For part 1 of this list I have attempted to focus on books which are relatively readily attainable. Rarer ones will appear in later editions.
The Heart of Karate-Do by Shigeru Egami
I was saddened to learn that since I bought my copy over ten years ago this wonderful book has gone out of print. Coming initially from a Shotokan Karate background this book changed everything for me. My entire life I'd seen karate practitioners stomping up and down the dojo, straining and tensing so much in search of "kime" ('focus', thought in many schools to be the tensing of all the muscles in the body) and suddenly Egami was telling me to forget all that and relax. I was pretty young at the time and this, to me, was revolutionary - but the more I heeded Egami's advice the more my karate improved.Egami was the top disciple of Gichin Funakoshi (founder of the Shotokan school) but never found the fame outside of Japan that his juniors Mas Oyama and Masatoshi Nakayama did. In his youth he trained with tremendous zeal and was concerned so much with "Ikken Hisatsu" or killing with a single blow that he began actively experimenting on himself. Over his life he estimated that he took over 10,000 punches to the abdomen in search of someone who could come close to his ideal technique. He eventually settled on training a single knuckle fist to the highest level - and the feats ascribed to him in his time are incredible. I highly recommend that anyone from a traditional martial arts background, or fighters hoping to learn something deeper, pick this book up.
Favorite Part: Egami was decades ahead of his day in many ways and ultimately steered me towards MMA when he declared that true Karate involves not only punching but elbowing, kneeing and "even wrestling with the opponent".
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The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
You knew it was going to appear here because you've heard a hundred times before how life changing this book is. This text highlights how true martial arts genius is being able to break with the norm - Musashi was the first man to wield the two swords ,which samurai used to wear, simultaneously - but it also shows that it took years for Musashi to receive recognition as anything but a thug, and the same lack of acceptance likely awaits anyone who attempts anything radically new in the martial arts. Musashi was heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism but was also a man of unwavering practicality, and this makes for both a deeply useful and thought provoking read.The text is called "The Book of Five Rings" because it is divided into five parts; Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Emptiness. Earth and Water speak exclusively of the tactics and technique of one on one swordsmanship, but much of it can be as easily applied to unarmed fighting. The Book of Fire is concerned more with all encompassing strategies, ones which apply equally to one on one combat as they do to a battle between two armies. Wind is a critique of the methods existing in Musashi's day, and Void gives an insight into Musashi's world view, his opinion on knowledge, Mushin (empty mindedness) and other such philosophical matters. That this book is required reading in martial arts schools and business schools across the world is a testament to it's significance. In this day and age, with all of Musashi's knowledge so readily available and so cheaply, there is no real excuse not to have read this one.
Favorite Part: 'It is difficult to move strong things by pushing directly, so you should
"injure the corners" ... In single combat, it is easy to win once the enemy collapses. This happens
when you injure the "corners" of his body, and thus weaken him.' This applies perfectly to the strategy of kicking the opponent's legs, as effective in MMA today as it would have been 1000 years ago.
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Boxing's Ten Commandments by Alan Lachica
This is the least terrible modern boxing text, and by a significant amount. There are actually some decent ideas in here; an entire chapter on angles that is actually about angles and not just nonsense with "angles" as a buzz word. The V-step suggested in the angles chapter is a neat little trick where one fakes a rear hand punch accompanied with a half step in from the back foot, then immediately steps it out to the side, acquiring a dominant angle. A lot of the pages are made up of simple, interchangeable combinations such as "1-2-3" then "1-2-3(body)" and "1-2(body)-3", but between this there are flashes of brilliance.Favorite Part: The large section on angles. V-steps, C-steps and so on all displayed beautifully in photographs and ready to try at your next sparring session.
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Fedor by Fedor Emelianenko
I picked this book up hoping to learn more about Fedor's brilliant Sambo and Judo trips and throws. Though I wasn't disappointed on the Judo front, I was taken aback by the scope and quality of the section provided by Fedor on striking. It is very easy to forget that Emelianenko, regarded by anyone with an ounce of sense in the MMA community as the best rounded and most dominant heavyweight fighter of all time, spent a great deal of his career training with kickboxing legend, Ernesto Hoost in Holland. Though he rarely kicked in his prime days (he is bringing them back more recently, with vicious effect), Fedor's understanding of all around stand up is largely unparalleled.The most impressive thing about this text is that unlike Anderson Silva's book, which is largely made up of filler material that 'The Spider' has not used in his career, all the techniques present in Fedor have been used by the man against top competition. Present is the hand trap to left hook that he finished Zuluzinho and Tim Sylvia with, the Kimura escape which allowed him to give Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira submissions in order to break free and strike him more cleanly, and the counters that the Russian used against Mirko Cro Cop's legendary kicks.
Favorite Part: Fedor's backstepping punches are a thing of beauty. He shows how to step backwards and off line with the lead foot, while simulteneously throwing a left hook or uppercut as the opponent advances. A technique he used to floor Kelly Schall in RINGS.
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Boxing Simplified by John J. Walsh AND Boxing by Edwin Haislet
The two best books on boxing out there, these put all recent publications on the manly art to shame. The rival coaches of the most successful high school boxing teams in the USA, they essentially alternated ownership of national titles in their hay day. John Walsh's contains photographs where Haislet's only contains drawings due to the fact that Walsh's was written 20 years later, but both are fantastic. Haislet covers the 8 basic attacking combinations, the safety lead and the 8 basic counters for the jab, where Walsh covers his counters for these strategies.Favorite Part: With a little searching you can find these online for FREE. They are worth more than every recent boxing book published combined and they're not even going to cost you. If every MMA fighter read even half of one of these books, the sport would be a much more technical one.
The Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee
Another man who forged his own path in the martial arts, breaking with tradition. This book covers all that went on in Bruce's head as he was forced into a hospital bed for an extended period by a spine injury. Were it not for this spine injury Lee's early death would have prevented us from learning so much from a man who studied it all and cut off all the fat. The philosophy and tactics on display in this book are well worth the price tag, and it is readily available almost anywhere. This is another that there is no excuse for not reading.Favorite Part: Bruce covers in great depth his theory that a right handed man should fight as a southpaw, which was revolutionary at the time. Yet Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Mirko Cro Cop, Takanori Gomi, Kid Yamamoto and Nick Diaz have all had enormous success as right handers by fighting southpaw in recent years. Lee was almost a prophet!
Buy it here
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