Two-thousand-seventeen marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Kung Fu Tai Chi, so we undertook the hosting of our biggest party yet, the Kung Fu Tai Chi 25th Anniversary Festival. Frankly, none of us were confident that our little niche magazine would survive to the quarter century mark, what with the rise of the internet and the consequent impending demise of print. But here we are, a quarter-century strong. Not only that, we're the largest print magazine on traditional martial arts on the newsstands at the moment. I'm so proud we got this far. We are immensely grateful for the loyalty of our readership and will persist on the newsstands as long as you (and Tiger Claw) support us.

That being said, the Kung Fu Tai Chi 25th Anniversary Festival nearly broke me. Maybe it did and I just don't know it yet. One of the many lessons of Kung Fu that I've always exploited is how to use momentum. So maybe it actually did break me, but I'm still going on momentum, at least as of this writing.

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It

Early on in production, I abbreviated the Kung Fu Tai Chi 25th Anniversary Festival as KFTC25 AF. Years from now, the acronym 'AF' may lose its meaning, but in the wake of it all, it sure works for me. With any such venture, we made some miscalculations in planning and I'm as guilty as anyone in failing to correct them before show time. I share those fails now as lessons for those who might follow, in hopes that other martial arts organizations who may be approaching a milestone anniversary may benefit. Also, I'm a writer by trade. I wrote up our 10th, our 20th, plus all the Tiger Claw Championships since 2011. It's kind of like therapy. Or perhaps confession. You, dear reader, can be the judge of that.

Or course, KFTC25 AF production meetings were crucial, but just like with any committee-driven activity, they were fraught with frustration. Early on, one of the powers that be suggested that the theme color be silver as silver is the color for 25th anniversaries (I’m not going to out who exactly – we all know who we are and, ultimately, we all share the blame). I thought that was a great idea at the time. However, we should have thought it out a little more (and by this "we" I mean our graphic production crew) because if you know anything about color theory, you know that silver doesn't exist on the color wheel. It's metallic. It's really just grey but reflective grey. When you take a still photo of silver, it will come out just grey. Our commemorative silver "25th Anniversary got qi?" T-shirts and hoodies look great in person, but the photos look dull grey, especially on the web. We went with a 5th silver color on our cover starting with our January+February 2017 issue but you have to get one to see it. The silver 5th color isn't that robust and to do a mylar silver overlay was beyond our budget. In retrospect, it was the wrong graphic decision in terms of sales, but for those that got any of those silver items, particularly the "got qi?" wear , they have something really special.

There's always an issue with putting a specific master on our posters. Many schools won't post them if they don't feature their own master, or worse, if they feature a rival school. That's understandable. So when it comes to our promotional materials, something neutral and minimalist is better, like just our logo. Personally I prefer something stark and very martial – like a nice weapon. We did that from 2009 to 2011, and for 2012, that was our 20th, so we just went with our logo. Our initial design for the 25th was stark, just our logo in silver against a dark background. I liked this. It's very zen. But Gigi Oh, our publisher, didn't like it. Too quiet. She likes it noisy. She's Chinese, much more Chinese than me. So she opted for pink fireworks. Pink fireworks are really messy as a background, but Gigi liked them because they were festive. Now I've had a long-standing policy against pink. Pink is actually one of the most vibrant 5th colors on covers, but its more suited for women's or celebrity magazines than a martial arts magazine. Our graphic crew, alongside Gigi, constantly tease me about my pink aversion. They won this round, mostly because this was Gigi's last big party; she was planning on announcing her retirement at KFTC25 AF, and she's the boss. This was her last hurrah so we all catered to her wishes. She deserves a major retirement party. I had to make my peace with pink fireworks, intellectualizing fireworks as a Chinese invention, despite them not being particularly martial. Gigi's retirement made KFTC25 AF all the more poignant. The present staff of Kung Fu Tai Chi – Jason Chang, Kevin Ho, Patrick Lugo, Gigi and me – we've been a team for nearly eighteen of those twenty-five years, and although she says she'll still stay active with publication, it's a huge transition for us.

On top of all that, I found myself teetering on the brink of reality stardom. What? Well, I'm a long way from the Kardashians or the President, but just prior to KFTC25 AF, I was cast in a reality TV show: Man at Arms: Art of War. The show is about recreating historical weapons and I was brought on as a "weapons expert." It has been one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, tapping my years of personal research into ancient cold arms in a way that I never imagined. While on set with my co-stars Danny Trejo and Marko Zaror, testing these superb weapons created by Baltimore Knife & Sword, I remember thinking, "Wow. I never dreamed this would be my fate. What an honor." At the same time, filming and preparing took away a major chunk of my time and attention from KFTC25 AF preparation, and time is one precious commodity that keeps getting scarcer. It was one more axe to juggle – a tempered-steel razor-sharp axe. And despite my passion for ancient weapons, I've yet to train axes.

