Stretching and strengthening tips for dealing with--and even preventing--common soft-tissue injuries
The new edition has also been reorganized using a regional approach to presenting muscle group functions around specific joints. You will learn how to stretch each major muscle in the body, both individually and in groups. In addition, you will discover how to appropriately use group pattern stretches to improve flexibility and coordination and individual muscle stretches to relax tight muscles and break up adhesions within or between muscles. Instruction is provided for using the techniques on your own or with a partner.
More than 350 photographs showing the progression of stretches enrich the book while the new 60-minute DVD demonstrates the stretches and strengthening exercises in even more detail. Icons are featured throughout the text, indicating which exercises are demonstrated on the DVD. A unique binding also allows you to lay the book flat while performing the exercises without losing your place. The DVD serves as a great visual tool for improving your technique and getting the most out of your routines.
An ideal reference for fitness professionals, Facilitated Stretching, Third Edition, provides techniques to help athletes, patients, and clients improve flexibility, strength, and coordination while also treating and preventing injuries. Students in massage therapy, athletic training, and other professional training programs will discover how to use facilitated stretching in conjunction with massage and other manual therapy techniques.
With Facilitated Stretching, Third Edition, you have a cutting-edge tool packed with the latest PNF stretching techniques to help you assess current muscle function, improve range of motion, increase strength, reduce overuse injuries, and enhance performance.
Customer Reviews:
An Exerciser's Gold Mine.......2007-08-14
As a runner and horseback rider, I have always subscribed to the theory that stretching is critical for performance. However, finding an effective stretching system has been a long and arduous search. Some books are difficult for the lay person to understand. Some books do not have a fundamental theory underpinning their exercises. And some books promote stretches that are actually harmful. I have found Facilitated Stretching to be the best of the bunch. The illustrations are clear, well-organized and large enough to follow. The text is written clearly and concisely: I can figure out what to do the first time I read it. The cd is excellent: slow, well-narrated and easy to follow. Best of all, the results are immediate. My partially frozen shoulders are starting to move in response to a combination of massage therapy and facilitated stretching (as advocated in the book). My hamstrings have finally let go so now I know what it feels like to walk as normal people do! In short, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It has met all my stringent requirements. This new edition is even better than the second edition which I studied before buying this book.
Total Upgrade!.......2007-05-12
This 3rd edition is a wonderful upgrade from the 2nd. The DVD does an exceptional job of visualizing spiral diagonal patterns and demonstrating the facilitated stretching technique. The book is upgraded as well as the information on specific body locations is easlier to find and readily accessable for use in my bodywork. I use both frequently.
Wonderful little book..........2007-04-07
As a Personal Trainer, I was looking for a book that was practical with stretches that I could teach my clients that were beyond the normal static stretches. After some weeks with a flexibility program designed with stretches from this book, there is a noticible difference in positive range of motion. It is well written and easy to follow. For my purposes, I found it to be an excellent book.
A Must Have!.......2003-04-23
As a massage therapist I often work with muscle injuries. This book is a must have for both therapeutic technique and for client education. I highly reccommend it.
Dangerous.......1999-10-20
Although some of the assisted exercises might work well, I found many of the other stretches inflamed a number of joints after several weeks on this program. The solo stretching exercises seem to be poorly researched.
Average customer rating:
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Estiramientos Facilitados: Los Estiramientos de FNP Con y Sin Asistencia / Facilitated Stretching
Robert E. McAtee , and
Jeff Charland
Manufacturer: Paidotribo Editorial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Bodybuilding & Weight Training
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ASIN: 8480195029 |
Book Description
One of the most respected cookbooks in the industry - the 2002 IACP Cookbook Award Winner for Best Technical/Reference - Professional Baking brings aspiring pastry chefs and serious home bakers the combined talent of Wayne Gisslen and the prizewinning Le Corden Bleu in one volume. The revised Fourth Edition offers complete instruction in every facet of the baker's craft, offering more than 750 recipes - including 150 from Le Cordon Bleu - for everything from cakes, pies, pastries, and cookies to artisan breads.
