Martial Arts Gathering 2007.

[Eric Ling]

Hi everybody,

Want to take this opportunity here to announce an event scheduled to take place in Kuching Sarawak September 2007.

This is a Sarawak Tourism Ministry endorsed event to showcase traditional fighting arts called Martial Arts Gathering 2007 or MAG2007 in short.

In a nutshell this event:-

• Will bring together some of the rarest Kung Fu and Silats still in existence in SE Asia. There is a certain urgency to bring attention and preserve them before they disappear totally into oblivion. We have been working hard in locating and convincing many of the old Masters to participate in this event. (I posted clips in Wu Lin I Jia thread describing some of these art forms).

• Provide all participants an exceptional opportunity to interact and learn from these Masters, many of them breaking with traditions to work with us in this respect.

• Congregate all those passionate about traditional MAs to work together to look for answers to question regarding histories, theories and principles of traditional fighting systems.

Besides local Masters, we have also invited Masters and friends from around the world to come and share their research and experience.

In fact, Gene Ching (Kung Fu magazine) is one of our invited guests for this event. Presently, I am working out the details of Gene and Kung Fu Magazine’s involvement. At the very least, Kung Fu Magazine will be the exclusive magazine to cover activities leading up to and the event itself.

We also have, more or less, confirmed the attendance of:-

• Sifu Liu Chang I, Feeding Crane Taiwan.
• Russ Smith and his Sensei , Okinawa Goju Ryu.
• Evert Van De Meulen , Hungga.
• Martin Watts and his Yong Chun White Crane family.

I am hoping to hear Robert Hui (Mantis108) confirmation soon.

Besides the above folks, we have arranged for a good assortment of Masters from Singapore, East and West Malaysia spanning a variety of styles to come and share their skills.

Again I want to highlight that this is more than a demonstration of traditional MAs.

Spread over 3 days, the central concept is to get all to “touch hands”.

Please treat this as an invitation to come visit Sarawak and play this September.

I am preparing a dedicated website to provide all the details.

Warmest Regards.

Eric