Inside Kung-Fu Magazine

[GeneChing]

Should I invite someone who goes by PhallicWarlord to the office to dig through our trash? Prudence says 'no'.

[PhallicWarlord]

Should I invite someone who goes by PhallicWarlord to the office to dig through our trash? Prudence says 'no'.

dagnabbit, I can't even argue that. I admit, this username comes from an inside joke that I don't have with anyone here (when people ask, I tell them I'm good with a bo staff). Maybe I should re-register with a name that won't raise as many eyebrows.

But you know me (it's Chris...I'm poppin up everywhere), so you shouldn't expect much better

[David Jamieson]

*snip*

This gets back to that issue I brought up earlier. No one sits in Dave Cater's chair, or my chair or the chair of any of the other publishers who run newsstand magazines that promote traditional arts. No one knows what happens on the front lines except those in the trenches.

Tales of Nasrudin anyone?

[Syn7]

the print word is tough no matter what...

i have a friend who is big into fashion... he's like the one straight fashion designer i know thats actually done well... anyways he started a magazine and it took off so fast, he had two offices on either side of the country and then after about a year or so, after insane good sales it all just trickled away...

i have a few published author friends and what they go thru to sell a book is craaaaaazy....

[GeneChing]

Print is tough. Online subscriptions is tough too. Why would any of you pay for something you could get free? If we made this forum a pay-to-play, you'd all migrate to another forum. Same goes for e-zine publication. What redeems us is that you all support all the free articles we put out on the web by purchasing from MartialArtsMart.com. That gives us an advantage over the other martial arts magazines that are trying to move to the web. The others run on paid advertisements. But if you're an advertiser, where is your online advertising dollar going to go, a print magazine website or Google ads, Yahoo ads, etc?

But back to print. The one nice thing about print is that it still seems to hold more consumer trust than the web when it comes to advertising. Surveys still show that readers will support a print ad more than a web ad. I think this is because there's so much spam on the web, again a function of how inexpensive it is as a medium.

[SIFU RON]

When I travel by air plane or train, I always take magazines to read. I do the same while waiting for example at my Doctors office.

A good friend moved here ( California ) from Mexico, I bought her a book on how to learn English , she doesn't have a PC, will print disappear ? Not in my lifetime I hope.

[Jimbo]

Another good thing about print is that if something ever happens where all electronic media goes down, you can still have printed material to read.

I remember hearing something about since records of the effects of deforestation in the Amazon (or some-such thing) was transferred onto electronic media in the 1970s, a vast amount of the information has been lost due to deterioration. Since none of it was saved as hard copy, whatever was lost is now gone forever.

[SPJ]

text files we may always copy manually.

however, audio, images, video files

digital copy is a way better method to store the information.

I remember I visited National Palace Museum on the first day it opened in Taiwan.

there are many exhibits. at the time, it was a huge effort to photograph all the artifacts.

in today technology, it is only a click away, no chemicals to develop the films,

photo albums in a flash drive etc

I did not have a camera. I had to draw things I like on a note pad.

I especially like the Jade, espcially the one that looked like a cabbage.

procelain I like blue flower ones---

I also drew some part of the upriver map at qing ming. part of the scroll was left behind on mainland china.

--

[KC Elbows]

As a buyer, I have only very rarely bought kung fu related magazines in the last five years, because, frankly, as much as we may make fun of the shenanigans of a forum, more useful info about many styles can be found here than in so-called scholalrly articles in the kung fu magazines.

99% of which amount to six pictures of some random technique, a whole lot of naming the style, naming its forms, and naming the people who did it, very broad statements about the style or subject of the article that require little to no expertise. Either stingy with info, or not expert.

The format, which pushes the dramatic well, fails to push anything else well, imo.

If your kung fu is a secret treasure to you, be logically self consistent by not publishing articles about it that provide nothing but the appearance of dealing with its fight techniques.

If you are writing a historical survey, do that, don't waste time trying to do a mediocre history(with questionable citations) and then lack space to deal with anything else.

If you're writing an article, one would assume you or the person providing the info has some expertise. People with expertise know you can't do a class on "The deadly mobility of Southern Mantis," it tends to take some classes, so dig in for several articles, in depth ones, and dig in to really think about what you're presenting, do not delude yourself with your own expertise, allow yourself to trouble shoot the material and your knowledge, because you likely won't have any other form of editorial on your ideas.

IF your article draws people by the amazing, and you fail to provide the many completely mundane things that make up the amazing, you're not providing background to your system, you're providing a fable, and people are going to think you don't know the real thing, even if you do, and it will be your fault and no one else's.

Kung fu teachers and writers need to support and join with others who have no concern with style over substance. The mainstream bookstores not only have far fewer kung fu magazines, but far fewer kung fu books that I can recall seeing in the past. Books with a form and maybe ten applications from that form are about ten applications away from being books of contemporary wushu to an extent. Claims that all was kept secret in the past are problematic, since books defining knowledge beyond form seem to have been more common in the times that we draw tradition from, yet now, kung fu books are filled with form, not usage, while custom has made it that articles too often depict finishing moves without the framework of moves that gain one such an advantage.

This is not a case of me saying I'm better than others, but a case of someone who lifelong has bought these magazines and books, and now not only does not, but would not have students waste their time with most of them either. A good article on history is fine, but as for real scholarly articles on specific fighting methods, the scholars disappoint with juvenile fare, and are losing the interest of students who have an honest interest in fighting methods, and gaining the interest of students whose only interest is knowing something cool, but have no real interest in fighting methods.

Showing me your form doesn't mean you understand it, nor does showing me one move you like. Other martial arts books and articles, eastern and western, are organized compendiums of techniques, bad kung fu books and articles are either mostly text, or mostly form, or random moves with no clear plan of presentation, no "these article will show the main strikes, next the main throws, next the main locks," instead its often just a random article out of the void on a random move or two that, the merits of those moves aside, could be done with the pictures alone.

Again, the old texts we see seem to also be compendiums of techniques, but now, technique has been relegated to use as flashy "applications" to impress in some teaching and in published works.

Point being, if I currently own a kung fu book or article, barring historical survey stuff, it is based in technique and usage in the majority of its text, just like all other books on fighting methods seem to for other eastern and western styles. Attacks, counters, throws, all in there somewhere, and, for articles, a focus allowing for useful technical info to be gleened.

Otherwise, the texts tend to be treating the style they discuss as an exotic curiosity, and exoticising something you want to learn is a good way to learn it poorly.

/rant

[SPJ]

good articles from good writers to good readers

few and afar

also, it is very hard to write some technical stuff

video is better, but moves go by so fast without explanations to detail

images in a book or a magazine are not sufficient to cover everything

--

a lot of times, you have to know the moves in its entirety first before appreciating the contents of an article.

--

[Dale Dugas]

I just got a new issue in the mail.

I thought IKF was dead in the water?

More issues?

[GeneChing]

The last issue is to be on sale on Feb 1st. It will be their March 2011/Vol. 39, No. 3 issue.

I'm assuming from your reaction there was no comment about a cessation of subscription then.

[Dale Dugas]

The new issue has Sam Kuoha's daughter on the cover. Volume 39 no. 4

Weird.

[Chief_Suicide]

I got that one too. I guess I'm going to get a whopping one issue for my subscription troubles. lol, go figure.

[GeneChing]

That may have been my miscalculation - they might be two months ahead. We'll see how this all plays out.

Thanks for the update, guys.

I've attached the letter that was sent out to all their advertisers. It's the only 'official' announcement that I've seen so far, but it seems pretty official.