Storms and the Houston monks?

[GeneChing]

Has anyone heard from the monks in Houston? Shi Deshan, Shi Xinghao, Shi Xingying and Shi Xingfeng or their students? How did they weather Rita?

[GLW]

If they lived in the general area of their schools, they should be fine. They are on the west side of Houston and the hurricane hit east of I45 and a bit more north.

the biggest issue right now is gasoline. After that youhave making sure you have power. There are parts of town without power. not much is open...and when you do find a place to eat that is open, the menu is limited. It will be another day or two before things get back to normal.

[GeneChing]

How is Madame Wang and Dr. Wu? And Grace? Do you know?

[Pk_StyLeZ]

shi xing feng??hehe u mean shi yan feng??
im pretty sure they all are fine.....i am fine....it didnt hit us at all as far as i am concerned...only lost power in some area....barly any rain...not dat strong of winds...only some stuff knocked down..i seen worse weather here before and it wasnt even cause of a hurricane..but i am glad it decided to swing north and miss houston =)....feel bad for the other parts of texas and lousiana though

gasoline is back up and running here..a lot of places have back gasoline since saturday...a lot of business is open too...everything is almost back to normal execpt school

it was a very boring 3-4 day last week...OMG I WAS GOING CRAZY

[GeneChing]

Oops on the Xing/Yan. I think that's the first time I've ever made that mistake. There are two Yanfengs. The other one was here a few weeks ago. That's my excuse for the mix up.

I heard from Shawn Liu (Deru). He's ok. He said his school took some damage and many of his students lost everything. All things are impermanent.

Glad you are all safe.

[Mortal1]

But who is the REAL Yanfeng?

By real I mean the one aoppointed by the government, to pretend he is teaching, traditional kungfu, when it is really just sloppy wushu. Maybe they should do forms next to each other until one of them passes out. Os see who could shave his head and lace up a pair of feivues quicker.

Just kidding. Not completely I guess.

:p

[cbishop]

....to pretend he is teaching, traditional kungfu, when it is really just sloppy wushu.... :p

ouch!!! isn't that what shaolin monks are supposed to do??
c'mon everybody.. let's do spirit fingers.... :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

Are you mocking Rita victims?

[Mortal1]

No. Not at all. Just doing a little low brow monk humour. I guess it wasn't appropriate for this thread.

I wish all the monks and anyone else effected the best.

[Pk_StyLeZ]

thanks gene for your concern on us houston folks.

as to the guy who wanted to pair up the two *YANFENGS* next to each other and have them to forms until one pass out, what does that accomplish?
when you look for a teacher, do you see which one is better in shape? or which one knows what they are doing and techniques? a person can easily outlast anyone in doing form just by simplying practicing endurance cardio a lot.
but to be a teacher doesnt mean you have to be in shape (of course havign a teacher in shape would be a lot better also) but all the teacher is there is just to guide you, he just has to show you and watch you practice and correct you and teach you the meaning of the form/movements/applications. no endurance is needed for that. a good teacher just has to be able to show you how to bring your fullest potential. sorry if it doesnt really make sense, but i hope you are understand at where i am going.
*edit* ok i know what i am trying to say, do you want a teacher that is fit and can run 21093812 miles without dropping a sweat but has no knowledge at all. or do you want a teacher that can barly run a mile but has knowledge and what he is teaching. anyone can easily be in shape, but not everyone can accquire a lot of knowledge espchially in a martial art field. students, competitors, performers, teachers, all are different...a good competitor that win everyone tournament doesnt neccesarily mean he will be a good teacher. that why i never cared for people/teachers that said they won howveer many competitions and yada yada.


and sorry to disappoint you, the yan feng i train with already admits if he is teaching wushu or when he is teaching traditional, hell he even admits in mixing it together in the forms.
so guess he isnt the real one appointed by the governement to pretend =)

(* i am not putting down any of the yan feng, i am not saying one yan feng is better then the other as i have never seen the other yan feng, please do not mis interpret what i am trying to say)

[cbishop]

sorry gene, don't understand how you came to that conclusion.
my quip was only at spirit fingers.. :D

also, i have family spread all over houston.
i don't think the situation is quite so dire. i realize that many people
have had property destroyed, and i empathize as i live in Oklahoma.
we have tornados that roll through and destroy cities EVERY YEAR.
does this exempt oklahomans from being the butt of an
occasional joke?

[Mortal1]

Pk_StyLeZ and anyone else who thought I was serious.

I WAS JOKING!!!!! HELLO MCFLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I WAS JOKING!!!!!!!!!!!

My own off color shaolin humour that all. Nothing more. Not true personal attacks. I meant nothing by endurance! I was joking! All of their conditioning is near amazing.

The only part that had a grain of truth is the wushu part. I trained with 3 different monks for 6 years. I KNOW 2 of them taught wushu and called it shaolin. And the way they taught wushu was sloppy with shortened versions of the true wushu forms. Also even the so called shaolin forms that are taught now are very wushu oriented.

I am not abusing wushu either. I train straight up wushu now and totally love it!

No disrepect to anyone. Jeez.

[GLW]

Grace was down here a week or so ago. We were so busy that we did not get a chance to do anything but speak with her on the phone.

Madame Wang and Dr. Wu are doing OK as is Xiaoping. They were planning on heading up to Wichita to ride out the storm but like us, got stuck. The roads were pretty much closed until Friday. By that time, it was not clear if there would be gas available. So, we all just stayed put.

