Thinking about an ebook

This blog began as a hobby project to introduce myself to blogging and to share the pattern applications I've been researching. In the past 14 months I've written 40 or so posts, including full analyses of at least three forms. The overarching goal of my posts was to show that applications to the ITF patterns exist and that they are not particularly esoteric. You can find them in other martial art systems.

I don't want to keep up this blog indefinitely though. Lately I've thought about writing an ebook. It seems like the next logical step and I enjoy systematic analyses of entire forms, something a book is better suited for.

There are some obstacles, however. I never found a consistent partner to take pictures with, so making something in the style of The Taegeuk Cipher or Ch'ang Hon Taekwon-Do Hae Sul is not possible. Nor can I use online images (like I do in this blog) for copyright reasons. Therefore, my only real choice is to use drawings. This sounds lame, but there are some advantages to drawings. One criticism of The Taegeuk Cipher (and to a lesser extent Hae Sul) is that the grainy black-and-white images are too hard to make out. Drawings are easier to see and can be used to highlight the necessary parts of a technique. Judo instructions often contain drawings for this very reason.

Instructional depiction of Judo's O soto gari throw

This would also be an opportunity to practice drawing, so I'm killing two birds with one stone. I did some test sketches, shown below. While my drawing ability is not where I'd like it to be, I am able to depict a technique, so with more practice sketching out an entire form is feasible.

Some test sketches for a set in Sam-Il. Final images would use digital coloring for contrast, shown on the lower right.

As you can tell from above, I would be analyzing Sam-Il. I am choosing this form because currently no book has been published on it. It's also one of the early ITF forms, the 4th or 5th made overall, and it contains some interesting techniques.

This means I'll be working on the ebook rather than the blog. I do have some unfinished posts lined up about sets in Gae-Baek and Eui-Am, but I'll keep them on the back burner for now.