Ilustrisimo Kali

[shaolin_allan]

Has anyone heard of the Ilustrisimo Kali-Eskrima system?

[Chosen-frozen]

Yeah, Illistrismo is dead now, but I know a couple ofhis students are teaching on the west coast. He was the real deal, old world bad ass. (Cut a dude`s head off with a bolo when he was about 13) If I remember correctly its from the southern end of the Philipines,really a Moro style. More blade oriented than stick, but the princples are the same.

Go over to youtube and do a search, there`s a video of the old man doing sword disarms when hewas in his late 70`s. Still moved pretty good. I think the tittle was something like "Escrima Master".

[sanjuro_ronin]

I am a fan of almost every FMA, and Ilustrisimo Kali is an excellent system.

[Nick Forrer]

Its 'Kalis' not kali

A Kalis is a curved blade (as a Kris is a wavy one) so Kalis illustrisimo means the blade of illustrisimo

The generic term is Escrima (or Arnis)

As far as the illustrisimo system POV goes there is no ancient art called 'Kali' - this is something made up by western escrimadors

Illustrisimo is an awesome art with lots of layers...I am in the process of learning it myself - I have seen quite a lot of footage of tatang with Tony Diego and Chris Ricketts and he is amazing.

For those intersted Chris Ricketts produced some dvds a while back with Rey Galang on the art

[shaolin_allan]

Thanks for the update Nick I find that very interesting stuff. I've been considering getting into FMA for a short while now. An instructor named John Jacobo just moved out by me and is starting a school here, here is his website www.swacom.com. I was wondering what the differences are in the Kalis Ilustrisimo are compared to some other FMA systems?