About the GEMAC Archive: Mission and Standards

What this archive is

The Golden Eagle Martial Arts Resource Center (GEMAC) is a digital archive. It preserves, documents, and connects the record of Chinese martial arts as they were transmitted in North America — beginning with a school founded in Alabama in 1997 and the traditions it carried: Choy Li Fut kung fu and Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan. The archive holds biographical records, system histories, classical texts, weapon studies, and dated historical documents, every one of them sourced.

The record behind the archive

Golden Eagle Martial Arts Centers opened its doors in northern Alabama in 1997 and taught for two decades across Huntsville, Moulton, Florence, Decatur, Athens, and Muscle Shoals. Its websites, online since the late 1990s, became reference material cited by encyclopedias and researchers. The full story — the schools, the sites, and the restoration of three legacy pages — is told on thearchive history page.

How the archive writes

Pages open with direct definitions, tie every historical claim to a dated source, state disagreements instead of resolving them silently, and date their revisions. The full standard, including what the archive does when evidence runs out, is published on theeditorial method page.

Where the material comes from

The archive draws on four kinds of material: primary sources, historical sources, secondary scholarship, and the teaching materials of the Golden Eagle schools. Each kind is defined, and the citation standard is stated, on the sources page.

Contact

Corrections, research questions, and donations of historical materials are welcome through the contact page. Corrections receive priority, and every published correction is dated.