Tim,
I'll take up your questions in order:
1. "What's the deal with the encyclopedia?"
Bram had pestered RP about doing an all-embracive book or encyclopedia on Modern Arnis for years but to no avail. The best we got were his videos and people's private video collections. So, when he passed away, unbeknownst to to each other, we both began writing books on the subject. You've seen mine and the text copy of his Conceptual Modern Arnis (which I have nicknamed the Monster due to its size). Both Bram and I are very comfortable with the written word so we decided we would do what we could in our respective areas of expertise. Mine is in the blunt impact weapon (cane) and empty hand. His is in the blade. An interesting aside is that when Bram was in Germany and hooked up with Roland Dantes, he found that what he had been doing paralelled the Presas family art. What a lot of people don't know is that Remy Presas and Roland Dantes taught the Philippine Bolo Brigade. RP was not all stick. Anyway, the concept is to pool our resources and put out a series of books which will be as all-embracive as possible. IMHO no one person has ALL of Modern Arnis. What we are trying to accomplish is to present as much of it as possible so that the art will not be lost. Now, if we could get Roland Dantes in on it, there'd be even more info on the art that wouldn't be lost. Hmmmmm...
2. "Will all of the volumes be available on one disc in PDF for convenience?
Who knows? You're the first one to bring that possibility up. Bram and I are nowhere near that far yet. Heck, if you know anything about Bram's travel/teaching schedule, getting him to hold still long enough to do the photos will be a modern wash-day miracle in itself. I'll keep everyone posted about its progress. I am (ahem), 3-4 books ahead of Bram so far and he's about 12 or so videos/DVDs ahead of me. What I do want to do in the near future is to do DVD versions of the books already done. All for now.
Yours,
Dan Anderson