Naturally, I have exclusive coverage on Man at Arms: Art of War in our July+August 2017 issue and there will be more here on KungFuMagazine.com. Cast me in your show and I'll deliver maximum coverage AF. Man at Arms: Art of War is broadcast on El Rey Network starting on June 8, 2017. I am the weapons expert in five of the eight episodes of the first season, so please tune in.

Death, the Press and U2

As KFTC25 AF approached, the usual production hiccups occurred, complicated by the two events we added to our regular annual Tiger Claw Championships: Grandmasters LIVE! – our Cover Masters demonstration at the spectacular California Theater in downtown San Jose – and the Banquet, which celebrated not only our 25th, but also the 30th of the International Wushu Sanshou Dao Association (IWSD). Part of the reason why we opted to have IWSD host the banquet was to take it off our plate, so to speak. We already had enough to do with the show.

Grandmasters LIVE! was a monumental undertaking because the California Theater is a gorgeous venue, and we hoped that the masters would rise to the occasion. Originally built in 1927, it went though many changes and owners over the decades, and eventually went dark in 1973. Renovation began in 2001 with a $75 million restoration project funded by the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose and the Packard Humanities Institute. Now restored to its former glory, the 1100+ seat theater preserves its original ornamentation with opulent ornamentation and decorative painting. Most martial arts demos take place in venues that are smaller than the California Theater lobby, so creating a show to fill that stage was a daunting task. We are publishers, not show producers. So we brought in some help.

Jim Fung served as our General Manager. He is the President and Founder of Captivate Artists, a Silicon Valley theatrical production company. Jim had worked with the California Theater many times in the past and served as a key point person, pre-emptively managing details that we failed to consider. Master Leon Zhang is a formal member of the Shaolin Temple Wushuguan Warrior Troupe and toured the world in the renowned theatrical show, Shaolin in the Wind. We had just worked together on a feature article in our March+April 2017 issue titled "Shaolin Continuous Hand Short Strikes." Leon has been working with Chinese martial arts and dance troupes putting on various local performances too and was invaluable as our Stage Manager. And we had one secret weapon, the real Kung Fu behind Disney’s Mulan, Master Mimi Chan. Mimi not only helped Leon and me manage the stage, but also demonstrated herself. She has extensive experience putting on martial arts shows and contributed so much to our preparation and execution of Grandmasters LIVE! But more on that when I get to that part of the tale.

On April 20, one of my best friends went into the ER with what appeared to be some sort of renal failure. I’ve known Steve Campos for thirty years. He was my first supervisor at Rock Med, a first aid provider organization where I do my volunteer karma work and have described in detail elsewhere. Once in the ER, they discovered that Steve suffered from systemic cancer and he went into hospice soon after. My heart was with him as he transitioned over the next few weeks. It was painful. Even though he seemed to make his peace with his passing while in hospice, for those of us he left behind, there’s nothing that prepares for that finality. I got word that he had died just minutes before we were holding our press conference just prior to the weekend of KFTC25 AF. There was some saving grace in the fact that all the reporters were from Chinese news agencies, so the meeting was held in Mandarin. I just had to sit there and look attentive…and try to smile.

That evening I went to Levi’s Stadium to volunteer for Rock Med for U2: The Joshua Tree Tour. U2’s original Joshua Tree tour was the first concert where I volunteered for Rock Med, so on top of Steve’s passing, this show held a lot of personal emotional content. I was ostensibly there to pick up a Rock Med gear bag and banner for KFTC25 AF (Rock Med has been covering our Tiger Claw Elite Championships for years now), but also because I love U2 and felt the need to eulogize Steve at our Rock Med meeting. While stationed with a response team near the field, who should I run into within that huge crowd of 51,000+? Our special guest – Daniel Wu.

In November 2016, I had the privilege of visiting Daniel on the set of Into the Badlands while they were filming near Dublin, Ireland. I reported on that in our May+June 2017 issue, as well as with five exclusive articles on KungFuMagazine.com. Take me to Dublin and I'll deliver maximum coverage AF. I am unabashed in my complete admiration of Into the Badlands but must confess my bias from hanging out with Danny, meeting the cast, and maybe crushing a little on the show's major sword hottie, The Widow. The Season Two finale was scheduled for the Sunday following KFTC25 AF. Assuming I survived, I was looking forward to watching that finale at home with a healthy shot of Irish whiskey.

By happy coincidence, Daniel was passing through the S.F. Bay Area. He just finished filming Tomb Raider in South Africa and was on his way back to Hong Kong. We invite all celebrity cover masters that we can reach to our anniversary festivals; while all express interest, they have such busy schedules that many can seldom make it. The late great Lou Reed made it to our 10th. Daniel agreed to make an appearance at Grandmasters LIVE! and pose for photos and sign autographs at our VIP reception. He was eager to see some of his old Wushu friends again. Bumping into him at U2 was auspicious. After Steve's untimely death, it renewed my hope that KFTC25 AF would be successful.

If you don't know if KFTC25 AF was successful, listen to the explanation in the next installment.

L-R: Jim Fung, Daniel Wu, Gigi Oh & Leon Zhang