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American Karate Master Sid Campbell Pioneering the Martial Arts Educational E-Book Genre
Oakland, CA--January 22, 2004
Although the digital electronic e-book is not altogether new it has been pretty slow to gain a foothold in the martial arts industry. It’s still too early to tell if other genre markets are experiencing this same malfeasance but it’s safe to say that this electronic technology will eventually find a niche in these ancient traditional cultures that has been inundated with countless thousands of conventional trade paperback books. And, it could very well become a staple in supplemental education for the karateka of the future like nothing the martial arts world has seen before.
Sid Campbell has decided not to wait and see how this new electronic tool will shake out in the martial arts world. As the author with over 50 books, videos, and audio-video productions under his belt, he has seen the future and it is now. Campbell states, “That the high-tech computer is moving at such a rapid pace that our industry can get lost in antiquity if we do not learn to use this medium to educate our students”. As a Shorin-ryu karate instructor for almost 40 years, he feels that education, in any form, provided that it enhances the karateka’s overall learning experience, is a good thing. Supplemental karate training in the form of electronic (E-books) is ideally suited to provide anyone wanting to learn martial arts a better understanding of these old traditional forms of self-defense. Campbell says, “When you can take the written word and artfully integrate it with colorful graphic depictions, sounds, “how to” video clips, media flash streaming illustrations and roll them all into one nicely developed CD-ROM e-book, what you have is the best of all worlds. It makes a teacher’s jobs that much more complete---and produces a much wiser, technically literate and better educated student. And teachers in training for that matter.
Sid Campbell started creating these high-tech programs about the time that the first mainstream “talking” books-on-tape hit the market. In his eyes these were nothing more than traditional trade paperback books that had been recorded by the authors or celebrities that had a recognizable voice. He recorded a few of his fist programs in this fashion and rendered them on audio cassettes. That was ten years ago. Today, he has followed the market closely and stayed in step of these developments. As a result he has created some of the very first true multi-functional interactive educational programs for the martial artist. He has even taken his most recent co-authored book titled “The Dragon and the Tiger; the Birth of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do in Oakland” and adapted it to this new e-book format.
Campbell is animate when he says that the computer has made it all possible. Photographs are indeed truly vivid when they are shown on the monitor. Pixilated light brings more out that could be done otherwise in the standard paperback format. His company, On Demand Digital Publications has just recently converted over 20 of his old paperback titles to this new format. The fact that he has built a number of websites where page hyper-linking and visual sound integration play a considerable role; he has taken that experience and added it to the educational and teaching concepts to elevate it to another level. He has artfully integrated sequence progression technical instruction to the e-books that are captioned so that the reader can get every finite bit of instruction from a karate technique that is being illustrated in his e-books. He has created power and speed meters, time lapse graphics where the student can know just how fast a technique should be performed at any given time during a complex martial arts sequence.
What this has done is to essentially open the doors to many other possibilities that can be added to martial art e-book educational training. Campbell says, “The possibilities are really unlimited from the production side of these innovative programs.”
Campbell is optimistic that the future of the martial arts e-book is very bright indeed. Although nothing will ever truly replace the sensei in the traditional sense, it can sure provide the student with the necessary tools to take what they have learned at the dojo home with them and master all of the subtle nuances of the subject matter. Then when they come to class next time they are better prepared to understand and practice what is being taught in the class.
Campbell has rendered some of his historical trade paperbacks into e-book format as well. What he discovered early on was that with a storage disk the size of a CD-ROM there is never a worry of not having enough space to fully present the subject matter in its entirety. Unlike paperback books, where size and content are usually restricted because of financial production concerns, the e-book author can go wild with additions like color illustrations, sounds, video or the like. His recently completed Shorin-ryu Karate Encyclopedia numbers over 1700 pages and is chocked with almost 600 photographs. This would be impossible, cost wise or otherwise with paperback editions. To see the types of books Campbell has created in e-book format go to:
www.OaklandJKD.ws FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Sid Campbell
2019 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94602
(510) 530-0241
Or visit the website at:
www.OaklandJKD.ws Written by Janice Campbell Davis
