Silat & Street Fighting: Relevant @ Irrelevant?

I came across these arguments quite a number of times already. These kind of people had always try, whether they realize it or not, to condemn their own culture. Some of them claimed, people nowadays need no silat. It looks silly to perform the “pencak” in a street fight. Let me bring this issue up. Who says that you need to perform the “pencak” in a street fight? Only stupid persons would ever do that. Like other martial arts, there are theories and practical. In real fight, the chances are 50-50, depends on how good your reflections are. Silat is all about generating great reflections. If you can master the theories and practice them again and again, you are actually building an unseen “shield” in you. Practice makes perfect. In silat, everything is there for you to learn. It’s just like going to school. We learn everything but not everything is applicable in our life. In the end of the day, we are the one who will choose and decides what, which one, where or when to apply whatever we learn in our daily life. The decision we make and the path we take will results in success or failure. Depends on how good we manage ourselves.
Personally, I never involve in a fight before because fighting is the last thing I want to do. I’d rather settle things up in a diplomatic way if possible. This is also a great value I earn in learning silat. TO WIN IS NOT ONLY TO FIGHT. Win it with your MIND, rather than your MIGHT. Speaking of reflections, there was one time; when I went to a shop in my village, I was neck-locked from behind. In a matter of seconds, that attacker was in front of me, hand-locked. Well, he’s just my friend, trying to make a joke. But at that time, one question popped out my mind,”how did I lock him just now?” Then I realized the power of reflections. Maybe that's why my “guru” always reminded us to practice, non-stop. It might just a simple and non exciting experience to share, but it’s quite worthy to me. Well, it’s not easy to convince people to learn and love silat, as we are humans. We have our own interests and dislikes. But I hope my “chat” here can help people to understand that silat is not only about pencak and “dances”, it’s a hidden “shield” of the unseen warriors. Strong muscles are just tools. They are useless without a brilliant MIND to control them. Assalamualaikum.

Why SILAT?

Why should we learn silat? Why did I choose silat as my martial art discipline? No one could ever answer these questions but ourselves. There's no need to go far. Take me as an example. As far as I can remember, nobody in my own neighbourhood could stand even just a month learning silat. Why? I can give you thousands of relevant answers. First, no TRUE interest! Most of the youngsters nowadays join silat simply because of following their friends, not merely because they are eager to learn it. That is why, when the time's up, they "vanish" completely. Second, some of them just want to learn how to KICK ASS! They think that by learning a few steps of silat movements, they could show their skills during the silat tournaments or in the street fights. These kind of people could never stand a few nights learning the very basics of silat because they would get bored in no time. They might think that they can "graduate" in a matter of weeks, I supposed. Learning silat is just like going to school. It takes years to complete theoretically  but to be at least good at it, it needs more than that. I hope that you can understand what I am trying to say. I am not that good in delivering and expanding points. Next, another thing that comes across my mind is people nowadays (I mean my own race) has no spirit of patriotism. Silat is a Malay ancient martial system and it can be considered as a valueless treasure that no other race in this world could understand. But from what I can see now, other races are starting to focus on silat and its unique steps. Take Discovery Channel for example. If I am not mistaken, there are more than one programme focusing on silat, or at least show the beauty of silat in a glimpse. Whoopsy! I think I've said too much. Wait for my next post, SILAT; STREET FIGHTING: RELEVANT @ NOT? But till then, why did I choose silat? It's simply because, I LOVE IT...

Pencak Silat Betawi: The Origin

Pencak Silat Betawi is a registered silat association under the "Rumpun Silat Sarawak" or RSS. It is one of the 13 earliest silat streams to form the "Pertubuhan Seni Silat Bumiputera Sarawak" or PSSBS (now known as Rumpun Silat Sarawak) on 1976. This ancient martial arts had been around for almost 50 years under the leadership of Guru Utama YBhg. Tuan Imam Haji Zainuddin bin Haji Adenan. He was born on 25th December 1930 in a village called Kampung Masjid, Kuching, Sarawak. in 1943, at the age of 13, he started learning Pencak Silat Betawi from a man named Mahli. Besides learning a few Betawi's combat movements, he took the opportunity to learn some of the "Helang Menyambar" movements. During that time, silat was learnt secretly by most of the local people. Silat activities were stopped for about two years until 1945 because of the Japanese raid. Silat was then back on track when the British took over Borneo, but it was still slow and kept secret. In 1960s, Haji Zainuddin moved to a village called Siol Kandis together with 70 other families. Before moving, he managed to learn some of the Silat Hailam Laut techniques from a man named Munir bin Abu, his father's younger brother. Later, he mastered the Silat Cekak Betawi from a man, Mohd. Noor bin Totok. At the age of 30s, he was given full trusts to teach silat to the local people. From that time, a silat stream called Perguruan Seni Silat Betawi was born.