Nei Jia Quan book is complete

[Rockwood]

Hi, I spent the last couple of years putting together a book of interviews about Chinese martial arts, mostly focused on internal styles. Now it's finally been published! It's called "Nei Jia Quan: Internal Martial Arts" by Jess O'Brien. It was pretty fun to put together, there are some pretty good teachers in it. I hope you all like it, it was created for the real kung fu fanatic in all of us.

Here is a link: http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/products/1556435061.html

Let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Jess O

[tug]

Looks good. Without reading it first, I obviously can't comment. Are there any bookstores I can find this, or is it only available online?

[jun_erh]

good luck. It's kind of a crowded field, but if it has alot of experts and isn't just your personal rehashings of other stuff I'm sure alot of people will be into it.

[Rockwood]

Hi Tug,

Yeah, it's available in bookstores or at the online retailers, so you should be able to find a copy pretty easily. Amazon isn't letting you look inside it yet, but hopefully they should have that up eventually. If you like Chinese internal martial arts you would probably like this.

Hi Jun-er, thanks for the well wishes. THe book doesn't have any of my own opinions or thoughts for the most part, it's just interviews with teachers of internal styles, mostly Xing Yi and Ba Gua. So it would be good if someone wanted to get a wide range of thoughts and experiences in the arts from people with many decades of practice under their belts. Centuries, I guess if you add them all up.

The book features interviews with:
Tim Cartmell (Ba Gua/BJJ),
Gabriel Chin (Tai Ji),
Gail Derin-Kellog (Xing Yi),
Bruce Kumar Frantizis (Ba Gua/Xing Yi)
Paul Gale (Tai Ji),
Fong Ha (Tai Ji/Yi Quan),
William Lewis (Xing Yi),
Luo De Xiu (Ba Gua),
Allen Pittman (Ba Gua),
James Wing Woo (Tai Ji),
Tony Yang (Ba Gua/Ba Ji),
Zhao DaYuan (Ba Gua) and
Albert Liu (Liu He Ba Fa).

A little something for everybody... :)

-Jess O

[tug]

Dig

[rogue]

Congrats on the book you commie pinko, I'll keep and eye out for it.:D

Hope it's good and you sell a bunch of them.:)

[norther practitioner]

Good luck with the book, I'll have to get a copy for my taiji teacher for christmas.

[PaiLumDreamer]

Can you give us an idea on how the interviews are set up? What all will it tell us? Stories, theories, training methods, history, or a bit of all of that?

Thanks.

[Rockwood]

THanks rogue and n.prac. for your congrats. It was a big pain in the ass but also very rewarding. Now if only Oprah would pick it for her book club... :)

Pai Lum- Well, I located the best teachers I could find and asked them: What's the use of Chinese martial arts? I figured, why not start with the most important question first. Then we got into the core training methods that they felt were key to their teaching system, the differences between internal and exteral training, the philosophy and history of their style, the fighting strategies of their system, to spar or not to spar, where beginners, intermediate and advanced practitioners should be focusing their attention, and what is qi? One of my favorites was "what was your teacher's favorite fighting technique?" Which got some good responses.

Essentially I got to record a conversation over tea, or lunch, with each person, write it down and publish it. I also got as many current and historical photos to include with it to keep it fun. I hate books with no pictures!

The only regret I have is that I was only able to interview each person once, it would have been great to have 5 or 10 sessions and distill it down to a really great article. But I'll take what I can get. I think the result came out pretty good as it is.

My big hope is that others will be annoyed by my book and say "I can do better than this!" and go out and interview their own teachers in detail, so that good new reading material starts appearing left and right. CMA is still an infant in the west and the more good stuff appears, the better for the long run.

-JessO

[PaiLumDreamer]

Really cool. I plan to pick it up soon, then :P I always enjoy reading things like that.

[diego]

looks good, if i see a copy and got some coin i'll be sure to grab it....or at least skim through it:D
peace

[Rockwood]

Hi Diego, I hope you like what you see in the book. I will try to type up some excerpts and post them so you can see what it's all about.

-Jess O

[MonkeySlap Too]

Picked it up at Borders last night. A good effort.

[Rockwood]

Thanks monkeySlap. HOpe you get some enjoyment out of it.

-Jess O

[RedJunkRebel]

Got one this past weekend. Great idea! Only through Tim Cartmell's section but great so far.
Thanks.

[diego]

Originally posted by Rockwood
Hi Diego, I hope you like what you see in the book. I will try to type up some excerpts and post them so you can see what it's all about.

-Jess O

money is very tight this xmas season:) but iis this book easy to find on the westcoast? I'm in B.C. so uno if it would be in Chapters type of bookstores in Vancouver?...I need to go peruse the kung fu sections some time soon anyway, and maybe I'll bump into a copy.Peace

[Rockwood]

diego- yeah the book is available at all bookstores and online etc. Whether a store carrys it or not is up to them, so who knows. But you can order it anywhere, so if you come up on a bunch o' cash check it out! Have a good one,

Jess O

RedJunk- COol man, glad you like it. Lemme know what you think of it as you go.

[RedJunkRebel]

Still love it! I'm skipping around. Its nice that you don't have to read from beginning to end like most books. I'm sure I'll end up reading everything, yet I like the fact that I can skip to the Sifus that I feel pertain to my training at the time. I like it so much I want to get it bound to preserve it to have for ever. It'll also be a great reference book for years to come.

[MonkeySlap Too]

I particularly liked the Tim Cartmell interview. Some of the others were entertaining. I don't know much about Alan Pittman, but his was a fun read as well.

This book read as kind of a free form discussion of whatever was on the mind of the people in question. I'd like to see a volume two with a broader selection of folks. I liked the fact that you stuck in some relatively 'unknown' players as well.

A good read for us MA junkies.

I bought the only copy in I could find in Contra Costa county... tell those Ingrams boys to get busy...

[Rockwood]

Monkey and RedJunk-

Thanks for commenting you guys. The book was created for martial arts Junkies only, I'm proud to say :).

I'm glad you guys like the "open" format of the book. I didn't want to try and tie everyone together with any particular concept or overall structure. I don't want to define IMA I just wanted to give a sense of the broad scope of things that are within it. Maybe the connections can become more clear from seeing the diverse parts individually.

Thanks, Jess O