-----On a personal note, I find Black Belt on the average to be a much more self defense focused mag than Inside Kung Fu.------

I would agree that neither magazine is very good. Check out "Wushu-Qigong" or "Taichi and Alternative Health" (I think this is the correct title - it's a British mag.) Both are solid internal style magazines, and Wushu has some stuff on external styles. I guess my problem with Black Belt is it gives a snapshot of an art that is more distracting than enlightening (even though it's technically more self defense focussed). You're right though about Inside Kung-fu, in trying to be some pre-eminent magazine about the incredibly huge world of kung-fu, it kind of seems unfocussed on anything very specific, and I've read some pretty poorly researched stuff in it, like last months diatribe on what is internal and what is external in the martial arts - that was a hoot...

Anyway, if you want a good mag, check out those two I mentioned above.