A rare find: Pa Kua Chang Vol 2

There was no bagua class last night, so I had a rare chance to just chill out in the afternoon without carrying around my gear and trekking up to the East Coast. Late afternoon, I popped up to Orchard Road to visit the bookshops. In fact, I wanted to check out a book on software development that I’d read about online, but of course I also -as always – checked out the martial arts sections as well. And boy, was I glad that I did: in Kinokuniya, I found a single copy of Park Bok Nam’s Fundamentals of Pa Kua Chang, Volume 2. This is quite a big deal, I think – Vol 1 is often on the shelves, but I’ve never seen volume 2 before. I did try to order it through Borders once before, and was told that it was no longer available. Even eBay only had a couple of copies, from people who didn’t ship outside the US.

Anyway, no way was I going to let the opportunity pass, so of course I bought it immediately! I speed-read it last night, and it’s great; I’ve already gained a lot of insights, and I definitely need to read it again more slowly. Excellent!

Also on the shelf was a copy of Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard by Frank Allen and Tina Zhang of the New York Wu-Tang Physical Culture Association – from whom I recently bought that bagua DVD. I don’t see myself buying this book, as Wu style taiji isn’t something I practice, but it does seem pretty well written – and that makes me more inclined to buy their bagua book Whirling Circles when it eventually comes out…

Some of my bagua classmates went to see the sanshou competition at Ngee Ann City, but it’s not really my scene. Instead, I went to the cinema: I had hoped to see either The Wind that Blows the Barley, or Summer Palace, but the first was sold out and the second wasn’t showing due to technical difficulties. So, I wound up going to see Spiderman 3, which was OK – better than some of the reviews I’d read, but ultimately just mind candy.