American Shaolin by Matt Polly

[MatthewPolly]

Sorry this a bit late for this thread, but I wanted to thank my friend and Shaolin brother, Gene Ching, for moderating this discussion and publicizing "The Late, Late Show" interview. It's always nice to get a chance to help spread the reputation and fame of Shaolin, even for a humble disciple like me, who needs to work a bit on shortening his anecdotes for TV.

To answer a couple of questions that came up: I did post on Shaolin.nl several years ago. Mark Salzman wrote "Iron and Silk." My first book will be "American Shaolin," which hopefully will be out in a year or so. The Chinese characters on the leather jacket I wore on the show were "zai fang shi." They don't mean anything. The best bet is that they are someone's name. Who? No one knows.

Ferguson did cut me off at points, but that was the plan: I was supposed to tell the anecdotes, and he'd control the length of each. As to how the interview went, the producers were happy enough to invite me back. But I think the person who posted, "good, but not great" was right on the money. I was trying to simply not choke. Hopefully, my timing will get better with practice.

I appreciate all of you taking the time to watch and comment.

Best,
Matthew Polly

PS Keep listening to Gene: he's a wise soul and has done a wonderful job promoting the true spirit of Shaolin over the last decade.