Introduction
I try to stick to a Monday/Friday posting schedule, but every once in a while something comes up and I have to break from routine. This week the surprise is a very pleasant one. Earlier in the summer my co-author, Jon Nielson, and I had the pleasure of discussing our recent book and the current state of martial arts studies with Gene Ching. As many of you already know, Gene is the Editor of Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine, one of our favorite publications. He has also been very proactive in bringing some of the more important authors in Chinese martial studies (scholars like Meir Shahar and Peter Lorge) to the attention of his readership. Yesterday I got a follow-up email letting me know that the first part of our interview had gone live on the Kung Fu Tai Chi webpage. You can see the original here.
We have had the chance to do a couple of interviews following the release of our book, but this one was by far the most detailed and thoughtful. We really appreciated the fact that Gene engaged directly with the substance of what we were trying to accomplish. The entire interview ended up being long enough that they decided to split it into two parts. I have re-blogged the first section of the discussion here, and readers can watch Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine for the second half, which is due to be released soon. Also be sure to watch for an upcoming interview with Paul Bowman in the same space. Enjoy!