Page after page of clear instruction, the hallmark of all Gisslen culinary books, will help you master the basics - such as pate brisee and puff pastry -and confidently hone techniques for making spectacular desserts using spun sugar and other decorative work. More than 500 color photographs illustrate ingredients and procedures as well as dozens of stunning breads and finished desserts.
Average customer rating:
- To bake, or not to bake, that is the question...
- For the future professional baker
- No baker should be without this
- Not necessarily for the novice...
- Some very informative text, ruined by useless formulas.
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Professional Baking, Student Workbook
Wayne Gisslen
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
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Similar Items:
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Professional Baking
-
Professional Baking, Trade, 3rd Edition
-
The World of Culinary Supervision, Training, and Management (2nd Edition)
-
Professional Baking, Study Guide
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Professional Cooking, College (With CD-ROM)
ASIN: 047141302X |
Book Description
The introductory bakeshop course is a required part of the culinary arts curriculum. Students must obtain the skills to build their careers, and the new edition of this book provides them with the basic procedures as well as higher level techniques. New recipe ideas and practical applications fill the book and gives the student the tools to expand their skill set.
Customer Reviews:
To bake, or not to bake, that is the question..........2006-01-05
Honestly, I found this textbook to be hard to follow, difficult to understand, and many of the recipes and formulas did not work. Also, there were not many photos, and the diagrams were confusing. This certainly is not for the home chef, and I hesitate to recommend this to professional students either.
For the future professional baker.......2004-09-25
This is another of the books I use as reference for my cooking school. It contains recipes from Le Cordon Bleu schools and recipes from America. Most of the recipes are for large quantities and it is definately not a book for the home baker, this is a great reference book to be used in a professional pastry kitchen.
I particularly like this book because it gives you a basic recipe for let's say a bavarois cream, and then it gives you ten other variations (chocolate, coffee, strawberry, etc) that you can make by changing or adding one or two ingredients.
The instructions are clear and easy to follow.
I highly reccomend this book to anyone who is thinking of baking seriously.
No baker should be without this.......1998-12-30
This is not a cookbook for the home baker, but no professional should be without this all encompassing book.
Not necessarily for the novice..........1998-12-27
I also had to purchase this book for culinary school. While this book can be difficult to understand, the quality of the instructor has a great deal to do with the user's comprehension of the subject matter. I find this an excellent book and continue to use it today (because I know how to make it work for me).
NOTE: The formulas in this book work, provided you have had proper instruction in how to use them, and in how to use Baker's Math to increase and reduce the yields.
Some very informative text, ruined by useless formulas........1998-11-06
Biggest waste of $35 I've ever seen ! This was a required text in school , and approximatly 25% of the formulas were completely unusable. It was if this character wrote these recipes off the top of his head without the slightest concern for whether they worked or not.I shudder to think how many copies of this waste of paper have been sold to culinary students and the general public alike.
Product Description
191 pages
Book Description
Contrary to the popular homily, this is one book you can tell by its cover. The title, "The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses," conveys an attitude that ennobles and supports an effort to defend and enhance the spirits of our young people.
The subtitles also communicate a great deal of information. The first subtitle, The truth about Ritalin, "ADHD" and other "disruptive behavior disorders" reveals that the book addresses at length the specific phenomenon of labeling huge numbers of our children with these diagnoses and giving these children drugs. As suggested by the second subtitle, "What to do when your child is labeled a problem by the schools, " this book is very much oriented toward parents' or other adults who need support with this issue. The book holds a great deal of information that is generally useful to adult allies of young people in any situation.
The book is divided into three major sections.
Part I: RECOGNITION AND REMEMBRANCE. To respond effectively to a situation, we need a realistic picture of that situation. Our society greatly distorts reality in regard to the experience of young people and schools. Specifically, the practice of BioPsychiatry (i.e., the reduction in our thinking about human beings to biological and genetic function and the subsequent use of drugs and/or electric shock to "treat" that function) is addressed. Recognizing and understanding BioPsychiatry is crucial to effectively respond to the fact that we have about four million children on Ritalin today in the United States and to deal with the pressures we receive to drug our own children. The section on RECOGNITION also presents ideas that are important to realize about schools and a few key beliefs that influence the way we relate to our children.
