Robert W. Smith (1) (1926–2011)

(from Dust Jacket)

In every century there are unique individuals whose fate makes them standing symbols of unique merit and accomplishment. Robert W. Smith's Martial Musings stands out as the sole literary work which offers readers a unique perspective of martial arts as they evolved during the 20th century.

Smith personally escorts the reader on a martial arts tour. He starts with his own initial involvement in the arts, then launches outward, across the nation, over to Asia, and eventually show more home again.

Highlights:

Marital arts theory and practice; protrayals of leading Asian instructors; Westerners who were among the first to study combatives in Asia and return to their own countries to begin and develop the arts; a detailed historical record of the evolution of fighting arts in the West; a philosophical treatment of martial arts as exhibited in modern practice; high quality hardbound edition; over 400 pages; more than 300 illustrations

Robert W. Smith may be known as a world's leading authority on Asian martial arts, but this book shows he is much more than that. His pioneering work in the field has inspired other to follow, but perhaps none have brought such drive, stamina, and scholarly skills to such a monumental task.

Smith has practiced, taught, and written on the Asian martial arts for more than fifty years. From his late teens he trained under eminent Western boxing and wrestling coaches and later immersed himself in judo and finally the Chinese martial arts under celebrated masters. He taught many students in the latter arts in the Washington DC area where he worked as an intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Reviewer: A reader from Kagoshima, Japan
Mr. Smith has with his latest book written an honest and clear view of some of the martial arts he has been involved in and several of the personalities he has met over the many years of experience in them. It is a very good read, thoroughly interesting as well as written in a very pleasant writing style, and it has been hard for me to put it down once having started reading it, as I believe many if not every reviewer before me and anyone who has read the book will agree. Having said this, however, it is also important to mention that not every opinion Mr. Smith shares with us in his book can remain free of scrutiny. The no-nonsense way of describing events that have taken place in his martial arts career is to Mr. Smith's credit and clearly shows his strong character, but in some parts I couldn't help but tilt my head a little and wonder why he should have done or said a thing like that. This probably being caused by lack of life-experience on my part, for I am many years junior to Mr. Smith, I won't go into any details here, but leave it up to the readers of the future to decide whether they feel the same upon stumbling on those parts of the book. However these last sentences may have sounded, 'Martial Musings' is most certainly a must read for every martial arts enthousiast. Do you consider yourself one of them?

Reviewer Donald Vogel from Bayshore , New York
With all due respect to Mr. Smith as a lifelong devotee of the martial arts, this books sounds like it is written by a dilettante. His quotes of literary figures seem forced or out of context at many places in the narrative. The book's literary allusions read as if Mr. Smith is trying to demonstrate how erudite he is. He does the same thing with his martial arts experience. I found myself wondering if Mr. Smith spent any quality time mastering any one system outside of Judo. I expected the book to be something more than just a name dropping of who's who in the martial arts world. This is the problem with the charlatans he detracts who, upon having met someone of note or taken a few classes with them, think they can list it on their resumes. Mr. Smith rightfully gives respect where it is due, however, he does not provide much insight into the personalities of the twentieth-century's great masters, which I would have utlimately found more interesting than his opinions or complements of them.

Contents

Part I
Introduction; Early Days; In the Marines; Boxing; Judo CIA; Out to Asia; Art Broadbent; The Good Old Budokwai; Donn Draeger; Jon Bluming; John Gilbey & his Correspondents; Takahiko Ishikawa; Masahiko Kimura; Bill Paul; Dermot M. 'Pat' O'Neill; The Legendary Fairbairn; A Pause

Part II
Taiwan: A Martial Watershed; Return to America and Judo; Judo and Taiji; Back at CIA; To Teach is to Love and Learn: A Soliloquy; Xingy & Bagua: The Other Internal Arts; Rose Li: Cherchez la Femme; A Word on Weapons; My Writers: An Interlude; Zheng Manquin: The Last Decade; Ben Lo: Modest Man, True Taiji; Guo Lianyin; Southeast Asia Revisited: Laoshi's Other Top Students; Zheng Manqing: A Summing Up; The Weird and Wild; The Bogus: Hollywood; Nothing Could Be Finer: Down to Carolina
Bibliography; Credits; Glossary & Index show less

In 1963 a textile manufacturing millionaire named John F. Gilbey regaled martial arts enthusiasts with a collection of amazing tales about some outrageous and totally unkonwn fighting masters on three continents.

Now Gilbey is back. His fistic and foot festivities take him in and out of dojos and gyms in the United States; to Iceland, Brazill, Iraq, and even an outer Tahitian island. Sometimes his curiosity to learn a secret fighting art provokes a sticky situation and a close escape, but he show more is always game to sniff out the next reputed warrior master.

