This happened at a nearby town:

Police took a suspect into custody Wednesday on suspicion of home invasion after he was released from Heartland Regional Medical Center, where he had been treated for stab wounds to his legs and arms.

Marcus Bell, 22, of Marion was stabbed by a homeowner who managed to obtain a knife during an altercation. Bell reportedly was armed with a gun.

“There was a gun and knife involved and the knife won,” said Detective T.J. Warren of the Marion Police Department.

Police got an emergency call shortly before 8 p.m. from a house in the 1700 block of Faust Street.

Bell had apparently made forcible entry into the house and confronted the homeowner. They got into altercation. The homeowner was able to defend himself with a knife, stabbing Bell multiple times before he (Bell) fled the scene.

Officers trailed Bell to a Marion motel where he was arrested. He was  taken to Heartland before being booked into Williamson County jail, Warren said.

scott.fitzgerald@thesouthern.com

Prayers for the people in Harrisburg, IL which is about 40 miles from where we live.  A tornado struck there Wednesday, killing 6 and injuring 100.  Severe weather coming through again today, we were under a tornado watch, but it seems to have been downgraded to a wind advisory.

Makes me appreciate the class Kaju Dog did on trauma care at camp.

What are the class times?

Will there be a Monday class like in Nov?

Seminar was awesome, Maija and her friend Renato Alfonso are really inspiring teachers.  I feel that they not only taught me stuff, the way they taught gave me pointers on how to teach.  I'm still feeling a little dazed from the information overload, but I had a great time.  My students who attended are really eager to continue training the material we learnt over the weekend.  Hope we'll be able to do this again. 

Sorry Stickgrappler, we're not going to be making dvd's for the public.  Maybe your school might bring Maija in for a seminar 


And those are prices for the general public, we're charging students even less.  Since we're a university club, we don't have to worry about rent, and the instructors teach for free, so the students' dues can go directly to funding stuff like this.  BTW, they only pay $30 a semester, so it's $90 a year if they train in summer, too!

Thanks for the promo help, Robertlk808!  I know some Kali/Eskrima people in St. Louis, and I've contacted them, so hopefully we get a good turnout. 

This is our first major cross-training seminar, we're really excited about bringing Maija in.  We'll be on hardwood, I hope Maija goes easy on those Bagua takedowns.

Posted here with permission from Guro Marc.

Southern Illinois University Aikido Club will be hosting a Bagua/Eskrima seminar with Guro Maija Soderholm, student of the late Maestro Sonny Umpad, on April 10-11.  Class times are Saturday 10-12:30, 2-5 and Sunday 10-12:30.  Morning classes will focus more on Bagua, the Saturday afternoon class will be primarily Eskrima (Visayan Corto Kadena).  Cost is $15 for the morning classes and $20 for the afternoon class.  No experience necessary in either art.

We're located in Carbondale IL, about 300 miles S of Chicago, 100 miles SE of St. Louis.  I hope those of you who are nearby will join us, it's a rare opportunity to see some Visayan Corto Kadena in the Midwest.


If anyone is interested, send me a pm.
Karen

From "Never Back Down".  I haven't seen the movie, but I thought this scene was hilarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwnaUojQKbg

The final fight scene in the movie looks pretty good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Q3HCR5CmE&feature=PlayList&p=CE5742332F27BA93&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

Russian log twirling.  Starts at 0:21 in the vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve4Q0R001tI

Made me think of swing dancing, minus the music, fancy footwork and live partner.  Of course, that log may be much heavier than a regular person.

Karen

Wow.  Fascinating stuff.  I love how effortlessly he takes his partner's balance.

Did you ever work any of the moves in isolation on a heavy bag or other target to practise power generation, or were they just trained in the context of the flow?

Karen

Grateful that the family and I made it safely through the "inland hurricane" that tore through the midwest.  We have a hole in the garage roof, but the house is OK, so we're luckier than a lot of other people.  Finally have power back after four days without.  At least I got to practice cutting with a machete when we helped a friend clear a fallen tree out of her yard. 

Karen

Interesting piece of equipment for training footwork and balance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bH5HcpgAxU

A couple of Kalaripayattu long stick forms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JhDdeHtDmE&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEFu_WVi4wA&feature=channel_page

Kalari Stick fights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJrM2d68waY&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL-kS6gRCOc&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAlTByLpvm8&feature=channel_page

Kenjutsu free-sparring:

Toyama Ryu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7nUFpznK7E

Ishi Yama Ryu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANTd9yOCEUk&feature=related

Does anyone know if the free-sparring is part of the standard curriculum?  I don't know that much about the different schools of kenjutsu, so I could very well be wrong about this, but I thought that they only did pre-set kata for partner drills.

Karen

The Mythbusters measured Jon Fitch's punch to calibrate a robot for testing the plausibility of the scene in "Kill Bill 2" where Uma Thurman's character punches her way out of a coffin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iGzYZlaCOs

Speaking of the Mythbusters, why not see what damage a stick can do to a crash test dummy?  Some have instrumentation to record the data from a crash, I'm sure that would carry over to measuring the impact of a stick.

Karen

Whoops!  Meant to send this link instead, it's got more stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKcmf-0H9YY&feature=related

Sorry, cat was blocking my view of the screen.

Nifty Aikido stick work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyxbvg4fJ-M&feature=related

I'm grateful that this forum piqued my interest in Visayan Corto-Kadena, and got me in touch with Maija, who's a fantastic teacher of the Art.  Had a great time training with Maija when I visited SF with my family last week.  I'm also grateful for the gorgeous wether we had the week we were there, and that my back waited until AFTER we got home to tweak out on me.

Karen

Does anyone know if there are Corto-Kadena classes in San Francisco?  I'll be there for a few days, and would like to train, if possible, or at least observe a class if they don't want a newbie slowing things down.  I went to the visayaneskrima.com website, but they didn't have any school locations listed, and I got no reply when I emailed for info.

Thanks.