Note Of My Blog: The Indonesian Fighting Art : Pencak Silat

The authors have avoided, so far as possible, the use of Indonesian to identify and describe the intricacies of the various pencak-silat techniques dealt with in this blog. Because each style has its own terminology and because even commonly executed actions have no standardized names, the number of Indonesian words required would become an unwieldy burden on the reader who does not speak Indonesian.

The Emphasis In Pencak-Silat Is Spiritual

The emphasis in pencak-silat is spiritual rather than physical; more so than the emphasis in the fighting arts of Japan (bugei as opposed to budo forms). That is to say, the soul or the heart of the fighter is of the utmost importance. His purity, or his lack of it, will be reflected in his techniques; experts claim they can read the nature of the trainee's heart simply by watching him practice. For that reason, pencak-silat is not the activist discipline that the fighting arts of Japan are: it places tremendous importance on the attainment of self-perfection by means other than its own physical techniques.

Yet in spite of its spirituality, pencak-silat is, quite obviously, founded on the harsh reality of possibly deadly hand-to-hand combat, and in its exercises it imposes the rigors of a real combat situation upon trainees. They are expected to consider not only the weapons being used but
also the climate, the time of day or night, and the terrain upon which the combat occurs; these all combine to establish the prevailing emotional as well as physical atmosphere of the fight. Trainees must always bear in mind that the weapons they are using are real objects capable of inflicting serious injury.

My blog is All About Pencak-Silat

Since pencak-silat was intended for instantaneous use in the emergencies of daily life, the costume used is simply that ,normally worn, and this remains true today of many of the
styles. Others, however, perhaps through reasons of economy as much as anything else, have developed a special training suit. There is no overall standard; each style that has designed a special suit has incorporated in it certain unique features. The reader may decide, following the photographs in this blog, to make his own training suit, but the matter is of little practical importance; any costume, such as that used forjudo or karate-& exercises, will be found satisfactory.

The spirit of combat, of actual fighting-in other words, silat-must underlie all orthodox pencak-silat training. Any other attitude negates the meaning of the art. For that reason, trainees practicing together are called "enemies," not mere opponents, and each should regard the other as someone who is trying to take his life. If you train alone, you train against an imaginary enemy orenemies; if you train with a partner, you must always think of him as an enemy.

The Development of Pencak-silat

Although pencak-silat is practiced today by all classes of Indonesian society, the people of the kampung ("village") take to it most readily. It may be seen in the remotest jungle or mountain village and on the most inaccessible island; hardly a schoolboy (or girl, for that matter) is without some ability to demonstrate the particular style practiced in the region they live in.

There are no national standards by which the great diversity of styles may be regulated, not any nationwide organization to further the development of pencak-silat, although efforts are being made on a minor scale-largely by exponents of unorthodox systems-to produce and popularize it as a national “sport”. It seems unlikely that these efforts will succeed: the changeover from genuine self-defense to a sport entails too severe a loss of combative reality and a negation of the actual purpose and function of this art.

Four Distinct Characteristics of Pencak-Silat

All these modified forms have technical similarities, but over the centuries they have developed differently and now have their own traditions and identities-in large part the result of a combination ofsocial and geographical influences. Just why this should be true will not be easy to understand until the subject is studied from that precise point of view, but, for the purpose of these preliminary notes, it will be sufficient to list four distinct characteristics of pencak-silat
that are dominant in the following geographical regions:

1. Sumatra | foot and leg tactics (Harimau, Patai, Baru, Kumango styles)
2. West Java | hand and arm tactics (Cimande, Cingrik, Mustika Kwitang styles)
3. Central Java | synthesis of arm and leg tactics (Setia Hati style)
4. East Java, Bali, Madura | synthesis of arm and leg tactics plus grappling methods (Perisai Diri, Bhakti Negara, Pamur styles)
   

Pencak-Silat Is Accepted As a Way Of Indonesians Life

In fact, an exponent of pencak-silat is trained to be ready to ward off an attack at any time; his body must be flexible enough to make an instantaneous response. Crouching stances and smooth movements into and out of low postures require the exponent to be both extremely strong and flexible in his legs and hips-qualities that can be developed to their fullest only when pencak-silat is accepted as a way of life. Indonesians make daily use of the full squat posture, a posture that, as anyone knows who has tried it, requires well-developed and flexible leg muscles. Some of the stances and postures of pencak-silat make greater physical demands than those of Japanese karate-do: they will thus be found to offer an interesting and useful challenge to advocates of karate-do.

