Inside Kung Fu Mag.

JadeDragon3

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Inside Kunf Fu Magazine has gone down in quality in my opinion. They now feature more MMA articles than they do KF articles. They even have a Gracie that writes a monthly column. If I wanted to read about grappling/mma/bjj I would buy another magazine such as BB Mag.. What do you guys/gals think of this increase of articles on grappling/bjj/mma????
 

exile

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Just a bit of commiseration from an outsider—the same thing is happening in TKD. Not that TKD Times was ever great, but they did occasionally have some articles amidst all the advertising, 'tied-in' (to the advertising) features, personality fluff and so on—the first thing I ever saw by Simon O'Neil was in there. But a recent issue was largely devoted to MMA, and the amount of space they've been devoting to it has been steadily increasing.

All magazines these days, particularly those which are vehicles for advertising primarily, are in trouble. They'll go wherever the reader base is, because that's what drives the advertising fees they can charge. These days especially, they'll do anything to turn a profit. Look for the trend to continue, but even more so.
 
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JadeDragon3

JadeDragon3

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Just a bit of commiseration from an outsider—the same thing is happening in TKD. Not that TKD Times was ever great, but they did occasionally have some articles amidst all the advertising, 'tied-in' (to the advertising) features, personality fluff and so on—the first thing I ever saw by Simon O'Neil was in there. But a recent issue was largely devoted to MMA, and the amount of space they've been devoting to it has been steadily increasing.

All magazines these days, particularly those which are vehicles for advertising primarily, are in trouble. They'll go wherever the reader base is, because that's what drives the advertising fees they can charge. These days especially, they'll do anything to turn a profit. Look for the trend to continue, but even more so.

IKF Magazine has gotten so bad that I'm thinking about not re-newing my subscription when the time comes, and I've been getting the magazine for 10 years. I hate to see everyone jump on a band wagon or fad. Sell outs is what they are. Off with thier heads. :D
 

punisher73

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I agree, there is another kung fu magazine out there I think it is kung fu/taichi (or qigong). but it usually focuses on good kung fu skills and historical articles.

I have seen it at Barnes and Noble when I have been there and it seems alot better than IKF in terms of content.

Here is a link to their website
http://kungfuqigong.com/index.php

PS: they also have a forum
 

exile

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IKF Magazine has gotten so bad that I'm thinking about not re-newing my subscription when the time comes, and I've been getting the magazine for 10 years. I hate to see everyone jump on a band wagon or fad. Sell outs is what they are. Off with thier heads. :D

I stopped subscribing to TKDTimes even before they went down that MMA road... a lot of MA magazines have been getting lighter and lighter on content for years.
 

blindsage

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I gave up on IKF a few years ago when they started moving that way.

I still like the quality of the Journal Asian of Martial Arts, even if it's a little more 'scholarly', and doesn't show nearly enough photos of technique.
 
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Jade Tigress

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I used to subscribe to Inside Kung Fu magazine but haven't seen an issue in a couple years now. Sad to hear the turn it's taking.
 

newtothe dark

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IKF Magazine has gotten so bad that I'm thinking about not re-newing my subscription when the time comes, and I've been getting the magazine for 10 years. I hate to see everyone jump on a band wagon or fad. Sell outs is what they are. Off with thier heads. :D

Yeah next thing we know there will be Ninja magazines again lol Wait I loved those and have them all I must be crazy hehe
 

JadecloudAlchemist

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Kungfu Taichi magazine is great they give you free DVD's!! The articles are pretty good depending on who is writing. Inside Kung fu magazine I don't really enjoy reading but I practice internal styles so I enjoy Kungfu Taichi more.
 

Drac

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I stopped reading IKF many years ago as some of the articles were so Gawd awful..
 

arnisador

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I'd like to see a good general martial arts mag. again...JAMA is very good but not what I'm thinking of, and Classical Fighting Arts is excellent but not general-purpose.
 

ggg214

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in mainland of china, it's difficult to find a kung fu magzine in public magezine selling store.
 

grydth

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in mainland of china, it's difficult to find a kung fu magzine in public magezine selling store.

I'd be interested in what you do have available in China for martial arts magazines. English or Chinese (or other) languages? Do you have any on Tai Chi/Qi Gong? Are your magazines more scholarly or are they just advertisements? What countries are they from?

ggg, I think you can see that many of us in the USA are unhappy with our martial arts magazines..... too commercial, questionable scholarship, favoritism...... So, what do you have?

Same questions for other forum members living outside the USA...
 

LuckyKBoxer

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This kind of cracks me up a bit.
I mean people are saying the magazine is a sell out... its a magazine, a business, its whole goal is to sell magazines. If the traditional martial arts world is not buying, and MMA is what do you think is going to happen?
I mean really /shrug.. I get the magazine as well, actually get about 9 magazines all geared towards the martial arts, and every single one of them is either heavily geared towards MMA, or has increased the MMA exposure drastically. Of course, the advertisements are heavily being paid by MMA related companies, the majority of new martial arts students are MMA students, one of the few martial arts businesses that is not in decline are MMA related... MAIA and NAPMA reported that thousands of martial arts schools have closed down in the last two years.
Seriously, if people want a magazine to switch, or stick to a certain subject matter, then they need to prod them to do so by a.telling them, b. subscribing and having their like minded friends subscribe, c. Threaten to cancel their subscriptions, d. advertise their specific art, or e. write articles specific to their art to submit.
Other then that its going to be either make your own magazine as a labor of love and plan on losing money, or understand how the magazine needs to run like a business.
 

exile

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This kind of cracks me up a bit.
I mean people are saying the magazine is a sell out... its a magazine, a business, its whole goal is to sell magazines. If the traditional martial arts world is not buying, and MMA is what do you think is going to happen?

