TDA Training adding Reviews, Current Reading, and the fabled Forum!

FYI, I am adding back the current reading and informal book reviews to the site. I fly almost every week, and tend to devour a book every one to two weeks (at least), so this will be easy. I don't have the time to do extensive research and write reviews of my casual reading, so those will be called the TDA Training Coffee Table, and will be located on the sidebar. I'm just going to tell you how I liked it, and what it was like without spoiling it for you. I hope you will comment with your opinions, if you've read the same books, or with recommendations for me so that I don't go stir-crazy on those planes. :-)

I'll also be adding book and video reviews, and calling it TDA Training Reviews as a category, and review martial arts training materials, from media such as books, video, and Web sites, to training equipment or methods. These will be more formal, and include a breakdown of how the material can be used, the methodology or theories behind them (as I understand it), and whether I think it'll be effective. If I don't know, I may send the material to one of my many MA blogging friends that you see on the sidebar, and ask their opinions before publishing. I want to include some kind of rating system, and will link back to the publishers and authors. I'll also start doing more interviews. I don't want to recommend things which are useless, and pledge full disclosure of anything that may color my opinions. Keep in mind, these will be my opinions only, and though I've trained in a lot of styles in my ~30 years in the martial arts, they are not to be considered any more or less valuable than anyone else's. That's why want your feedback in comments.

Finally, with the community of martial arts bloggers, I will be setting up the mythical forum. No promises on the date, but look for that soon in a rough form, and for constant improvements. I don't want to keep putting it off until it's "perfect," 'cause it'll never happen. ! I know that there are a lot of forums or bulletin boards out there, but the difference will be that it won't be on any one style or centered on any one site. It will be linked from a number of excellent blogs (and TDA, too!), and may be moderated by a number of us. The differences will be in your participation and the topics. Let's see how good we can make it together!