Pencak Silat Implemental Weapons

Unlike orthodox karate-do, pencak-silat makes use of an extremely wide range of implemental weapons of various sorts, as do orthodox Chinese, Korean, and Okinawan combative arts, all of them thus taking on a quality of realism that is lacking in solely empty-hand combative forms.

Although it is beyond the scope of this blog to describe all the possible weapons in detail, an account of some of them is indeed necessary for the exponent of pencak-silat.

1. Blade
2. Stick and Staff
3. Flail
4. Projectile
5. Composite
   

Hand Formation of Karate-Do | Oyayubi Ippon-ken

Oyayubi Ippon-ken is called for thumb one-finger fist

Hand Formation of Karate-Do | Washide

Washide is called for eagle hand

Pencak-Silat, Being a True Fighting Art

All pencak-silat is traditionally evasive. Its characteristic responses to an attack are light, fast, deceptive movements; it seeks to avoid bone-crushing contact with the assailant's charge. Customarily it does not oppose the force of the assailant but rather blends with it and directs it along specific channels where it may then be controlled, allowing the assailant to be eventually subdued. Thus, by long tradition, it is usually defensive in application: the pencak-silat exponent prefers to await the attacker's moves before taking action. However, this is not an absolute condition by any means.

Almost all pencak-silat technique operates as a "soft" or "elastic" style of fighting-alert, responsive and adaptive, ready to neutralize whatever aggression it encounters. It has an easily recognized, peculiar, pulsating tempo. In fact, although it is not essential to the proper performance of pencak movements, percussion music frequently accompanies training exercises. This is done primarily for much the same reason that the musician makes use of a metronome,but with pencak-silat the music has the further effect of heightening the emotional atmosphere of the training, rather as war drums affect tribal warriors. Almost all pencak-silat movements are based on characteristic movements of animals or people. Thus, it is not uncommon to find that the action of a particular style bears some such title as pendeta ("priest"), or garuda ("eagle"), or madju kakikiri harimau ("taking a tigerlike stance"). A couple of other delightfully descriptive titles are lompat sikap naga ("jumping in dragon style") and lompatputri bersedia ("jumping like a princess and standing near"). The suggested femininity in the latter title is misleading; counterattacks delivered by this method can be astonishingly fierce.

As has already been suggested, pencak-silat, being a true fighting art, makes no use of warming-up or preparatory exercises, for it recognizes that under fighting conditions a man will have either time nor opportunity to warm up. As actions preliminary to more energetic drills, pencak-silat uses directly related and instantly convertible movements that are of silat value. Isolated actions or exercises of the calisthenic type are considered meaningless and unnecessary.