Seminar with Guro Maija Soderholm

[Karunamama]

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

[Crafty_Dog]

Folks:

Maija is quite good.  Whenever we are in the same town (she here or I there) we get together and exchange.  Highly recommended.

TAC!
Crafty Dog

PS:  Substantial footage of her training with Maestro Sonny can be seen in our "The Grandfathers Speak-2" and in the clip for it.

[C-Kumu Dog]

Dang, I dont think I have any friends that live in that area anymore but I will share the word on Facebook.  Im actually from the Belleville \ St. Louis area.

[maija]

Thanks guys This should be fun!
Looking forward to sharing some of Maestro Sonny's training ideas, probably focusing on his cane style.
It will be interesting to teach both Bagua and Eskrima in one workshop - I have come to see many similarities in the strategy, the method of power generation and in the footwork. 

[Karunamama]

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.

[Stickgrappler]

woof:

good luck with the seminar Guro Maija! one of my training partners is really into bagua/pakua and taiji/taichi and sees similarities with silat. should be interesting your take on bagua and fma. just curious, will dvd's be made from the seminar?

ugh on me for living in nyc, seminar fees are pretty high here compared to $15 or $20 lol.

also good luck to Karunamama on the seminar.

very truly yours in the MA,

~sg

[maija]

Thanks stickgrappler - should be fun to teach both arts side by side, and yes, I have found many similarities between Bagua and FMA - different flavor, but there's a lot of bladed weapons material in the Bagua, at least IMHO, and using bladed weapons means you gotta move, be sneaky and be efficient .... same same 
Don't think we will be videoing anything, at least not for public viewing.
I actually have a Silat practitioner taking Bagua at present - it's been fun to see what points he connects to his experience.

[Karunamama]

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

ugh on me for living in nyc, seminar fees are pretty high here compared to $15 or $20 lol.

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!

[Stickgrappler]

woof Karunamam:

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

no worries on dvd, i wouldn't know if i didn't asked, so i checked.

i am in no formal school. at the rate i'm going, i may not ever be in a formal school sadly.

ugh on me for living in nyc, seminar fees are pretty high here compared to $15 or $20 lol.

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!
[/quote]

wow! dayum! cannot beat that.

~sg

[Karunamama]

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. 

[Stickgrappler]

very very cool! congrats on successful seminar!