This part of the book is also about REMEMBRANCE. It is extremely challenging to be a parent under any circumstance (or to be a parent surrogate such as a teacher or other adult caregiver). Our society is not set up to effectively support those who care for our young. It is even more challenging, and often overwhelming, to be a parent when your child is having a hard time or not "acting right." When others, such as school and mental health authorities, are pressuring you to do something about your child's problems, the stress becomes even more intense. At these times we are most likely to forget who we really are, who our child really is, and what is really important. A goal in this section is to provide a few reminders toward re-remembering the true nature of your child and of yourself as a parent. A few pointers are offered to hold onto during this stressful time.
Part II: INFORMATION AND ACTION. This section covers several areas that respond to that original question of "What are your solutions then?" The emphasis of this section is on Action - what else you can do as a parent to help your child. The author's experience was that he got precious little good information to prepare him for his role as a parent. He is very aware of how extremely difficult it is to implement the ideas presented in the face of our distressed society. What is offered here will help you respond to the challenge of parenting and being good allies to our young people.
Gender pronouns are alternated, especially in describing children, rather than attempting to neuter, pluralize or simply use the masculine for convenience sake. Sex differences need not affect parenting decisions except when determining how best to counter the heavy gender conditioning that comes down on boys and girls in their respective cultures.
Part III: ON COUNSELING CHILDREN. This section contains the heart of the book. The theory presented here is a tremendous affront to much of the conventional wisdom and conditioned thinking with which we are all thoroughly saturated. It is also a tremendous challenge to implement this approach in the face of parental oppression and lack of support for children, parents and families in our society. Therefore, it is important to go into some depth on key areas including shame, crying, fear and anger. In addition, the author shares his own experience as a parent, particularly some of the trials, tribulations and successes with his son, Eric. He offers teachings that have been helpful to him with the caveat that this is one father who does not know best.
Customer Reviews:
yes and no.......2007-07-05
While I agree with Mr. Breeding on his stand against medicating children and doing whatever it takes to find a workable solution, much of his philosophy is impractical and unrealistic. I admire his courage though and a lot of what he says rings true for me.
I wish my parents had read this book........2004-08-18
I am a Wild Colt, much older and wiser now. Breeding has a way of showing that every child (and adult) is as unique as a snowflake and should be given the chance to become who they really are without chemical leashes. I was on Ritalin until I figured out I could refuse it. What Dr. Breeding proposes in this book is what I needed as a child, the space to become myself. My loving parents did what they thought was best for me but all I remember was feeling drugged and shuffling around kicking dirt during recess instead of intereacting and socializing with the other kids. My grades were awesome and I was well behaved; I was miserable. Read this book, there is truth here. Norman Moore
Untamed wild colts DON'T make the best horses!.......2003-03-10
I first read this book at a time when we were going through severe side effects from medicating my 7yr old son for ADD. I felt drawn to this book because it offered hope and alternatives to the medication route. However, having read the book I found that Dr. Breeding jumped to conclusions that were not well founded either through his own research or through the literature. His agenda in the book is clearly to dissuade readers from ever using medication for ADD again. Clearly, there is an abuse of ADD medication in the U.S. and for taking a stand against this I definitely applaud Dr. Breeding.
However, having read this book it clearly is an example of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'. There are many children for whom medication makes a real difference in their lives. Why treat a chemical inbalance in the brain any different from another medical condition? We could equally well argue that any health problems we experience should be handled without medication.
We all agree that the wildest colts may make the best horses, but in real life, those wild colts MUST be tamed. If left to run wild they will most certainly NOT make the best horses. They must be trained and guided in love and consistency.
