Читать книгу Secrets of Phoenix Eye Fist Kung Fu. The Art of Chuka Shaolin онлайн

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I was given a full-blown demonstration of Chuka Shaolin, including several empty-hand forms, a few two-person forms, several demonstrations of weapons forms, as well as training drills and technique applications. Wow! There was so much to be found in this art. I had no idea. From reading the book, I had assumed that the art was merely an empty-hand system. How wrong I was. At that moment I knew what had to be done: another book must be written!

Before I was given a chance to present Mr. Leong with my idea for a book, I first had to give a demonstration of my own. So, I stepped onto the floor and demonstrated three empty-hand forms from the ngo cho kun style of kung-fu. I chose to demonstrate this art because it hails from the same area in China as Chuka Shaolin. I thought that any link, even a tenuous one, would make Mr. Leong more amenable to allowing me, a stranger, to co-write a book with him.

After my demonstration I sat down and interviewed Mr. Leong for a possible magazine article to go with the photographs I had taken during his demonstration. Since he did not know me very well, I was a bit reluctant to ask him if I could co-write a book with him, as Draeger had done nineteen years earlier. So I took a minute to gather my thoughts and formulate my argument for the need of such a book. (More than anything, though, my need was to pick his brain and learn the inner workings of his art!) In any event, since his book with Draeger had been out of print for some ten years at that point, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I asked.