Peaceful Fight Recommended Shops / Services / Sites
I "met" Kam whilst surfing for Oriental art on the EBAY auction site and we've become web friends since my first transaction. Kam's art is all contemporary (that's "new") but of a very good quality and suitable for anyone who wishes to have an Oriental influence in their home. Better still, prices are very reasonable and service is excellent. Most importantly, Kam is an entertaining businessman and puts various anecdotes on his site about his life and life generally in Hong Kong. Have a look and you won't be disappointed. Mention my website when you get in touch with him and send him my regards.
You know what it's like when you are surfing for martial arts related bits. You get a thousand "hits" and it takes you an age to sort through them. Well, if you only visit one site this week, then I'd suggest Kunzhi.com run by Anthony Court. It's full of all those obscure (and not so obscure) items on internal systems and Anthony is a mine of information concerning these arts. The Kunzhi site also acts as a distributor of videos and books by Erle Montaigue and everyone should have at least one of these.
The Snuff Bottle Club site run by David Osborne is another contemporary art site. It specialises in internally painted crystal bottles and balls with a Chinese flavour. David runs the site from Canada so acts as a middle man for the Xisan Academy in China. Why not commission a piece to commemorate a special event in your clubs history or maybe just buy a piece to marvel at the workmanship ("Tiger Cubs" and "Imperial Concubine Yang" are just stunning) . These pieces are not the mass produced bottles which you commonly see but the high quality end of the market produced in "limited edition" type quantities. Check out the site for more details.
Amazon don't really need any introduction but I've bought some very good TCM books from them in the past. However, ordering via the link above might make the club some money (assuming I've set it up right) so feel free to order anything you like from them (books, videos, DVDs etc).
Bibliofind is great for looking for obscure art books. If you use EBAY (the on line auction site) and are going to bid on a book, its always worth checking Bibliofind to see what the going rate is.
Kung Fu on line is one of those sites which just grows and grows. Well worth having a link to it for all of you who want to contact other martial artists or try to find explanations of Chinese terms. I haven't used the site much but was impressed by the bits which I did find.
Taichiworld.com
Taichiworld.com is the home page of Erle Montaigue and well worth a visit. When I first visited this site (some time in 2000), it read a bit like a shopping site and was not really what I was expecting. As a consequence, I hadn't been back for a while. However, when I did have another look, the site had been totally overhauled and is now just fantastic. Although items are still for sale, this has been put very much into the background. The new site is much more what I expected, acting as a useful reference on many issues regarding Tai Chi and Qigong and also giving you access to the detailed knowledge which Erle possesses if you want to ask him a question. There's even free stuff ! Visit this site at least once in your life !
Martialinfo.com is a US based martial arts facility with which Peaceful Fight is registered. If you have an interest in researching other systems and contacting present day instructors, Martialinfo.com is a useful starting point.
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/index.html
This is the website run by Marc "Animal" MacYoung and Dianna Gordon MacYoung and is a real gem of a self defence / World awareness website. Marc MacYoung has written a number of "street defence" books (some of which are reviewed on the recommended books section of this site) and this website continues to give out his good advice. There's no flashing lights / pictures or fancy wording on the site but this is a strength as 1) the site loads fast and 2) there's nothing to divert your attention from what is on the page. I've not come across anything in what MacYoung puts his name to which doesn't work or misleads students into how to see / understand violence so that must be a good enough reason in itself to visit the site. Every "martial artist" should have a look at this site to make sure they haven't missed anything about the "big picture" of martial arts training. A number of links to similar sites is also given (and some of these do have flashing GIFs if you really can't live without them !)
Chinese Collectibles is run by Zhiyong Zhao and I've bought various bits and pieces from him in the past. He's really nice and is very accomodating. Not quite as high quality items as Kam Leung but still worth visiting the site and chatting to Zhiyong if you have any specific requirements. Certainly better value than going to your local Oriental art shop. Mention the club and he might just remember me !
http://www.amauk.co.uk/Index.htm
I get my insurance for the club from this association but they also run a number of seminars / competitions each year (if that's your thing). The insurance is very reasonably priced but, as with all insurance, you never know how good it is until you have to claim. One policy which I read (not from AMA) made no payout if you only lost one eye but did recognise that losing two was a bit of a justification for payout (but only if you were clinically blind!). It also had exclusions for broken limbs if you are lucky enough to have them heal properly ! So, the commonest injuries within martial arts were excluded whilst "going insane" was well covered. No wonder the policy was cheap ! AMA's insurance is certainly better than these bogus types and well worth checking. However, whoever you get your insurance from, always read the small print and exclusions. Thankfully I've never had the need to test the value of my insurance and hopefully I never will.