I don't see anyone saying that a magazine shouldn't be run like a business. Would you care to quote a single post in this thread so far that's saying that?

What people are saying is that the business model of the magazines they've read in the past are leading those magazines to publish content that's substandard in quality, or based on current commercially dominant trends in the MAs, or both, and therefore they're voting with their wallets and no longer reading those magazines. And this 'cracks [you] up'... :rolleyes:
 

arnisador

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This kind of cracks me up a bit.
I mean people are saying the magazine is a sell out... its a magazine, a business, its whole goal is to sell magazines.

I suppose it's unrealistic to expect Time or Newsweek in our little niche area, but we're getting something between Us Weekly and the National Enquirer instead. As mentioned above, if what they turn out is low-quality then they can't be surprised if people don't choose to buy it. A bit more integrity and higher standards could actually pay off for them.
 

exile

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I suppose it's unrealistic to expect Time or Newsweek in our little niche area, but we're getting something between Us Weekly and the National Enquirer instead. As mentioned above, if what they turn out is low-quality then they can't be surprised if people don't choose to buy it. A bit more integrity and higher standards could actually pay off for them.

Absolutely, Arni.

Think of the logic of the situation: the mags are basing their content primarily on pleasing their advertisers, by featuring those advertisers in the content text. After a while, there will be virtually no distinction between the advertising and the content. But the production costs of the magazine will not be reduced; the demand for very high quality production values will force these mags to ever higher prices. Would you be willing to pay close to $10 an issue (because it's getting close to that) for a magazine whose content was 90% advertising or advertising tie-in?? Especially when you factor in the elephant in the living room: the availability of enormous amounts of online information, most of it free, and—in the case of IKF, TKDT, BB and several others—of at least as reliable quality, on average, as the high circ mags, and significantly better in many cases. I don't know about KF, but for TKD there are whole textbooks and histories downloadable for free on the Web. For Karate, Iain Abernethy's website alone gives you access to just under one hundred extermely high quality articles on all aspects of karate, by people like Lawrence Kane, Jamie Clubb and Stuart Anslow, as well as Abernethy himself, along with several complete e-books on bunkai for the Pinan Kata, street-practical application of Karate, and on and on. Authors of books maintain blog sites and chat boards where often quite outstanding experts in the field post. Any form/pattern you can think of has been performed at several levels of quality on YouTube.... and then, of course, there's Martial Talk, the jewel in the MA internet crown. :) So what incentive do readers have to go along with the crass output of short-sighted business models in magazine publishing that are twenty-five years behind current technology and ignore the gunbarrel pointing at their faces: readers no longer need most magazines to get the information they want?? Sifting through the rubble piles on the internet for the good stuff is still way cheaper, and a lot more fun, than paying six bucks or more for what, more and more, amount to product catalogues.

Sure, run magazines as business, but be smart enough to realize that if you wind up publishing mostly advertising and contentless puff pieces, no one is goiing to want your product.
 

Carol

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Would you be willing to pay close to $10 an issue (because it's getting close to that) for a magazine whose content was 90% advertising or advertising tie-in??

To heck with that!

A far better value for your dollar is a supporting membership to MartialTalk.com. More info than a magazine, less advertising, and YOU have a say in the content. ;)

Lets do our best to keep the lights on here, folks. We've got it REALLY good. :asian:
 

LuckyKBoxer

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I don't see anyone saying that a magazine shouldn't be run like a business. Would you care to quote a single post in this thread so far that's saying that?

What people are saying is that the business model of the magazines they've read in the past are leading those magazines to publish content that's substandard in quality, or based on current commercially dominant trends in the MAs, or both, and therefore they're voting with their wallets and no longer reading those magazines. And this 'cracks [you] up'... :rolleyes:

I guess you missed my point. I never said anyone made any comment about how they should be run.
My point is that alot of the people complaining on this thread are complaining because the content is shifting to MMA related articles, advertisements, and columnists, as opposed to traditional martial arts, in this case kung fu.
The information is not any more substandard then when it was strictly kung fu, or whatever other martial art, the problem is its MMA, which does not appeal to them. These magazines have for many years now been almost exclusively advertising pieces, either the adds themselves, or the articles which in fact are just multi page advertising pieces.

What cracks me up, is that people complain about the trend and complain that its... a mix of national enquirer and us weekly as opposed to... um newsweek and time..or as many more put it, that the content is getting worse..
seriously I have a majority of the IKF magazines minus a few, and the kung fu articles and stories have been on the ridiculous side for a long time now.
I think the trend in these magazines are a mirror of whats happening to traditional martial arts studios.
In regards to magazines though, Its been a long time since I read through any of the martial arts magazines and thought that it was a quality piece of work. There are occasional flashes of great information, or interviews, technique, or other article, but its rare.
 

LuckyKBoxer

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Absolutely, Arni.

Sure, run magazines as business, but be smart enough to realize that if you wind up publishing mostly advertising and contentless puff pieces, no one is goiing to want your product.

I guess the question that needs to be answered is...
What is the trend in annual subscriptions for Inside Kung fu magazine?
If their subcription base is decreasing then you are all right on the money here.... If they are increasing their base, then what would you have them do?
 

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