Convince Me That Silat Doesn't Suck Completely

[Southpaw]

I've enjoyed the Silat that I've seen and tried...my only complaint would be its relevence in the US as a legitimate form of self defense.

If I punch someone or choke them out in a fight, I think I can convine a jury that I used a reasonable amount of force.

I'm not sure the same could be said for a Silat player who responds to a fight by making several life-ending slashes towards the attacher. Now I'm exaggerating a bit here, but you get my point.

I have met Uncle (Bill deThours) and trained with him and he is an impressive guy. It is great to see a guy his age bust out a monkey form. But I've met a bunch of Silat players who are bad ass with a knife...but who have never been in a real fight or in a real sparring situation in thier lives. Instructors even.

I'm not sure what my point is? Generally speaking there is no better martial art to learn if you are intersted in learning how to use a knife. However...know that unless you happen to find yourself in a 3rd world country defending yourself with a knife isn't going to be looked too kindly on by the law. Furthermore, in many parts of the US, the knife isn't going to be very much help against the good old gun...which has really been the most popular weapon used by criminals since about the 1800's.

[raylawley]

You think BJJ is so bad ass because it works in the ring?

I can't handle this anymore :P

Yes. I do. I think it's awesome because it works extremely effectively under an extremely high pressure situation, one which I would argue is possibly a higher pressure situation than a spontaneous fight. Allow me to elaborate on this logic.

In a spontaneous fight, unless extensive words are exchanged beforehand (in which case if you're feeling threatened, attacking first is always an option anyway) then your body doesn't really get much of a chance to be adversely affected by stress.

In contrast, in a ring fight you have a long time to think about the fact that some guy is about to try to beat the crap out of you. You sit around for a couple hours in changerooms pondering this.

Your adrenaline pumps. Your body reacts to the stress, especially when it's a fairly new experience. When you get in that ring, your body's been stressed for at least an hour.

You're being badly affected by this, especially when you're fairly new to the ring (Yerkes-Dodson Law - high stress with relatively low experience = lower performance level).

Admittedly the other guy is in the same boat, but even so it's a fairly interesting difference.

So the fact that BJJ works while your mind is in such shape impresses me greatly.

And I cannot believe nobody has called you on the "Ours is a COMBAT ART not for SPORT" comment yet! Sorry man, but that gives me nasty flashbacks to the Bujinkan. I know; different stuff. But there's absolutely no reason at all that Silat could not be brought to a throwdown and demonstrated extensively.

I'm not sure if you were being funny or sarcastic earlier when you made a thrust towards the "dangerous techniques that can't be used in sparring" argument, but if not I'm surprised nobody called you on that as well.

But anyway. I'm not really qualified to comment further because of my lack of general experience as well as my absolute lack of experience with Silat.

[1point2]

I've never formally studied silat, but I've gotten some drills and such here and there from various SE Asian hodgepodge sources. Some elements in silat that I've found useful in sparring:
-the false lead: some silat uses a stance that is very opposite that of most other styles. The leading hand is the back hand, not the front one. The idea is that it sets up a strong lead strike and emulates how people naturally walk (when you walk, your opposite arm and leg swing forward, not the same side). When sparring with knives, the false lead can set up certain techniques in a way that a more standard right lead with the right arm forward. For example, I might have a right lead with the hips turned so my left hand leads, as a bait to get my opponent to cut at it. As soon as they do, my left hand pulls away to avoid the attack, my left leg steps 90 degrees to the left and the hips swivel as the right hand stabs forward or inward into the fencing mask, making use of the opening your opponent creates by attacking you. This all happens in one move. The sidestep is nice so that if your attack isn't effective, you can triangle out of range of their counters in a nice fluid way. I have some knife sparring videos somewhere, but my crappy computer has trouble actually viewing videos on the Internet so I'd have to check them out on another computer to see if it has what I'm talking about (but if you're just looking for unarmed videos I won't subject you to dorks in fencing masks in a park).

