June 2008
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Arms,
The past couple of years have been challenging from a personal level, with the passing away of my father, and health issues (still going on) with my in-laws. However, the journey back to the journals has only just begun and have expectations that there will be a high level of interest in practitioners and researchers wishing to publish their works in this journal.
Quite a bit of work has been done in the "background" over the month of May in preparing both the JWMA and JManly websites to conform to XML standards, which will aid in a usable presentation of content on any internet-enabled device. It was time to clean up the code anyways to ensure that the code is consistent across any page making up the websites so that future articles can be published quicker with less effort through standardizing the XML code across all pages. These standards along with refined guidelines have been included in this general "re-tooling" of the website. For more details on an updated article guidelines which are common to both JWMA and JManly, click here.
During the "tidying up" of the JWMA and JManly web pages, an important development had materialized between myself and Scott Baltic, Editor of Western Martial Arts Illustrated magazine in which a mutual relationship was struck between the printed periodical and these online journals. It was felt that it was important for the WMA community to have both a printed version of WMA related subjects oriented towards a more "hands on" approach to the articles, whereas, the JWMA journal will take a more academic/theoretical approach. We hope that the split in the orientation of articles may keep both publications "happy" in the long run. We both share a common goal to further the development and evolution of Western Martial Arts, both the historical and the contemporary.
I'd like to re-iterate that there are features available in these journals, such as the Letters to the Editor and the Reviews on WMA relevant books and video. Reviews are extremely useful to assist those interested in their considerations of a publication or DVD to expand their personal libraries, invoke research on a particular subject, or pursuing a new subject area. Of course, letters to the editor are always welcomed as we will listen to feedback, and consider good suggestions by the readership. Our desire is to ensure that the JWMA and JManly resources continue to be useful, accessible and available resources to the WMA community.
Executive Editor, JWMA, JManly