The storm then took a turn east and it was more like a brisk gale with a little rain on the west side. North and east were hit harder (my office lost part of its roof but it is WAY north).

All in all, everyone made it through the storm fairly well.

I would assume that the Shaolin folks did as well since all of their schools tend to be on the west side.

[GeneChing]

No sweat Mortal1 & cbishop. I guess I'm a little touchy about the recent tragedies, so your comments seemed out of place. I got some bad news from TX yesterday from a good friend, not a martial arts friend, who lost everything.

Anyways, as for the name game, there aren't as many Chinese names as there are American names (to be fair, any Chinese names *can be* an American name; I'm more refering to common names.) It's fairly common for monk names to be repetative. For instance, there's another Xinglong, although I've never met him. In fact, I recently met a Gene Chen (same Chen character as my Ching) but not in the martial circle.

[Songshan]

Sorry caught this post a little late. Houston survived and I know Xing Hao is just fine. I am not sure about the other monks though ;) . As the previous posts stated we didn't get hit bad. The suburban police department I work for had us working 12 hour shifts through the whole thing (talk about frustrating as we could not be with our families). I think the news media frightened everyone with the Louisiana Katrina thing with all the devastation coverage and looting. It was an errie feeling patrolling through virtually an empty city that was shut down. There were so many of us out there we running over each other :p. All is well though!!

[GeneChing]

Well, if anyone has the insider scoop, it would be you, Songshan. Good to hear everyone is ok out there. How long was the city shut down for?

[Songshan]

The city was completely shut down for one whole day (the day it was expected to hit land) including all Walmart stores, grocery stores and gas stations. On the eve of the anticipated storm day, I couldn't tell you how many disturbance calls we ran about people fighting over bread and water at food stores. The following day after it took a turn northeast, some of the stores opened half a day. It was a ghost town and an interesting site to see if you have never been through a hurricane. Noone was outside and the streets were literally empty. There were thousands of people in grid lock on the major highways who were trying to evacuate. A usual 15 mile drive took hours due to the traffic congestion. There was a report of an elderly couple who literally died of carbon monoxide poisoning while sitting in the the massive traffic jam in their car trying to evacuate on Interstate 10.

On a positive note, we were very very lucky. There were some good people helping those who were in need especially along those congested highways. Some handed out free food and water to those sitting in traffic. It's been years since we actually been hit by a hurricane so we are due for one. Hopefully this one was it. We run the risk of getting hit by a hurricane every year but for the year long nice climate we have down here it's worth it. ;)

[GeneChing]

...what a horrible way to go...

That must have been quite a challenge for your department. I'm sure the people of Houston are grateful. There's some fine Shaolin applications in what you do, Songshan. :)

[GeneChing]

It was Rita and the Houston monks. Now I ask my questions again, but shift it to Ike.

Has anyone heard from the monks in Houston? Shi Deshan, Shi Xinghao, Shi Xingying and Shi Xingfeng or their students? How did they weather Ike?

[LFJ]

not sure how they are doing. they probably got it bad, since the mississippi caught wind and brought it right up to st. louis, where we got it bad enough.

the car filled up with muddy water like a bowl of soup. dumpers floating around and everything. luckily i'm on a second floor and didnt lose anything but the car. but had water half way up the steps.

everyone on the first floor had their doors busted in from the water pressure and just lost everything. heard of a handful of deaths in the midwest too, terrible.

they arent allowing us to return home yet until safety inspections are completed on the buildings- they might even be condemned. i'm staying in a dorm at the university, currently.

best wishes to everyone affected.

peace!

[sha0lin1]

I talked to Xing Ying the day before the storm and invited him to come to stay with me until it was over. He did not think that it was going to be that bad and was going to stay at the school. As a matter of fact he even joked that we would be having class on Saturday and that I should go down. I am sure he is fine since he is blocks away from Xing Hao and Songshan and PK said that that side of town came through in pretty good shape. I have tried to call the last few days but have not been able to get through, as soon as I hear from him I will let you all know.

[GLW]

The issue in Houston now is receding water, mosquitos, and power..with power being the big one.

The west side of town has a lot of areas without power. the area around corporate drive (one shaolin school) has no power. The roof on that building is either all or partially damaged with many of the businesses there having soaked interiors.

As you go further west on Bellaire, I am not sure..but I do know that as you get out to Hwy 6, there is no power...so the other Shaolin school close to Bellaire and Kirkwood is probably out of power as well. Hard to get gasoline without power for the gas pumps. Many houses are all electric so you can't cook and no hot water.

One friend was going back yesterday and it took her 9 1/2 hours to go a distance that is normally 5 hours.

I would be surprised if there are classes back in session this week -- anywhere.

[sha0lin1]

I talked to Xing Ying this morning finally getting through. He is fine, he got his power back on last night. The only problem he had was some water leaking through the roof. Since he has power he will open for business.

[masherdong]

Well, considering that Ike put over 2 million people without power, it would not surprise me that everyone you mentioned has power. Good thing is, as of today, power has been restored to about 760,000 people. I was one of the fortunate ones to have my power restored Saturday afternoon. I am very blessed that most of Katy got away with minor damages and not as bad as those poor people in Galveston. Our school was in good shape and we were able to have classes last night and today. Last I heard, most of the Chinatown area is still blacked out. My wife's restaurant, Fung's Kitchen, is still out of power. My office which is west of the Beltway 8, but about 1.5 miles north of Chinatown is without power too.