The notion that pencak-silat was evolved solely for use by slight, small-boned people is a mistaken one. While it is indeed ideally suited to the needs of short, slender fighters, many of its most remarkable exponents, like the mountain dwellers of Sumatra, Java, and Bali, are large bodied. Some one hundred and fifty different pencak-silat styles an be identified in the three thousand islands that comprise Indonesia and stretch across as many miles from the Indian Ocean in the west to Australian New Guinea in the east. The world's largest archipelago, Indonesia, extends between the Southeast Asian mainland and the Philippines to the north and Australia in the south, and, throughout this vast expanse, pencak-silat is to be found in both its pure orthodox form and in various combinations and with various modifications.

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.

Pencak-Silat Is Always Self-Defense

Indonesian pencak-silat is little known in the West. Those who see it for the first time may perhaps make a rough comparison with the better known Japanese (or Okinawani karate-do, Korean taekwon-do, or even the Chinese chuan-fa methods. But such comparisons are inaccurate with regard to the techniques.Through a careful study of this book some of the technical differences which mark pencak-silat apart from other fighting forms will become apparent. For the moment, it is enough to realize that pencak-silat was developed exclusively by Indonesians, who regard it as an intrinsic part of their cultural heritage. It therefore deserves to be described in its own terms and judged by its own standards.

The primary purpose of pencak-silat is always self-defense. No conscious effort is made to make orthodox pencak-silat a system of physical education or a sport. Pencak-silat's technical fundamentals deal with the use of weapons; no combatant is ever required to enter combat relying only on his empty hands. Therefore weapons of all kinds are studied and applied to combat situations. These weapons may be anatomical, as in karate-do (fist, elbow, knee, foot), or they may be implements (sword, stick, staff, club, knife, and others). Pencak-silat has an additional peculiarity in that virtually all movements performed empty handed may be performed equally fluently and safely when the combatant is armed. This is not true of present-day Japanese karate-do, though it may be found in many earlier orthodox forms of combat on the Asian continent and in Okinawa.

There Can Be No Silat Without Pencak-Silat

Doubtless the earliest men, as prehistoric immigrants to the islands now known as Indonesia, had methods of self-defense. Perhaps at first these primitive peoples were primarily concerned with self-defense against wild animals. Later, as their wanderings took them into different areas, they came into unavoidable contact with other peoples-some unfriendly and defense against humans became necessary.

Art objects and artifacts show that, by about the eighth century A.D., specific systems of combative measures had been evolved and were operative in the Riau Archipelago, which lies between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Such systems, however crude, were greatly influenced by various continental Asian cultures, and spread as fighting arts into Indonesia. The Minangkabau people of Sumatra took these early fighting arts and developed them into a particular Indonesian style. One of the earliest powerful kingdoms, that of Srivijaja in Sumatra, from the seventh to the fourteenth centuries, was able to extend its rule by means of the efficiency of its fighting skills.

The civilizations of eleventh century Java developed a wider range of weapons and fighting arts that reached technical perfection under the Majapahit kings of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. Originally these fighting arts were the exclusive property of Indonesia's noble ruling class, which kept them a closely guarded secret. But gradually members of the peasantry acquired the skills and were responsible for developing them to a high degree of efficiency. These orthodox systems came in time to be known collectively as pencak-silat.

The consensus of expert opinion is that the expression "pencak-silat" literally infers "to fight artfully." But this is not complete enough, nor is it descriptive enough to convey the full meaning of this art. It is essential to understand that pencak-silat is based on the meaning of its two components. One, pencak, is a training method for self-defense: it consists of a wide range of controlled body movements directed to that purpose. Silat, the second component, is the application of the training method-the actual fight. There can be no silat without pencak-silat. On the other hand, pencak without silat skills as its objective is purposeless.