I decided earlier this year to attend the Martial Arts Supershow held this week in Las Vegas. It got into full swing today. The exhibit hall opened yesterday and I visited the booths.

I'm a fish out of water.

These events aren't designed for the internal arts. In fact, a lot of what is being peddled here is for martial arts school owners who are urged to squeeze as much money as they can out of students.

Dealers are here selling complete curriculums for schools. Buy a martial arts curriculum for $2,000. There are some useful booths -- some insurance companies and some cool equipment. The event is hosted by Century, a company I've always admired.

But try to find some authentic, traditional karate, TDK or kung-fu here and you'll come up empty. There is a LOT of MMA stuff, and it worries me. The traditional martial arts appear to be in a little bit of trouble. There are a lot of heavy, muscular guys with tattoos walking around dressed in MMA t-shirts. Several sessions devoted to MMA.

There are also booths devoted to keeping children interested in martial arts classes with things like merit badges and goofy cartoon characters spouting platitudes about "character" and "achievement." All of these people have good intentions, but it's sad to think you need to use so much psychology to keep a child interested in the martial arts.

There are, of course, companies devoted to handling your billing for you. Sign up new students and let this company be the bad guy. Okay, I'm being a little negative here. I understand the value of freeing up a school owner to be a teacher and manager rather than a bad guy trying to collect tuition, but sheesh.

I suppose the most disappointing thing is that there is NO mention of tai chi, hsing-i, or bagua. There are thousands of people attending and I might be the only internal artist. I'm often asked by the people in the exhibit booths what I do, and when I tell them I have an online school they are stunned and then move on to the next person passing by.

I'm going to post a few observations and comments during the next few days about the Martial Arts Supershow. They certainly need more traditional martial artists of all types, and they really could use anything internal.

Insert deep sigh here. Nancy came with me -- our 7th wedding anniversary was on the 3rd, and we decided to combine a trip that can be used as a tax write-off with an anniversary trip to Las Vegas for the Supershow. If I had just come for the Supershow, I would really feel ripped off.