Three Days Pekiti Tirsia Seminar with Maginoo Mandala Uli Weidle in Helsinki

Maginoo Mandala Uli Weidle directed a seminar in Helsinki, Finland from May 15th to 17th. Participants of the seminar were from Finland Pekiti Tirsia family and came from Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Jyväskylä. All in all, over 20 eager trainees attended.

The seminar concentrated mainly on Pekiti Tirsias unarmed techniques, especially trips, stomps, leg stops, knee strikes and kicks. And some of those kicks came from an unexpected angle. This did not make the kicks less painful, however. Slaps, hacks, elbows and dumog were not forgotten, either. Not to mention the nasty fingering attacks. The simultaneous foot stomp, knee spike and elbow/hack followed by a trip/leg lock summarized the lessons of the second day. Stick work, the main topic of the third day, focused mainly on close quarter’s action too. Weapon retention and 360° awareness and attacks were stressed. Always popular stick disarms with upper limb locks and take downs were practiced also. The hard to counter slash-thrust combination with stick/knife was also demonstrated and practiced: “In every slash there lies a thrust and in every thrust there is a slash.” At the end of the final day, maybe as teaser for a coming seminar (?), an aggressive empty hands counter to a close quarter surprise attack was taught, but time run out before we could really drill it well.

As always, Maginoo Mandala Weidle put his heart into his teaching, shedding light not only on the techniques of kali, but philosophy also. Healing arts of the Philippines were also briefly discussed. After the formal seminar ended, Maginoo Mandala Weidle spend extra time to answer our questions, which provided us an opportunity to hear about Maginoo Mandala Weidles martial arts background in general and how he was introduced to Pekiti Tirsia Kali.

All was not sweat (and bruises), however. On Saturday evening a get together was arranged at the local restaurant with good food, drink, and most importantly, best possible company. We were, once again, privileged to have Maginoo Mandala Weidle over here and hope to see him soon again.

Fotos & Text: Pekiti Tirsia Finland