Appendix A — Recommended Reading and Source Notes

This book is written for practice, not for philology. Still, readers who want to go upstream will benefit from a mixed diet: classical martial texts read slowly, modern coaching science read skeptically, and first-person accounts read as human data rather than doctrine.

When you read Japanese terms in English contexts, remember that translation shifts emphasis. A word that sounded aesthetic in one era becomes motivational in another. That is not automatically corruption, but it is reason to hold definitions lightly and test words against conduct.

Source habits that help:

• Keep a “claims log”: what did I try, for how long, and what changed?
• Separate history from usefulness: something can be historically murky and still pedagogically effective if it improves attention and safety.
• Prefer teachers who demonstrate and correct over teachers who only narrate mystique.

If you add titles to your own shelf, choose books you will reread slowly rather than books you will photograph once.