Product Description

Hirokazu Kanazawa is with out doubt considered one of the top masters in the world today. On this DvD he deals with all the basic techniques of the hand the foot plus many combinations of his unique high quality shotokan karate shot in 1985 these were done when he was in his prime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74465 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-04-25
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 54 minutes

Review
First Class instruction by Hirokazu Kanazawa! --Risingsunproductions.net

Review
A wonderful DVD for any Shotokan practitioner. --Fightingspirit.com

Customer Reviews

when I grow up, I want to be Kanazawa. Oops, too late!
The best bargain in the Shotokan Karate world is the Kanazawa kata dvd in this series.

This is another wonderful presentation. In it, Sensei Kanazawa (and if you're not a karate person, take it from me that he's the real deal; forget his belt rank, he knows his stuff) goes through the major techniques and drills that make up Shotokan Karate, in much the way that he does in his kata dvd.

Is this as good a bargain and as comprehensive as the kata dvd? No, but be fair. To fully cover the Shotokan syllabus, he would have needed a LOT more dvds in this package. And he has the important stuff in here.

His technique is flawless, of course, and this dvd can be a real inspiration to students (and don't get silly; of course you can't do all these things as well as he can-but if you watch closely, you can improve what you're doing now!).

I'm lucky enough to have an advanced Shotokan teacher in my backyard; Sensei Shojiro Koyama is in Phoenix, Arizona, and I get to study live, with feedback from a similar teacher, so I'm in fat city.

But if you're studying with somebody who didn't survive the Japan Karate Association instructor's course, get this dvd and its companions, and watch and study them obsessively.

NOTE CAREFULLY: IF THIS COMES TO YOU IN NTSC format, you can play it on your dvd player. If you get the one with a PAL format, you MAY be able to play it on your computer. That's what I'm doing with this one.

Weirdly, Amazon sent me the kata dvd (see my review) in the NTSC format, and this one and the kumite dvd in the PAL format.

On the other hand, for the low price here, and given the Amazon return policy, you'd be silly not to buy this if you're a Shotokan student.

The three dvds in this series do a remarkably good job of setting out the entire syllabus of Shotokan Karate. The only clear holes in this series are freestyle sparring and kata bunkai, and there are plenty of sources for those.

This series is very, very good, and if you can find a workaround for the PAL vs. NTSC issue, or if they send you the NTSC format the first time (I was lucky that way with the kata dvd), you'll have a remarkable addition to your Shotokan library for very little money.

If you're not a Shotokan stylist, this might be somewhat interesting just to see how a different style trains its students.

If you're not a student of karate yet, but are thinking about it, the three dvds in this series will provide you with a mostly complete roadmap of the territory, at a very low price, and at the highest level of quality of technique.

If you can only afford one of the three dvds in this series, go with the kata dvd, because it has within it all the stances, blocks, and punches and strikes that make up the system.

Great reference DVD
This is a great DVD that covers basic Kihon, and for me, still making my way up to Shodan, this is a fantastic reference. Highly recommended. :)