Bøker av Brian Gray

Journey with world adventurer Brian Gray as he treks across the exotic land of China in 1999, on his quest to stand atop the fabled Great Wall at one of its highest elevations in Si Ma T'ai. From his exploration of the fabulous Forbidden City in Beijing, to coming face to face with the legendary Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an, even his sojourn at the landmark of Kung Fu, the sacred Shaolin Temple, his journey takes the reader on a trip like they might not ever get to see. Brian takes the reader back in history so that they understand the dramatic events that brought these exciting sites into being, and his great color photos make sure that everyone can truly experience this journey as if they were personally there, too.

What a journey it has been! I began demonstrating the Chinese Iron Palm Skills in the early Seventies at major tournaments around the country. I simply enjoyed sharing what I knew. As you will read in this book, I was encouraged to write an article about the proper and legitimate methods for training in this art for Inside Kung Fu magazine in 1985. That issue sold out, and what came with it was the biggest demand for more material from me that Inside Kung Fu magazine had ever experienced. I was honored, and I was also soon to discover the vastness of the charlatans and frauds who came running to make a quick buck. It was astonishing. I kept my promise to stay involved. Over the decades that followed, I wrote more articles for the magazines, I published books, produced videos and created the Iron Palm International Organization, which meant traveling all over the U.S. to host annual conferences. In 2018, I hosted my last appearance at the Iron Palm International Iron Palm Conference. I felt it only fitting that I share with my readers all of those magazine articles, which are no longer available anywhere.

In August of 2009, my mother was dragged from her car and severely brutalized by a State police officer. She was 82 years old. The tragedy that befell her that day took her from the world she loved and knew, and sent her spiraling downward into a world none of us would have ever believed possible for her, because my mother was a good woman, the wife of a preacher, and both of them had sacrificed so much for so many people over the fifty years that they pastored various churches. What was to have been their Golden Years turned out to be a story of the betrayal of dreams. All that we had expected for the last days of my parents was replaced with learning how to deal with the unfairness of being robbed of what should have been. From this tragic event, through seven years of being locked in an Alzheimer's ward, to my mother's last days, her journey changed all of us forever.

Where have all the years gone? It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in my classroom back at Academy in Erie, Pennsylvania. The year was 1967, and my English teacher had given us an assignment of writing a poem. It was nearing Christmas, and being such a fanatic fan of everything Christmas back then, I chose that as my theme. I still have that hand-written poem. The teacher gave me a good grade, but I look back at it now, and I think of how trite it was (and that is why it is not in this book, I write, giggling as I re-read it). But, it was a start. For me, it sparked something, a love of how words can form chains of interesting sounds, musical sounds. So it was that I would continue to play with those musical sounds for many years to come. Writing poetry is complex, a wrestling match with forces in the ether to describe things in the ether, and it still has to make music when all is penned to parchment. More than half a century has passed since I sat in that class, and I decided to cull through some of those "wrestling matches" and share with my readers what won.

Many years ago, when just a kid in high school, I was taken to see the great Niagara Falls. Of all the sights that intrigued and awed, one that stayed with me since then was the sight of a lonely barge, called a scow, sitting precariously just a few hundred yards upstream from the precipice of the Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. I wondered how it got there, and I was told bits and pieces of what others had heard, of what was, of course, hearsay and inaccurate. Hard to believe that fifty years had passed since I asked that question, and no one I ever spoke to had the answers. I decided it was time to find out, and after much difficult research, I found the astounding answers. Here is that remarkable story.

Edgar Allan Poe, the famous author and poet, was indeed a man of dark mystery. More rumors began after his death than would have been imaginable during his life, but perhaps the one most often circulated was how he actually died. What caused his death? Where are the facts? Was it true that he was found in the streets of Baltimore robbed and drugged, and that he died mysteriously shortly thereafter? The rumors and suppositions surrounding the death of this great writer puzzled me for many years, and I decided to find the facts. I examined the last days of Edgar Allan Poe, his travels and social interactions, even unearthing witness statements from that time regarding his death and burial. On September 15, 1996, the New York Times reported that a prominent cardiologist, Dr. R. Michael Benitez, had demonstrably shown the scientific proofs for the cause of Edgar Allen Poe's death, and those scientific proofs were peer reviewed in the September 1996 issue of the highly respected Maryland Journal of Medicine. It is all here.

Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going when I leave here? There they are, the Four Questions of Life. They haunt us all of our lives. We think of them subconsciously for a long time, but there comes a day when we start to think of them consciously. We start asking. Who am I? Really? Who am I? Like the stars in the sky, we sense our individuality. And where did I come from? Beyond my parents, did I exist before I came here? What is my purpose for being here? Have I failed that destiny? Why am I here, now, in this time on Earth of all the times into which I could have been born? And when I die, where am I going? Is there a Hell? Is there a Heaven? Or is there someplace else that they are just not telling us about? Where am I going when I leave this plane of existence? The more intelligent you are, the more you think. Become molded into the image others make for you, or break free and create your own identity; some find their way out, while others perish in the maze of life's conforming pressures. Every religion that has ever been invented has an ending for you that is dependent on whether you have been good or bad during your lifetime as judged by fellow human beings beset with the same frailties and foibles as you. I am here to show you the truth about the answers to the four questions of life.

This story started out as an idea for a movie back in 1985. At that time, a friend of mine, Ted Swanson, was the assistant director and production manager for the movie, "The Witness," starring Harrison Ford. Ted loved martial arts almost as much as I did, and we had talked about doing a martial arts movie. By then, most producers and directors were losing interest in martial arts films, saying that the genre had lost its appeal to the general public. Most of them stated that martial arts movies just were not making any money, and I told all of them that the reason this was so, was because they had cheap plots, were poorly written and poorly acted. Martial arts films had become nothing more than cheap knockoffs, wannabes, and the people who produced them thought that all they had to do to have a hit martial arts movie was to have people run around kicking and screaming while wearing Asian outfits. I told them that martial arts audiences were more sophisticated than that. Make a quality martial arts film, and you would make money. Ted and I talked about this often while he was on the set of "The Witness," and I assured Ted that, if we could develop a good plot, we could make a great martial arts movie. And I wanted to be in this movie. At that time, I had done acting and singing for television and stage, and I was a national martial arts champion, so I told Ted that I could put it all together, and once he was done filming "The Witness," we could meet in L.A. and talk about making it happen. It was time to write a movie... and I had never done that. One thing I did know, it had to have as much entertaining action and plot twists as "Indiana Jones." As I told Ted, you can't just have a bunch of cheap, meaningless fight scenes. This movie would have me singing, acting and demonstrating legitimate martial arts. I agreed to meet him in L.A. in September. As time passed, I realized that there was no way to write a novel in the short time I had left. So, I decided to do a synopsis of the movie, and I began to outline the plot and flesh out the characters. By the time I was due to leave for L.A., I proudly had enough written to show Ted. I laugh now, but when I got to Ted's house, instead of what I had expected I would do, which was to give him the book, have him read it and get back to me, Ted sat there in his living room with his son present and said, "Tell me the story." I was flabbergasted. I wanted him to read and absorb what I had written. I had spent all of this time putting a written story together for him, and now he was going to have me ruin it by simply telling him the story. I was disappointed. Needless to say, we never made this movie, but, hey, why let a good story go to waste? So, if you like martial arts, and you want to read a short story, here, then isThe Necklace of God

Boston, a city of tremendous historic significance and modern delights, was on my calendar of coming events, because, even though I was actually planning a vacation to one of my favorite American cities, Ogunquit, Maine, in tow with me would be my good friend, Scott Douglas, an ardent lover of all things historical. Since Scott had never set foot in Boston, I knew that I wanted to include a one-day side-trip to this city that was so integral to the founding of the country I call home. But with so much to see and experience, how was I going to do justice to this great city? It is simply impossible to see all of Boston in one day. So, what do you do? Here is the great adventure that I managed to accomplish...and, yes, all in one day.

Retirement is different for many people. Most people look at retirement as the remaining 20 to 30 years of their lives. Brian Gray and Ray Stein will take you through a series of retirement topics and show you why living your life in five year increments is so important. Many hidden retirement pitfalls can derail the best laid plans and strategies. They discuss these pitfalls in simple easy to understand language.This book can help guide you towards a retirement without limits versus one that may have boundaries. Learning to live your life in five year increment can help you from missing your bucket list window.Avoid those potential pitfalls so you can live your life without regret. 

Drive critical, engaged learning and advanced skills development. Enabling comprehensive, rounded understanding, the student-centred approach actively develops the sophisticated skills key to performance in Paper 2. Developed directly with the IB for the 2015 syllabus, this Course Book fully supports the new comparative approach to learning.

Drive critical, engaged learning and advanced skills development. Enabling comprehensive, rounded understanding, the student-centred approach actively develops the sophisticated skills key to performance in Paper 2. Developed directly with the IB for the 2015 syllabus, this Course Book fully supports the new comparative approach to learning.

Have you ever wished that everything you touched turned to gold? In King Midas and other tales the foolish King Midas makes that wish and then wishes he hadn't. These myths from Bolivia, China and Ancient Greece show what people will do silver and gold. TreeTops Myths and Legends are a fascinating selection of the best traditional stories.