Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Good information and fundamentals

I found this book to be a good overview of the fundamentals. It covers what most other aikido books do as fas as techniques but I especially liked the Basics and Warmups section at the beginning, as well as the philosophy. They actually expressed that aikido is not a rigid curriculum(which is how many schools are run) but that it is up to the practitioner to explore the art.As for the techniques, you could see the same thing in a book by Kisshomaru Ueshiba back in 1985(Aikido). So this book to me is just another publishing of the same techniques. I was hoping for better pictures, but I would rate them the same as the 1985 book. Kind of pixely B&W's. There are some good inserts to show detail, which was not in his previous book.I guess I'll wait for the 2nd book to come out in December 2003. Looks like it will cover more details. But nothing compares to actual hands-on. I'd say that both books would be good for beginners.