Attacking a grounded opponent: Interestingly enough, the latest Dog Brother video addresses kali-silat vs the guard. Silat incorporates a lot of knee drops to downed opponents in it's techniques. When fighting an opponent who's on the ground trying to sweep or kick, I've found dropping a knee onto the ribcage before weighing down on them can be very effective, so much so that when I do this, I strike down very lightly, maybe 20 percent power. I've also been in a position to attack the head by holding it down and slowly dropping knees, these definitely have potential to cause very real damage, like in a couple of felony fights videos (likely NSFW):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZgli_82-Cg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynqdJ...eature=related

Changing levels: changing height is an important component of silat that seems more important in silat than other styles, both with and without weapons. For example, when someone tries to grab my leg for a takedown, I try to underhook one arm and rotate their body for my own takedown (this doesn't work too well if the opponent is good at keeping really upright when attacking the legs). The counter takedown works much better when you drop lower as you turn them over, and makes it harder to spin out of it. Silat leg drills have helped me see how a number of techniques become more effective by shifting vertically smoothly.

False lead (your explanation made sense, whether I agree with the practice or not I don't know), changing levels (how do they do it compared to the same term used in wrestling?), unique ground striking (which is something of a new arena...each fighter is developing their own method, and it's in the early stages, so there's lots of evolution going on). Sounds good to me. Video of any of these trained alive would be a major point towards TMM's OP.

Jim--As for "maybe you'll learn something if you tried those things", um, you're not getting it. I indeed do these things already (unmatched weapon sparring, multiple opponent sparring, comparison of judo shiai to kata with video, comparison of sparring to specific techniques from kata, etc etc). My point is that people step up and produce these things when they want to show competence/validity of a school or style, not that I want to learn to do these things. Because I already do.

[theotherserge]

I'm not sure the same could be said for a Silat player who responds to a fight by making several life-ending slashes towards the attacher. Now I'm exaggerating a bit here, but you get my point.

But I've met a bunch of Silat players who are bad ass with a knife...but who have never been in a real fight or in a real sparring situation in thier lives. Instructors even.

I'm not sure what my point is? Generally speaking there is no better martial art to learn if you are intersted in learning how to use a knife. However...know that unless you happen to find yourself in a 3rd world country defending yourself with a knife isn't going to be looked too kindly on by the law. Furthermore, in many parts of the US, the knife isn't going to be very much help against the good old gun...which has really been the most popular weapon used by criminals since about the 1800's.

I am very specific about my knife training: it was handed to me from my Sambo coach who was a Soviet vet and a true badass. I've improved on what I can but the part that you cannot address accurately is the actual use of knife techniques.

We use real knives with the blades ground off, plastic ones for the noobs, and do our best to maintan realism in training. What I detest is instructors or ppl who are basically delusional talking about "wrist-locking and holding him till he bleeds out" "slice the Aorta" and all sorts of thngs like that.

Anyone who's been a Drill Instructor (not me) will tell you there is a huge gap between "you're going to kill another human being" to "you're going to kill on command" Way too many d3adly ma'ers have little/no grasp of this and it shows.

This is part of the reason that there are tiers of Sambo:grappling/throwing, MMA with a jacket&Military Sport. There must be a psychological test and way to train under duress since technique is an empty toy ifthe **** hits the fan.

[Whosthemaster]

Furthermore, in many parts of the US, the knife isn't going to be very much help against the good old gun...which has really been the most popular weapon used by criminals since about the 1800's.

Kicking, punching and choking don't do a better job against that gun than a knife does.

[Permalost]

changing levels (how do they do it compared to the same term used in wrestling?)

I don't know, I'm not a wrestler and won't assume I know the wrestling way of doing things.

unique ground striking (which is something of a new arena...each fighter is developing their own method, and it's in the early stages, so there's lots of evolution going on).

The Dog Brothers seem to think so. It's an area not really developed in kickboxing or jiujitsu since striking a downed opponent isn't allowed (not that it can't be developed through aliveness, just that before MMA it wasn't really something that any combat sports allowed).

Video of any of these trained alive would be a major point towards TMM's OP.