Gilbey's just human. He wants to learn the techniques of his opponents, but he also wants to show his stuff. After all, he is a 7 dan judoka, a 5 dan karateka, and every kind of arcane wrestling or boxing or mindbending physical art he doesn't perform physcally yet, he wants to know about. To learn what Fiz-les-loo is ('that most efficient form of jujutsu,' Gurdjieff termed it), he interposes himself with a Yezidi fighter who catapults him into the hospital with mysterious powers but graciously pays the bill. To learn what he doesn't know about capoeira, he spars with a master in Bahia, Brazil. Gilbey has some hellish times, continually calling into question, wherever he is, the lines between aggression and self-defense, violence and cruelty. Passing on tales others have told to him of unusual martial feats and clarifying much myth an fuzzy thinking about boxing and wrestling styles, Gilbey also spouts poetry with the best of them and carries on a conversation about 30s jazz greats while holding off a band of thugs in a small mid-western town.

Investigating claims of seemingly supernatural powers, Gilbey gives a strong nod to developed and carefully schooled inner disciplines. Abhorring the violence interwoven in American life, he also has strong words for the fast buck artists who degrade serious marital arts like karate, kung fu and jujutsu. As he wanders across the continents of the world researching fighting forms, Giibey emerges as a man with a strong penchant for peace. It is his reconsideration of violence and physical training which blends weight and substance to these tales. There is a difference, Gilbey contends, between fighitng as healthy sport, and fighting to cover weakness.

To an anti-hero world grown grey with mediocrity and bureaucracy,Gilbey,with his strong value system of good and evil and his marvelous humor, emerges as a knight errant who discovers startling truths about violence, style, courage, and graciousness. The Way of a Warrior is a clear sighted appraisal of some little known martial arts, and enlightening introduction to a morality of fighting for the novice, and a trenchant appraisal of the difference between sham and art for the initiate. Funny, irreverent, and perceptive, John F. Gilbey shows himself to be a true warrior-a courageous and much-needed champion in a time of violence as a sport and human cruelty to sentiant beings.

John F. Gilbey earned a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne in Oriental Languages. Scion of a large textile manufacturing family, he has been a government civil servant in intelligence abroad and is a linguist comfortable in seven languages. He is a 7 dan in judo and a 5 dan in karate, as well as he holder of a master's certificate in Chinese boxing. His first book, Secret Fighting Arts of the World (1963) has been read and praised throughout the world.

Review
'Here we have, bard and betrayed, all the secret fighting techniques of the choicest fighters—an ungodly throng including the Thuggees, with the niceties of strangulation, the lightning-like destruction inflicted by a Peoria bookworm, the unfeeling fingertips of an obscure Mexican… and a lot more besides...'
- South China Morning Post, Hong Kong

'Fascinating reading—some of the things which Gilbey witnessed are downright incredible and will give the serious student of these arts deep cause for reflection.'
- The Journal for the Association for Physical and Mental Rehabilitation
Product Description
This book is the sequel to the underground classic Secret Fighting Arts of the World, and chronicles the further adventures of the Indiana Jones of exotic martial arts, John F. Gilbey. His fistic and foot festivities take him in and out of dojos and gyms in the United States: to Iceland, Brazil, Iraq, and even an outer Tahitian island. Investigating claims of seemingly supernatural powers, Gilbey gives a strong nod to developed and carefully school inner disciplines, but has strong words for the fast buck artists who degrade serious martial arts like karate, kung fu, and jujutsu.

What I said about John Gilbey's first book, 'Secret Fighting Arts of the World,' applies just as much to this book. The real author, Robert W. Smith, intended this book as a satire!

Years after this book was published, Robert Smith came out and explained exactly how back in the early `60's he and a group of friends (all senior martial artists including Don Draeger who were Westerners trained in Japan and China) got the idea of writing a spoof about the martial arts. They made up the name, 'John F. Gilbey,' and invented a personal history for the name that combined their actual martial arts credentials. The first book, 'Secret Fighting Arts of the World,' turned out to be a great success, but not as they had planned. Unfortunately for them, so many people believed that 'John F. Gilbey' was a real person and the book a completely true book, that it took on a life of it's own and only added to the wild tales about martial arts that became popularized in the West. This happened because Smith was so skilled at interweaving fact with fiction that he unwittingly produced a satire that many found believable as complete 'fact.' Robert Smith later wrote this second book, 'The Way of the Warrior,' as an even more wild sequel thinking this would finally enlighten people, but once again, he was wrong. Finally, he just came out in the martial arts magazine, 'Journal Of Asian Martial Arts,' and told the true story. He later repeated it in his book, 'Martial Musings,' which I highly recommend. 'Martial Musings' is fact and includes actual photos rather than drawings. It also names many people, places, and events that can be confirmed via other sources, and many of which are famous in the martial arts.

