Run, don’t walk over to YouTube, and to an absolutely amazing archive of martial arts interviews recently uploaded by MartialArtsTV MartialArchiveTV!

Just as a sample, here’s an interview with Bruce Frantzis from 1987, split into four segments. Incredible stuff.

I love the “Take it easy” pleas from his sparring partner in the 4th segment

I took the opportunity to not do very much today. The morning passed in sleep, and domestic tasks.

In the early afternoon, I caught up with Kong Cheng, Master Liu Jing Ru’s disciple, and we chatted for an hour or so over coffee. He’s not long back from a trip to Europe, where he taught bagua in Greece, Italy and France, and also treated patients (he’s a TCM doctor). I noted that Frank Allen and Tina Zhang are coming to see Master Liu with some students in December, and mentioned I would like to meet them; that led on to talk about Bruce Frantzis, who Kong Cheng remembers meeting when Frantzis was a student in Beijing. Various other topics, I might talk more about some of them at a later date.

Then on to the Xidan Bookstore, where I bought Mists of Avalon and Man of Aran; no idea when I’ll have time to watch them, though. Also picked up The Dharma Bums; I feel it’s time to read some Kerouac, and to recall my own hitch-hiking, mountain-climbing younger days…

Finally, on to Ritan Park and the Stone Boat, where I caught up with Dragoncache and one of his fellow bagua students, a beautiful lady with a degree, believe it or not, in spacecraft design. Way out of my league! Bah.

My shoulders and upper arms are really stiff today after yesterday’s Yiquan class - good, it shows I’m actually doing some work…