Essential Aikido: An Illustrated Handbook

The book includes 11 detailed descriptions of basic footwork moves, or tai-sabaki. I find it difficult to learn anything substantial from most Aikido books, but these are small building-block skills that are used throughout this text and are crucial to Waites' book "Aikido and Kuzushi." These are concrete examples of "getting off the line" and body positioning ahead of the technique; and one can drill them at home!The book can be considered a "workbook" in terms of its size, production style, and white space around each photo. I've been adding clarifying notes, direction arrows, etc., to make it a better, more personalized reference. I'll likely continue this approach as I move into the waza descriptions.As noted in another review, there are a few assembly errors in my 2017 edition (e.g. page 63, in a later section of the book), so watch out for those. Note that I am a kyu-level practioner of Aikido.

Recommended reading for anyone about to study aikido. Very easy to understand well written

I read the kindle version, and thought would be nice to have a hard copy, was quite disappointed to be honest, the kindle has the pictures in colour but the printed book is black and white. There's also a few errors in the text/pictures on some of the locks which my sensei pointed out. Other than that, i think it's a some what useful book to read, just don't use it as a bible for study.