Taking It to the Street: Making Your Martial Art Street Effective

by Marc MacYoung

Most real fights are short, fast and brutal. And there are no rules. The martial artist who thinks he's trained to handle what's coming may be in for a painful surprise. But this isn't one of those... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158160050X
• ISBN13: 9781581600506
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Paladin Press
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Read this book

As a 10-year law enforcement officer and 8-year martial artist, I can attest to the fact that fighting in the dojo and fighting in the street are totally different. There really is no comparison.Mr. MacYoung devotes a lot of material to convince the reader of this immutable truth and then, once he has the reader's attention, gets to the good stuff. And believe me, its really good stuff.This book should be in any martial artist's library that considers his/her martial art as a self-defense tool. In other words, if you plan on or believe you will ever use your martial art for self-defense on the street rather than as a sport or spiritual tool, then this book is a must read.Mr. MacYoung, Mr. Geoff Thompson and Mr. Peyton Quinn are in the forefront of truly effective street self-defense today. They cover all the bases - awareness and avoidance (the PRIMARY self-defense tools), combat and finally, legal issues, which most authors gloss over if they cover at all. I cannot tell you how refreshing this is.This book is not a bunch of pretty techniques for impressing your friends but a good, basic and simple system of principles and concepts to save your life when all else fails.Now go and get it.

Insightful

Marc MacYoung is one of the most analytical martial arts writers today. Drawing on his own real-life experiences as well as his unique ability to see deep into an issue, this book, as well as others by MacYoung, fills a void for those seeking solid information that will help them in the street. As an author of 12 books on the martial arts, I highly recommend this one.

The best book I ever read on fine-tuning my martial arts !

I loved this book. I could read this for the rest of my life. I liked this book the best of all Macyoung books ( although, all of his are awesome ) because it offered great advice for fieldstripping your particular martial art to make it street effective. It has worked perfectly for me and if you buy one book to learn self defense for combat, buy this !

The Animal has done it again!

As a 20 year veteran of the martial arts, I found Marc MacYoung's most recent book very helpful for shifting my focus from relying on specific techniques to teach concepts (in a rather haphazard way) to isolating the important concepts and then letting the techniques create themselves. A truly helpful text that will make you think about your martial art in ways that you may not have considered. Also a plus, Marc does not critisize the martial arts, rather he explains that there is more than one legitimate focus of martial arts, only one of which is self-defense/combat. The problem comes when your teacher tells you that what you are learning is self-defense when in reality it isn't. Empty your cup and read this book if you are interested in effective concepts for self defense that you can start applying to your training right away! I'll be reading this book more than once! THANKS ANIMAL! P.S. readers, all of Marc's books are GREAT! Read them all!

macyoung scores!

As a Police Officer I know the streets are tough. Marc Macyoung is a product of the streets and that's why his books are second to none. Instead of talking about kata, zen, and other mystical non-sense, he goes straight to the point. I highly recommend this book (as well as Macyoung's other books) to any person who might face street punks or mental persons in the line of duty. In fact this book along with a Professional's guide to ending violence quickly should be required reading in every Police Academy in the U.S.