Give me a few days to review some videos; I might be able to find something (ones without weapons might be tricky to find). Keep in mind I'm not really a silat player, I just take things here and there from eclectic sources like Marc Denny, Ron Balicki and James Keating, so I'm not really representative of the average silat person. I'm also not too interested in proving silat to TMM; he has his bad experiences and I probably can't change his opinions with crappy vids from a guy who doesn't even do silat.

One of the founding Dog Brother's sons has excellent fighting that looks like silat. I believe he's 18. Two gatherings ago I watched him fight with aluminum training knives, and he used a number of those silat trademarks- false lead, the kneeling stance, and angular footwork. No idea if there's any video out there of him, since the Dog Brothers control all video at the gatherings.

[escrimador6]

So the fact that the Dog Brothers choose to include Silat in their system and acknowledge it IS NOT proof that there may be something to at least deThouars family Serak Silat? Of course, all of these guys did FMAs for years and years before they had much exposure to Silat & they could have gone to their graves having never learned any Silat. Obviously they saw something worth including in their system, something worth acknowledging publicly and thus tying their well-respected name to. Does that carry any weight?

I am not arguing for or against the validity of Silat, personally I agree with you and the fact that a group like the Dog Brothers, as well as people like Inosanto, see it as valid re-enforces my belief that it does work. I just didn't think that with in the context of this thread, because of their mixing of multiple styles, that they would be accepted as proof positive that Silat worked.

When the Dog Brothers where mentioned I saw this argument coming:

I suppose it stands as evidence that Silat works alright when mixed with FMA, Krabi Krabong/Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiujitsu.

[Jim_Jude]

I've enjoyed the Silat that I've seen and tried...my only complaint would be its relevence in the US as a legitimate form of self defense.

If I punch someone or choke them out in a fight, I think I can convine a jury that I used a reasonable amount of force.

I'm not sure the same could be said for a Silat player who responds to a fight by making several life-ending slashes towards the attacher. Now I'm exaggerating a bit here, but you get my point.

You're right, it can be a rather tenuous situation, using a blade for SD. As long as you know the law and follow it, however, you SHOULD be okay. Of course, it helps if you live in a state that still supports the law-abiding citizenry's right to life over the rights of the criminal element.

I have met Uncle (Bill deThours) and trained with him and he is an impressive guy. It is great to see a guy his age bust out a monkey form. But I've met a bunch of Silat players who are bad ass with a knife...but who have never been in a real fight or in a real sparring situation in thier lives. Instructors even.

That's a shame. If someone practices a blade art, they should at least practice things at the level of intensity that the Dog Bros take things, if not to the level of live blades.
IMO, ALL martial art instructors that profess to teach anything beyond fancy Asian dancing should be required to participate in severe pressure testing, first within their organization & then without.

I'm not sure what my point is? Generally speaking there is no better martial art to learn if you are intersted in learning how to use a knife. However...know that unless you happen to find yourself in a 3rd world country defending yourself with a knife isn't going to be looked too kindly on by the law. Furthermore, in many parts of the US, the knife isn't going to be very much help against the good old gun...which has really been the most popular weapon used by criminals since about the 1800's.

As a general rule, I would agree with you. However, considering the 21' rule has been extended, I would say that it would be folly to bring a gun to a knife fight, especially one that starts at standard range for assaults, being 10' or less. (Don't really wanna argue about the details, I'm just saying...)

[Kid Miracleman]

Kicking, punching and choking don't do a better job against that gun than a knife does.

I don't think anyone was claiming otherwise. I think most everyone here will agree that knife and gun beat empty hand in the overwhelming majority of instances.

What's your point?

[Jim_Jude]

Jim--As for "maybe you'll learn something if you tried those things", um, you're not getting it. I indeed do these things already (unmatched weapon sparring, multiple opponent sparring, comparison of judo shiai to kata with video, comparison of sparring to specific techniques from kata, etc etc). My point is that people step up and produce these things when they want to show competence/validity of a school or style, not that I want to learn to do these things. Because I already do.

I was using the generic indefinite "you", not the second person singular "you". Sorry about the confusion. Perhaps I should have used "one" instead.