Cimande Pencak Silat

Though developed in the wet lowlands, this fighting form is now confined almost exclusively to the Sundanese people of west Java, a rural, mountainous region. Cimande postures are less upright than those of other Javanese pencak-silat systems, and movements are made cautiously, as though the fighter were trying to avoid wet and slippery spots on the ground. The flexibility that Cimande combative postures permit is ideally suited to meet an enemy who rushes in hard to the attack. Through clever use of hand and arm parrying actions, the Cimande fighter meets the initial attack, then neutralizes it by further covering action, and finally-and virtually simultaneously delivers his counterattack.