Even the Bookstore gas changed

[Xue Sheng]

Or it is just another sign that I am old and out of touch

It has been awhile since I was in bookstore looking for a book but last week I was in a few and I was in the Sports section looking for books on Xingyiquan. Now to be honest I did not really expect to find any books on Xingyiquan because it is rather rare these days and there is not much of an audience for books on Xingyiquan…mostly only those that already train it. (I ended up ordering it from Amazon by the way)

But back to the story; I was not all that surprised to not find the book I was looking for but I was rather surprised to find in one case a complete lack of any books on any Martial Art other than MMA and in the other case to have about 100 MMA books and 5 on other MA styles.

Nothing against MMA but that, to me, is a bit much

And I have got to say there are not that many MMA practitioners in my area so I am guessing the majority of the people buying these (creating the demand) are those interested in maybe training, fans, fan boys, rabid fans and MMA couch practitioners. The serious MMA people are not that plentiful in my area to justify the large stock of MMA books I saw

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Having worked in a bookstore I can tell you that what is carried is often pushed by corporate and less by local need. I did an order once where I selected a number of titles based on what customers had been asking for. Most of my choices were overruled and the usual crap sent...which sat and sat. Mean while, the titles I had selected were being special ordered, which meant multiple trips for the customer.