fell out of tune as soon as you started to play it. Vexed by the music and Sensei’s mission to upend an elite musical system, Pocorobba, on the cusp of thirty, gives up her return ticket home to become a lifelong student of her teacher. She is eventually featured in Japan Cosmo as one of the most accomplished gaijin, “outside people,” to play the instrument. Part memoir, part biography of her Sensei, The Fourth String looks back on the initial few years of that apprenticeship, one that Janet’s own female English students advised her was “wife training,” steeped in obedience, loyalty, and duty. Even with her maverick teacher, Janet is challenged by group hierarchies, obscure traditions, and the tricky spaces of silence in Japanese life.