For a more complete explanation of this, check out my Amazon review of 'Secret Fighting Arts of the World' at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007ISZY8/qid=1136766252/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103...

I'll conclude by saying exactly what I said about the other book. This book is a fun read for entertainment, cut-to-the-core insight, and deadpan satire. Smith has a sense of amused perspective on oneself, history, and the fighting arts. The writing style is great, and I highly recommend it. Just remember that the author intended this as a spoof! -Michael Wong

This book is the sequel to the underground classic 'Secret Fighting Arts of the World', and chronicles the further adventures of the Indiana Jones of exotic martial arts. Similar in theme and style to SFAotW, 'Way of a Warrior' is also more soulful and in-depth: the fireworks are still there, but we also get a glimpse of the ethical and, yes, spiritual implications of a life-long pursuit of martial esoterica. I'll say it again, this guy is the best writer in the field, bar none: buy this book!

To those who don't know yet, read MARTIAL MUSINGS or one of Smiths interviews in JOURNAL OF ASIAN MARTIAL ARTS. He has basically stated that the two books he wrote as Gilbey were fiction. In fact theres a whole section in MUSINGS about how some of the pictures and stories were created.
There is some truth nestled in here such as the history behind Savate. Its an enjoyable, ENTERTAINING read.

This book is the sequel to the underground classic 'Secret Fighting Arts of the World', and chronicles the further adventures of the Indiana Jones of exotic martial arts. Similar in theme and style to SFAotW, 'Way of a Warrior' is also more soulful and in-depth: the fireworks are still there, but we also get a glimpse of the ethical and, yes, spiritual implications of a life-long pursuit of martial esoterica. I'll say it again, this guy is the best writer in the field, bar none: buy this book!

Contents

Foreword
I Iceland: Balck holes and energitic fists
II Gurdjieff's Fiz-les-loo
III Some notions on the martial arts
IV The capoeira champion
V The woman who couldn't be raped
VI Good versus evil
VII Savate and French boxing
VIII A kahuna conquers Texas
IX Mama Su
X Pop songs and pa-kua
XI Man versus animal
XII Chang Sen-feng lives!
XIII The master of applied cowardice
XIV Peace, brothers and sisters, peace show less

Substance: Anecdotes of esoteric martial artists, supposedly from the author's personal experience. Objects to the desecration and commercialization of martial arts, especially in China and US. Includes jibes about Vietnam War. All encounters have only himself as witness; might check on some of the people cited, such as Tim Geoghegan.

Style: Opaque Munchhausen. However, the blurbs are funny.

'An excellent pictorial presentation of the art.'-John F. Gilbey, author of Secret Fighting Arts of the World

'A welcome addition to books on the 'soft'arts by a recognized international expert on hand-to-hand combat.'-The Washington Post

Unlike most martial arts, chinese internal (soft-style) boxing does not depent upon muscular strength. The secret behind its power lies in the cultivation and practical application of internal energy-ch'i. There are basically three soft-style martial arts: show more T'ai-chi, already well known worldwide, and Hsing-i and Pa-kua, relative newcomers to the West. Althugh they are essentially not fighting arts but living arts, they are devastating as systems of self-defense.

This book outlines the history of Hsing-i-a style of boxing given form (hsing) by the mind (i)-and gives a thorough account of the philosophy behind the technques. It also presents to the West for the first time the orthodox style of the late Chinese Hsing-i master Ch'en P'an-ling.

Described here in great detail and fully illustrated are the basic techniques, the five fists of Hsing-i, a linked form of the five fists, and the twelve animal styles.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Part One: Introduction to hsing-i boxing
1 What is hsing-i?
Name and thing
History and masters
2 Theories behind the art
Breathing and body
Exercise and meditation
Part Two: Hsing-i training
3 The basics
The five positions
The six coordinations
The nine words
Other pointers
4 Practicing the five fists
Preparation
Beginning
The five fists-Splitting fist (p'i ch'uan); Crushing fist (peng ch'uan); Driling fist (tsuan ch'uan); Pounding fist (p'ao ch'uan); Crossing fist (heng ch'uan)
Ending
Linking the five fists
5 Practicing the twelve animal styles
Beginning
The twelve styles
Dragon style (lung hsing)
Tiger style (hu hsing)
Monkey style (hou hsing)
Horse style (ma hsing)
Water strider style (t'ou hsing)
Chicken style (chi hsing)
Falcon style (yao hsing)
Swallow style (en hsing)
Snake style (she hsing)
T'ai style (t'ai hsing)
Combine eagle-and-bear style (ying-hsiung hsing)
6 Conclusion
Index show less