If medication enables our children to learn and be trained to develop into responsible and well-balanced adults, then I think we should be extremely careful before entirely disregarding the possible benefits of using medication.
In closing though, I still believe that Dr. Breeding's warning about overmedicating too many kids is an important one. Let's just be careful NOT to throw the baby out with the bathwater! If you read this book - please do so with an open yet critical mind!
Outstanding Book.......2003-02-08
I thought Dr. Breeding's book was outstanding, because anyone dealing a child who is labeled a problem/disabled/special education would find comfort and understanding reading this selection. Appropriately dealing with situations that involve children who are considered a problem is a very daunting job if you do not know what you are doing. This book clearly describes and defines the problems that labeled children face in America.
Dr. Breeding has a style of writing which is easy to comphrehend, because he does an excellent job at explaining the topics he presents. For example, he doesn't just claim "drugging children is harmful." He provides a full and complete explanation of why parents should look at other options outside of medication for their children. So often parents are pushed, bullied, and shoved into the easy way to resolve problems with children, and end up paying greatly at a latter date. If you want an open and honest insight Dr. Breeding's book is a page turner.
I was impressed with Dr. Breeding's anti drugging stance, because almost every child I have ever seen be placed on medication perform poorly socially, academically, and emotionally in the long run. Even the few that do demonstrate excellence academically end up latter on with either a drug problem or taking even more drugs to focus. I appreciate a doctor's willingness to just tell the truth.
This book also highlights the important aspect of becoming a better parent, because it is much easier or more successful to parent children when you actually understand them. I think most parents find frustration with thier childre, because they do not understand, therefore, do not know how to effectively respond.
To date, I have now read a lot of writings by Dr. Breeding, and I find him to have a superior grasp of children's behavior. Typically I've resented any mental health professionals, but I like and trust Dr. Breeding. His website is a valuable source of information also for any parent or even teacher searching for the truth and understanding.
Kudos.......2002-05-02
I praise Dr. Breeding in his quest to inform the parents of children who are subjects of an abused educational system. I found this book enlightening and would recommend it to all who would like to know the truth about ADHD.
Book Description
Hundreds of ideas to ensure your pet's happiness.
This convenient little package contains comprehensive advice for horse owners written by well-known pet experts. Illustrated with over 75 photographs and charts, What Your Horse Needs details the equipment you need, as well as advice on diet, training and grooming. Your equine friend will thrive with this handy guide.
Customer Reviews:
Wow!.......2001-07-01
This is a handy compact book on the care of horses. It has practical advice, and lots of pictures if you dont understand at first. With some of the tips and information in here, I helped my horse look great and peerform well too. Your horse will love it if you buy this book.
Average customer rating:
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What Your Horse Needs
Betsy Siino
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding
General
| Animal Care & Pets
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 061333230X |
Average customer rating:
|
Extension extra
Bill Epperson
Manufacturer: Cooperative Extension Service, College of Agriculture & Biological Sciences, South Dakota State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Horses
| Animal Care & Pets
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0006S7JOQ |
Customer Reviews:
Bracelets to Love.......2007-09-09
I love to do all kinds of bead work but bracelets are my absolute favourite. There is a good variety of bracelets with clear photos and well written directions.
Beginning beadwork .......2007-04-05
This is a good little booklet, quite reasonably priced, for beginning off-loom needle woven beaded bracelets. The projects are taken from past articles/projects of the Bead & Button Magazine. No surprises here...do-able projects!
excellent.......2006-08-13
i enjoyed this book very much. it's filled with lots of great projects and the directions are clear.
want to make everything.......2006-01-09
I plan on working my way right through the book as all the projects look excellent. Nothing complicated and the materials are ordinary beads and crystals easily available. Some call for wire and some for fireline, Nymo, etc. Several of the bracelets (including one earring) were not in Bead and button. Fully illustrated and definitely recommended to beginners and intermediate beaders.
