morgothan’s kung fu repository

So we had another prodigal son returning to the school. One who is currently in college, and can only make it down during his off time. We sparred last night, or free flowed, as we didnt have the pads on. He got a little over zealous with a take down, so I dropped with him to the ground, and worked on some of my ground work from Judo, as with the passing of Sensei Rosenthal I have not been practicing Judo at all. While on the ground I found out that although I remembered a lot, I am also out of practice with it, and need to work on it. The trick will be finding a place to do it though. Anyway, I have Shane huddled down with back exposed, so I try and put him in Hadaka Jimmy(sp?), A rear naked strangle. He keeps his head down like a good boy, so I can’t get it on him at all. Eventually he I manage to get him to move in such a fashion I get him streaked out and have the choke on pretty good, but he managed to BITE my arm pretty hard, to get me to loosen up, then tries to choke me, poorly, I role him, and that was when the fight was called by Sifu. I still have teeth marks on my arm. Next time he tries something like that to me. Im not going to be nice. Im going to fish hook him, and then knock his ass out. Prodigal son or not.

Since the death of Sensei Rosenthal, I have been thinking a lot about how short and precious life really is. This though process has me thinking about my own mortality, and what will be left behind when I die. Granted I am still a young man at this point, but I know that at some point I will not be. It is because of this that I have decided to make a list of all the things I want to do in my lifetime. Right now it is rather short, only about two dozen or so things, but it will grow as I think of more things I want to do. I will update the list whenever I accomplish anything listed, or figure out something else I need to do. The list encompasses all facets of my life, from my martial arts training, to my personal life.

Last night March 24th 2008. Sensei Kris Rosenthal, my Judo Instructor passed away while teaching Judo class. This is a great loss to not only his family and students, but to the entire martial arts community. Sensei Rosenthal was a good man, and a great instructor. He always pushed you do more then you thought you could. He will be missed a great deal.

UPDATE 25 March 2008:
The Asbury Park Press website has his obituary, and information regarding the funeral and viewing.
Kris Rosenthal’s Obituary

No, Im not dead, I just have not had a chance to post in a while. That does not mean that I have not been training though. In Judo I took two rank tests already. Nothing fancy, just Kazushi, Falling, stances, and Terms. In Shaolin I just started working on the two man version of Hua Chuan two. Its pretty cool, but since Sifu has not taught it to anyone in a while it can be kind of frustrating because he will show you something, then once you do it, he will look at it and say nope thats not it. Do it like this, and he will show you something completely different. Kind of annoying. However, he said once we get through it we will tape it, and that will be the gold standard for the form. So that other will not have to go through the same thing. So that is kind of cool. Also when I have this form under my belt, the only thing I will need to finish my Shaolin training is Dragon Phoenix. So it is pretty exciting to almost be finished with a system. Well I guess that is it for now.

Yesterday I worked long on hard on my martial arts training. I got beat up pretty had for about four hours. It started off with doing Hua Chuan 4 with Tim. Then we ran through all of the Chin Na sets. In total this was about an hour to an hour and a half of two man fighting sets. Which as anyone who has done two man routines knows, tires you out pretty good. I then left from the kwoon and went to the judo dojo. Had very intense warm up workout that left my already tired body nearly spent. From there we went onto the actual judo training. Did some flipping, and tripping, then came the strangulation techniques. I proceeded to get the life strangled out of me. The techniques are really nice, and very VERY affective, but man let me tell you they suck to get put in. Especially once you are already worn out. After all was said and done, my neck was cramped, and my body was a shell of its former self. Once I finished my hour and a half of judo training I had to high tail it back to the kwoon for some “fun”. We car filming some videos to put up on youtube, Chin Na sets, applications, full forms, etc. Last night we filmed Hua Chuan 2, China Na 3, and an application of Snake from Hsing Yi. It should go with out saying that I was the punching bag that got beat through out all of these. I was thrown, flipped, and my arm severely locked multiple time during the hour long filming session. My body is still soar, and I ache all over. I’m forever grateful that today, tuesday, I have not martial arts training, and can just stretch, and rest off the bruises, abuse my body has taken yesterday. Once the videos are “edited” and posted to youtube I will link to them here.