Alain Wenessia
Alain runs a very professional multilingual website for martial artists with various clubs / discussions groups / suppliers etc listed. Very good site for helping spread the word of non-English speaking clubs and also if you are visiting a town in Europe and wish to find local clubs to visit. Alain is a nice guy and his site is well worth visiting.
Chi Chinese Clinics
No website link with this one but well worth a visit if you are ever in Worcester (UK). This is the clinic which Dr Chi practises in (Dr Chi is my instructor of Traditional Chinese Medicine) and it is well worth having him explain Chinese concepts to you direct. I've learned a lot from him and he has been very generous with passing this knowledge on to me and helping me to understand it. However, I pass it onto my students in a rather clumsy Western way in comparison ! Dr Chi is very friendly but also very busy so it is worth 'phoning before visiting. The clinic is directly opposite Foregate Street Station in Worcester city centre. Telephone 01905 25252 (Opening hours 10 - 6, Monday - Saturday).
I met Nicki Taylor from Style2000 at one of the SENI exhibitions and eventually arranged to get the club T-shirts from her. Very professional company and keen on ensuring that the customer gets the right product at a reasonable price. The company specialise in personalised items and, unlike many others, will do very small quantities of items. This is especially important when you have a club as small as Peaceful Fight (maximum number of students is only ever going to be ~ 10). Means we can't take advantage of their bulk buy policy but even so, our T-shirts came out at ~ £9 a piece. Not bad really considering that screen printed ones cost ~ £5. Nicki and the team are very helpful and can help you with logo design if this is useful to you (up to six colours are available at a single price). Style 2000 do a very wide range of items (both promotional and utilitarian) so maybe ask for their brochure before just going for the T-shirt option. Not quite sure if Nicki is on commission or not but maybe ask for her in the first instance so if she is, it'll make up for all the hassle she had dealing with my order !
EBAY is always a useful site to search on if you are looking from nearly everything and don;t hav eto have it quickly. The site being based in the US does make it difficult for UK buyers as post can be either fast and expensive or slow but cheap (I always go for the second option !). A wide range of martial arts supplies are for sale but it is also great for collectors of 1920 / 1930s Japanese stoneware from the final years of the Kinkozan factory (yes, there is a real possibility that I'm the only one but it is a fine period of ceramic production! Here's some photos for those who are still to be convinced Pic1, Pic2, Pic3).
www.gotheborg.com/
For those of you with a serious interest in Oriental ceramics this website is for you. I came across it by accident during research into the source of possible Satsuma porcelain fakes on EBAY (I'm sure that there is an element of high quality Satsuma fakes on the auction site. They are so detailed and delicate (although a bit flat on close inspection) that I would buy them first hand to decorate the house but am not willing to pay Meiji (19th century) prices for them !). The gotheborg site acts as a discussion group for Oriental ceramic collectors all over the world and has numerous JPEGS of high quality original and reproduction art. Any serious collector should know this kind of stuff !
www.mayway.demon.co.uk/
The recent explosion of interest in TCM has lead to a number of herb importers setting themselves up on the Internet. Some of these look like they are of questionable quality and many of the herbs look like "second division" quality when you see them on line. Add to this the variation in price and it is all too easy to buy the wrong thing at the wrong price. When I first started doing my herb work, I went to one of the local Chinese clinics to buy some Lai Fu Zhi (Parsnip seeds) as I had run out and got charged £5 for 200g (that's £25/kg !). This is massively overpriced but at the time I knew no better.
Mayway have been trading for many years and all of the herbs that I have bought from them have certainly been A1 standard and good value.
www.ryanair.com
Many of you know that I've bought an area of woodland close to Limoges to act as a spiritual retreat for students, friends and families (see the "French Adventure" pages for more details). I used to fly with Buzz (a very good service, typical of their KLM parentage) but they have now been taken over by Ryanair. I've only flown once with Ryanair so far but the service is not as good as its forerunner. However, it gives me the opportunity to get to Limoges for ~£65 return from London Stanstead so I can't really complain (or put another way, it's a lot better than the £560 I was quoted from Air France who's suggestion required me to change at Charles De Gaulle airport (Paris) with a 45 minute connection time. Think they were probably taking the piss !). Ryanair also fly direct to Poitiers and Rochelle. Now all I've got to do is convince them to fly out of Birmingham and the service will be perfect !
http://www.multimap.com/home.html
This is a truly amazing service that my friend Marcie pointed out to me. Essentially, it is a series of electronic maps for a large proportion of the World so, if you are looking for a hotel location etc, you just type in its address and you can then see exactly how to get there. This kind of service is exactly what the Internet should be about; free access information that is actually useful !
http://www.hubnut.com
Hubnut are the Internet Service Provider that look after the website domain etc. A very good provider, good value and with good support for what I want to do with the site. If you are setting u a site of your own I would suggest considering this company.