Book Description
Both the Taylor's Guides to individual plant groups and the Taylor's Weekend Guides on basic techniques and popular gardening styles are highly acclaimed and well established. We now enthusiastically add a quick-reference series for readers who don't have the time or the experience to do their own research. Taylor's 50 Best books highlight the most attractive foolproof plants and include detailed information that every gardener needs in order to grow them. Color photos, full-color drawings, and growing tips make each plant entry useful and complete. Six books introduce the series and cover the most popular plants for backyard gardeners: perennials for sun, perennials for shade, herbs and edible flowers, roses, shrubs, and trees.
Customer Reviews:
Taylor's 50 Best Shrubs.......2005-09-24
If I could give this book a minus 5 I would. The content is fair, but the pictures are what really spoil the usefulness of the book. The pictures are close ups of the flowers or branches. I needed pictures of how the "SHRUB" would look in my landscape, not how the "flower" would look.
The BEST shrub book on the market and I've seen plenty.......2003-04-22
This book is THE guide and it's set up perfectly to help you understand and pick out a shrub. It has 95% of the most popular shrubs you would ever want for your garden. It has the USDA zone map and it has nice photos. I would love to see this book in an expanded format with more info and photos and more selections, but NOBODY has that yet. This is the #1 book for your shrub planning, so buy this one and Ortho's All About Shrubs And Hedges and you'll have the only 2 books you need.
Book Description
Both the Taylor's Guides to individual plant groups and the Taylor's Weekend Guides on basic techniques and popular gardening styles are highly acclaimed and well established. We now enthusiastically add a quick-reference series for readers who don't have the time or the experience to do their own research. Taylor's 50 Best books highlight the most attractive foolproof plants and include detailed information that every gardener needs in order to grow them. Color photos, full-color drawings, and growing tips make each plant entry useful and complete. Six books introduce the series and cover the most popular plants for backyard gardeners: perennials for sun, perennials for shade, herbs and edible flowers, roses, shrubs, and trees.
Book Description
Take the guesswork out of gardening. Instead of the disappointments of trial and error, you can get it right the first time with the help of the editors of "the best guides on the market" (Garden Design magazine). Roses are the prima donnas among garden flowers, but they don't have to be difficult and temperamental if you choose the right ones for your garden. In this easy-to-use book you'll find: *Roses tht are hardy in the coldest parts of the U.S. and Canada *Roses that love the heat of the South *Roses that bloom from spring to fall *Roses for ground covers and hedges *Roses that require no spraying *The best of the prima donnas--the ones that are really worth the care they require
Book Description
You are pregnant, have a baby, and then must face the daunting task of raising a child. The era of the extended family, where support and advice are readily available, is long gone. What do you do? How do you overcome the potential obstacles of child rearing? This book provides suggestions in lively, upbeat, and non-judgmental ways. It offers easy-to-follow games as the basis for dealing with parenting issues: adjustments, early socialization, routines, toilet training, nursery school, discipline, self-esteem, creativity, childrenÂ's rights and responsibilities, sibling rivalry, parentsÂ' and grandparentsÂ' roles, and Lemon-Aid (turning problems into successes). Since everyone is a winner in these games, the more you play, the easier your family life will be. When you arm yourself with a knowledge of parenting skills and a promise to enjoy each stage of your childÂ's development to the fullest, you are well on the road to winning the parenting game.
Customer Reviews:
Best Parenting Book Ever.......2006-08-17
I happened upon this book by chance in the book store. My demanding toddler had been frustrating me and I needed some words of wisdom. What I found was a wonderful, wise, supportive, nurturing book with lots of practical tips. My favorites are the "games for toddlers to play so they stay out of your hair while you are cooking." This book should be standard issue for every new parent. I will be getting several copies for friends.
Awesome Book.......2004-12-21
As someone who is planning to have a family soon, I really appreciated the advice of a parent without all the technical mumbo jumbo. I particularly appreciated the fact that it took a holistic approach to raising children and did not just focus on one particular stage of development. In addition, it was an easy reader and I recommend it to any parent or parent-to-be.
