The Complete Idiot's Guide to Kickboxing

Pros: User-friendly guide to fundamentals of kickboxing. Incredible and detailed fitness program (with daily schedules!). Offers more than one type of fitness program for more than one type of userCons: Pictures are black and white and don't give a lot of detailIf you are a couch potato martial artist (love to watch, but haven't participated in martial arts yet); this book is a great book to get introduced to the world of kickboxing It guides you through the fundamental techniques and movements of a kickboxing novice (along with some more advanced combinations) along with providing some nutritional guidance and a complete fitness program for the beginning kickboxer as well as the more experienced (and actually competing) fighter.I won't say that you will be a kickboxing champion after reading this book, but you can:1. Learn to identify and practice the basic fundamentals (Make sure you get a coach to make sure you are doing this correctly!)2. Use the fitness and nutrition program to help you train and look like a fighter even if you don't want to be a professional kickboxerThe book is accommodating to both purposes. The book is sequential and very easy to follow along with. The pictures, though, are in black and white and don't always give a lot of detail. If you are already familiar with the basic kickboxing moves, this is probably a refresher book. If you're new to the field or just want to get more fit

This is the first martial arts book I have read that is written with women in mind. Don't get me wrong, it's not all about women kickboxers. It's just the first time I've read any martial arts book with specific paragraphs for and about women in martial arts. This is a good book for beginners or someone just trying to decide if they want to try kickboxing. It includes techniques, conditioning and theory. This book needs more pictures explaining the moves, positions and combinations. This book seems like it would be inspirational for women.

Via this very user friendly manual, all the main angles of Western Kickboxing are presented in a fluid, clear and sharp manner. The layout is good. The graphic is good. The font is good. The wording is good. Alltho well-organized via progressive modules, there is good variety to keep interest going. Ring and general strategy and tactics are quite relevant to Kickboxing. Kickboxing moves are well illustrated and explained as are their combos [combinations]. Practice and fine-tuning of those is well presented. Nutrition, warm-up, sparring, and cool-down are practically presented. Chapter 18 "The Perfect Self-Defense", Chapter 19 "The Complete Martial Artist" and Chapter 20 "The Fight of Your Life" have great advice on extending Kickboxing out of the Ring for self-protection. Kickboxing is long-time well-proven versus all opponents in and out of the Ring -- from most classical Savate to most modern Kickboxing. Savate has a nice quick explanation on page 20 in a good chapter on history and development of Kickboxing. Karon Karter and Guy Mezger have created a SMART guide to Western Kickboxing +++

A very in depth book on the sport. Great info, pictures and explanations. Even gives background and history. Excellent value.

I really thought this book was a 3, but after some thought I gave it a 3.5. The main reason I gave it the higher score is because, as many other reviewers point out, it is a very complete reference. It's loaded with information. The author is clearly very experienced.Unfortunately, as a beginner, this book came up short in several key areas. First of all, the pictures and diagrams were simply not clear enough. While not true of all books in this series, I find this issue does crop up from time to time. The pictures are dark and dated, and it's very difficult to clearly see the poses. The publisher should have sprung for new pictures for this book.The book's other shortcoming is in the area of organization. The information is dropped on you as if you were reading a dictionary. It's very difficult to learn something new by going through so much information. The book could have been better layed out, starting with some basic exercises and then delving into the more complex.In my opinion, these changes would make this a tremendously better book.

I really liked this book, especially because the pictures and descriptions of the moves. There's a lot of videos on Youtube about kickboxing, but I found this book very complete and the form it teaches seems to be good and natural. At the very least, you'll understand a lot about kickboxing after reading this.

If your getting your start in Kickboxing, weather it be to exercise,get fit & healthy or go in the ring, this is a good introduction to it.

You are not going to become Chuck Norris with this book but it give you some basic information and tips to improve your technique. Of course you need a punching bag and gloves to practice what you learn in this book. Practice shadow boxing in front of a mirror and record yourself with a camera to see what you doing wrong and what you need to improve. The only thing I didn't like was the pictures because they are black and white and no many detail. I think the book is a little dated. I have new MMA books and they have color pictures and lot of details. I think is a good book to start with.