http://www.jcm.co.uk/
The Journal of Chinese Medicine is an interesting publication as, in some ways, it is not as "technical" as you might expect. In my "day job" (as an analytical chemist) I sometimes have to read scientific journals and many of them have articles that are nearly incomprehensible to the layman. This has never been the case with the my reading of the JCM and I don't think this is due to my the standard of my TCM being particularly high ! Well worth investing in to keep up to date with new ideas and to "fine tune" your present view of TCM. Another interesting observation of the work that is covered is that, if you buy back issues of the journal from say the '80s, the TCM covered is extremely basic and much of it is fundamental theory rather than actually being cutting edge. This helps to highlight how TCM is still comparitively "new" to the UK but that academic and technical standards of practitioners have improved rapidly since its early days.
www.abebooks.com
ABE is the "Advanced Book Exchange" and is a "shop front"
to numerous small book sellers. Often if you are looking for something very
rare then access to ABE can be a priceless resource. It is also really useful
if you just want to check prices on Amazon!
http://www.martial-arts-toplinks.com/
I got linked to this site without actually asking to be added but it turned out to be a very useful resource listing for all things related to martial arts. Well worth visiting if you are looking for a new club, researching other styles or just have a burning desire to find other obscure Kung Fu styles like this one !
http://housecall.antivirus.com/
Trend run an online Virus checker service that is constantly updated to catch the latest viruses / trojans / worms etc and is another great online resource. The service is free and cleans / deletes the majority of contimination. (For any that are not directly cleanable, a library search of McAfee or Norton websites will normally tell you the fix). Trend is a bit slow on first contact as it loads the virus library, but is very useful for anyone who is worrying about why their base unit is running so slow or why their peaceful "iceberg" screensaver has been replaced by Britney Speirs (allegedly) in a compromising position !
http://www.ukkungfu.co.uk/clubs.html
UK Kung Fu is just what the name suggests ! Another listing of clubs, strongly biassed towards Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do but that's not a bad thing as Peaceful Fight stands out a bit more !
http://www.playwell.co.uk/
Playwell are where I buy a lot of the standard Kung Fu equipment that I need (eg knives, staffs, shoes etc). The fast postal based service for UK buyers gets orders to customers very quickly and all the itesm I've bought have been very good value (especially my heavier than normal staff).
http://www.aiminghigh.org/
Aiming High is a fairly new website trying to give a broad overview of what the arts are about but without getting all heavy about seriousness of it all. Don't get me wrong, it is a very useful resource site but the serious bits are countered with some funny articles and others that might challenge your views on the arts. Hopefully the site will continue to grow in size as more people realise there is more to life than perfecting the spinning heel or understanding the number of ways to kill a man.
http://www.dimmak.net/
Dr Michael Kelly has approached the art of Dim Mak from a neuroscience viewpoint from his background as a medical doctor and provides insight into his work on his Dimmak.net website. His book "Death Touch: The Science Behind The Legend of Dim Mak" is well worth reading and gives good explanations of why Dim Mak works. The discussion sections are very good and not as "heavy" as you might expect from a formal medical perspective. The only thing that makes it a bit difficult to follow is that some of the diagrams are not all that precise. This is OK if you have other books or knowledge on point location but would be frustrating if this is your only book on the art. However, I think this imprecision might have been deliberate to limit the casual reader from going down the "let's see if this really works" route and anything that protects the unwary from themsleves must be beneficial. For me, the book added weight to my view that DimMak is an intuitive art which comes from alignment with Taoist thought and then is backed up by theory. Dr Qi (my TCM tutor) always used to say that "first there was the body and then came theory" meaning that the body does what it does regardless of whether we understand / rationalise it or not. This links well to Taoist chaos theory which underpins any Tao based combat theory. Put another way, previous masters discovered Dim Mak without the aid of modern imaging techniques or dissection and it is only in the interpretation and expression of data that the old and the new differ. The old worlds talks of Yin, Yang and Qi whereas the new talk about sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems; both systems are "right" but at the end of the day, both are knowledge and even without using having this knowledge the body would still react in the same way. The conventional view is that this was "old world" knowledge was found after extensive research on prisoners and developed over many years but I'm not so sure that this has to be the route to discovery (but prisoners act solely as a route to proving the knowledge/ theory). There is a distinct feeling to DimMak and movement within a Taoist fighting framework and, for me, this is the real route to Dim Mak and is available for all of us to discover within our lifetime. Michael's book adds a very valuable "modern" dimension to the study of this art of humanity and its frailties and I'd certainly recomend reading it alongside Erle Montaigue's work.
Michael's website also runs a forum on all aspects of Dim Mak and if you have a question about this part of the arts then this is a good forum to place your ideas etc. for wider discussion (another place is Erle Montaigue's site given above).