Excellent and Practical Parenting Book!.......2004-09-10
The author does a wonderful job of helping the reader navigate through each stage of parenting in a user-friendly and practical way. The book is unlike other parenting books in that it does discuss issues and challenges that arise throughout a parent's life and does not focus on just one stage of child development. The highlight of this book is the chapter on creativity, which contains suggestions and insights that will not only enrich a parent's own life, but certainly the development and happiness of the whole family unit. I highly recommend this book to those who want useful concrete advice ather than just clinical or esoteric information.
Average customer rating:
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Distaff Diplomacy or My Elegant Life As a Diplomat\'s Wife
Rae Hardy
Manufacturer: Trafford Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Artists, Architects & Photographers
| Arts & Literature
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ASIN: 1552127052
Release Date: 2006-07-06 |
Book Description
Memoirs of the wife of a Canadian Foreign Service Oficer from 1953 (when the department was a scant 6 years old) to her husband\'s retirement in 1980. The book covers postings to New York city, Vienna, Austria, Helsinki, Finland, TelAviv, Israel, and Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Average customer rating:
- From low status fisherman to international expert
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Drifting Toward the Southeast: The Story of Five Japanese Castaways
Manufacturer: Spinner Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Japanese
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ASIN: 0932027563 |
Book Description
Drifting Toward the Southeast is the first complete English language edition of Hyoson Kiryaku—the official, autobiographical account of John Manjiro's historic voyage to the United States as told to the officials of the Shogunate in 1852.
This important historical account was hand-recorded in four brush-written volumes by samurai artist and scholar Kawada Shoryo following Manjiro's nine-month interrogation by Shogun Tokugawa's officials. It was prohibited from public view for many years by the Shogun's isolation law. Spinner's English edition, Drifting Toward the Southeast, will showcase high-quality color reproductions of the masterful watercolor paintings by the artist Shoryo, the delicate illustrations by Manjiro himself, and the detailed maps that complete the original document.
John Manjiro was the 14-year-old Japanese boy out fishing with four companions when they were shipwrecked and rescued by an American whaling ship from New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1841. Captain William Whitfield of the ship John James Howland grew fond the young castaway and invited him to his home in Fairhaven, Massaschusetts where Manjiro was given a formal education in English, mathematics and navigation. He later became mate on a whaling ship and circumnavigated the globe. Longing for Japan, he eventually joined the California Gold Rush and earned enough money for his return to his homeland.
Drifting Toward the Southeast reveals Manjiro's accurate memory in depicting the castaways' adventures. Largely ignored in America, but legendary in Japan, Manjiro was the first known Japanese visitor to the United States who was allowed to return to Japan without facing harsh punishment for breaking the isolation law. This original account was completed just nine months before Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" armada strong-armed Japan into a peace treaty, and became coveted reading of daimyos and samurai leaders. As a result, numerous hand-written copies of Hyoson Kiryaku circulated, and the castaways' story spread by word of mouth. It caught the imagination of common people who were eager to know about the outside world, and it shaped their perceptions of mid-nineteenth century America. It also deeply influenced the pioneers of modernization in Japan: men like Sakamoto Ryoma, Katsu Kaishu, and Fukuzawa Yukichi. This unique translation will create valuable source mat! erial for the study of this critical period, giving readers, educators, and historians a larger framework for understanding the history of United States-Japanese relations. Only nine copies of the Hyoson Kiryaku are known to be in existence today. Spinner Publications has drawn from several of these copies for this translation. One is in the collection of the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia, another was donated to the Millicent Library in Fairhaven, a third is at the Sumiyoshi Shrine in Osaka, Japan, and a fourth is kept by the Kochi Prefectural Museum of History.
Customer Reviews:
From low status fisherman to international expert.......2006-11-21
Although John Manjiro never came to Maui, an annual dance festival in his honor has been held in Lahaina several times. Now, for the first time in English, we have the man's story in his own words, as translated by Junya Nagakuni and Junji Kitadai and accompanied by gorgeous reproductions of the illustrations that decorated his handwritten 1852 account -- words and pictures that helped revolutionize Japan, even though they circulated in a limited number of handwritten copies, each with a somewhat different set of illustrations.
