Nirvana in a Nutshell


Book Description

Nirvana is. You are. Be enlightenment. Nirvana is not to be found in the fulfillment of endless desires, the analysis of profound thoughts, or even hours, days, or years of meditative contemplation. In fact, it is the very act of seeking to obtain happiness, peace, and enlightenment that keeps them out of reach. Nirvana in a Nutshell offers over 150 Zen meditations to help you discover what you might be doing (or not doing) in your life to sabotage your goal of reaching inner peace, your own personal paradise. Let go of the quest and become that which you truly seek and you will find your own Nirvana. Nirvana is the state of grace where there is no longer any physical suffering, mental anguish, or unanswered questions. Many assume that the only way to achieve that magical state is if they walk away from the world and enter "the spiritual path." But conflict is a part of life - any kind of life. If you allow your peace to be taken away from you by external occurrences or internal disharmony then you will never know contentment. Peace is an inner triumph. Nirvana is not known, because it has been propagated as the ultimate obtainment. It has been made a desire. But, as Siddhartha Guatama stated, "The cause of suffering is desire." Scott Shaw contends that people are looking for contentment in all the wrong places.




Karate Punches


Book Description

A general description of karate, including its origins and development, warm-up exercises, basic and advanced punches, and safety aspects.




Higher Judo


Book Description

Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais is best known for pioneering the somatic therapy that bears his name. Less well known is that he was also one of the earliest European practitioners of the martial art of judo and wrote a number of influential texts on the subject. Primary among these is Higher Judo, first published in 1952 and now reprinted with a new foreword that offers useful context and elaborates on Feldenkrais’ comprehensive—and still timely—approach to the martial art and to the body. Judo was a natural choice for Feldenkrais’s fascination with body/mind exploration and how to promote optimal functioning through awareness. In Higher Judo, he presents judo as the art of using all parts of the body to promote general health, and as part of the “basic culture of the body.” He reveals judo’s potential for creating a sense of rhythm of movement and improving mental and physical coordination. Higher Judo covers specific movements and positions—the astride position, the six o’clock approach, falling techniques—in both the text and the clear line drawings. Even more importantly, it shows how such groundwork can help practitioners develop their mental and physical awareness to their full potential.




Kapap Combat Concepts


Book Description

The fundamental aspects of Kapap, the martial arts system developed and utilized by Israeli special forces, are detailed in this handy manual. The defensive tactics, hand-to-hand combat moves, and self-defense methods that compose Kapap are all detailed, with special sections covering striking, grappling, pressure points, and weapon defense. Instructions are also provided for incorporating basic Kapap training methods and techniques into preexisting workout routines.




Science and Medicine in Combat Sports


Book Description

The number of studies in combat sports has significantly increased in the last decade, as numerous combat sports are becoming more popular around the world. In this book, authors present current academic research from interdisciplinary combat sports arenas, including MMA, Judo, Karate and Tae Kwon Do. Furthermore, readers can find a review that explores the time-motion analysis of grappling, striking and mixed combat sports, and an overview of physiological responses to typical training sessions in official and simulated combats. Relevant physical and psychosocial changes throughout the process of maturation are addressed along with a comparison between combat sports and other forms of physical activity. This book also addresses links between oxidative stress and exercise in combat sports; injury epidemiology in judo; differences among athletes in different karate disciplines.




Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense


Book Description

Ten years of hand-to-hand combat spurred Moshe Feldenkrais to publish "Jiu-Jitsu and Self Defense" - his method of self-defense based on a person's automatic movements when attacked.




Hollywood Highbrow


Book Description

Today's moviegoers and critics generally consider some Hollywood products--even some blockbusters--to be legitimate works of art. But during the first half century of motion pictures very few Americans would have thought to call an American movie "art." Up through the 1950s, American movies were regarded as a form of popular, even lower-class, entertainment. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, viewers were regularly judging Hollywood films by artistic criteria previously applied only to high art forms. In Hollywood Highbrow, Shyon Baumann for the first time tells how social and cultural forces radically changed the public's perceptions of American movies just as those forces were radically changing the movies themselves. The development in the United States of an appreciation of film as an art was, Baumann shows, the product of large changes in Hollywood and American society as a whole. With the postwar rise of television, American movie audiences shrank dramatically and Hollywood responded by appealing to richer and more educated viewers. Around the same time, European ideas about the director as artist, an easing of censorship, and the development of art-house cinemas, film festivals, and the academic field of film studies encouraged the idea that some American movies--and not just European ones--deserved to be considered art.




Affective Health and Masculinities in South Africa


Book Description

"Affective Health and Masculinities in South Africa explores how different masculinities modulate substance use, interpersonal violence, suicidality, and AIDS as well as recovery cross-culturally. With a focus on three male protagonists living in very distinct urban areas of Cape Town, this comparative ethnography shows that men's struggles to become invulnerable increase vulnerability. Through an analysis of masculinities as social assemblages, the study shows how affective health problems are tied to modern individualism rather than African 'tradition' that has become a clichâe in Eurocentric gender studies. Affective health is conceptualized as a balancing act between autonomy and connectivity that after colonialism and apartheid has become compromised through the imperative of self-reliance. This book provides a rare perspective on young men's vulnerability in everyday life that may affect the reader and spark discussion about how masculinities in relationships shape physical and psychological health. Moreover, it shows how men change in the face of distress in ways that may look different than global health and gender transformative approaches envision. Thick descriptions of actual events over the life course make the study accessible to both graduate and undergraduate students in the social sciences. Contributing to current debates on mental health and masculinity, the volume will be of interest to scholars from a number of disciplines including anthropology, gender studies, African studies, psychology and global health"--




Night Train to Lisbon


Book Description

Night Train to Lisbon is a sensuous tale of the pursuit of love and passion against all odds, set in the 1930s when the world was on the brink of war and suspicion of loyalty, motivation, and intent -- to both country and lover -- was at flood tide. Carson Weatherell is a privileged young American woman traveling in Europe in 1936, courtesy of her aunt and uncle who live abroad and have kindly offered to show her the sights. A bout of illness and self-pity almost send her back to her sheltered Connecticut life, but on an overnight train to Lisbon, she suddenly can't imagine returning home. On that train she meets Alec Breve, a young British scientist traveling with a group of colleagues -- and in his company, Carson finds that she's enjoying herself, certainly for the first time since she left New York Harbor, and quite possibly for the first time in her life. In Lisbon, Carson and Alec begin an intense love affair, but their bliss is threatened when Carson's uncle reveals that Alec might be a spy for Germany. He insists that it is essential that Alec be trapped and brought to justice, and the only person who can deliver an unsuspecting Alec to the proper authorities is Carson. Desperate to believe in her new love -- and terrified of discovering she has fallen for a traitor -- Carson must choose whether to prove her lover innocent or leave him to face the consequences on his own. A riveting page-turner, Night Train to Lisbon travels back to the days when war loomed, the Mitford sisters dazzled, and night trains brimmed with romance and intrigue, delivering a mesmerizing novel of a love that must truly conquer all in order to survive.




No Way Home


Book Description

When Lillie's beautiful teenaged daughter Michele is murdered, she is driven by grief to find justice for her daughter.