Manjiro was a poor fisherman, too low in status even to have a family name, when he and four companions were shipwrecked on Hurricane Island (Tori Shima) in 1841. At the time, Japan was almost cut off from the rest of the world.
The quintet was rescued by an American whaling captain, and the older men were taken to Oahu, where one of them married an islander and disappeared from history. Manjiro, only 14, was taken to New Bedford and educated in English, Christianity, surveying and navigation and coopering.
He spent six of the next 10 years at sea, as he and his companions struggled to return to Japan. Whether they understood that, by law, returned exiles were subject to execution is uncertain, but according to the editors, there is no record that the Shogunate actually did kill any returnees.
However, on one attempt to land, the local Japanese were frightened enough to run away from the suspect exiles.
The American captain, then, refused to let his refugees land, carrying them back across the ocean.
The bitter disappointment of the yearning exiles must have been profound, but Manjiro, a stoic, relates his dismay in just a line.
In 1852, Manjiro, who also used the American name John Mung, and two of the others managed to get close to home on a whaler and then to sail a whaleboat into Okinawa, a somewhat more welcoming re-entry point than the home islands had been earlier. It was happily timed for Manjiro, because just one year later Commodore Matthew Perry came demanding trade and refuge for whaleships, whether the Japanese wanted it or not.
Other castaways had made it home earlier; in fact, footnotes to this edition of Manjiro's "Hyoson Kiryaku" ("Brief Account of Drifting toward the Southeast") suggest that Japanese waifs were thinly spread all over the Pacific in the mid-19th century.
The connection of Manjiro to Lahaina comes from this little diaspora. Four other shipwrecked Japanese sailors had landed in Lahaina in 1838 -- before Manjiro ever left home -- and were given succor by missionaries. Manjiro's later fame rubbed off on these men, who never played the role in introducing the two nations to each other that he did; and in legend Manjiro became a visitor to Maui, but his charts reproduced in "Hyoson Kiryaku" show that he landed on Oahu several times but never on Maui.
A few elite Japanese at home had learned something about the outside world before Perry showed up, including a samurai, Kawada Shoryo, who was assigned to write down Manjiro's story.
Shoryo, an accomplished painter, also elaborated Manjiro's sketches.
The book was a sensation, though not available to very many. The power elite of Meiji Japan saw it, though.
Only a few copies survive, with illustrations of variable quality.
Shoryo had European books and prints, supplied by the Dutch at Nagasaki, to help with street scenes as described and roughly sketched for him by Manjiro, but some things were utterly mystifying to stay-at-home Japanese.
One illustration of a "sea horse" looks like a deformed horse, and the editors speculate that perhaps it was an attempt to draw a walrus from no more than a verbal description.
Since Manjiro said he had seen it while sailing around Cape Horn, it could not have been a walrus. Was the sailor spinning a yarn, just once, in his otherwise very serious account of suffering and revelation?
Whichever, John Manjiro comes across as an attractive personality.
He went to California in the Gold Rush and struck it rich -- $600 for only 70 days work. According to Kuwada, "he thought it would be indecent to continue" and set off for Honolulu to collect other stray Japanese and go home.
Once there, he became an expert, though the Shogunate officials never quite trusted him, suspecting him of being a pawn in an American plot.
Manjiro did much better when the Meiji emperor took over, becoming a samurai, a university teacher, translator of Bowditch's "New American Practical Navigator," author of a primer for teaching English and acquiring the privilege of a patrynomic, Nakahama.
The editors comment, though, that "Manjiro must have struggled inwardly with his own identity and the clash of different cultures." When he died in 1898, they say, he "must have felt great satisfaction that his self-appointed mission to open Japan to the West was accomplished."
Their final assessment is that "Manjiro's real message was perhaps born out of his inner struggle between 'John Mung' and 'Nakahama Manjiro.' Out of this unique identity crisis came wisdom and character."
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