Convince Me That Silat Doesn't Suck Completely

[Whosthemaster]

When I trained Muay Thai there was this guy from Cape Verde that showed up only once. At the end of the practice I saw him demonstrating some trapping techniques I instantly recognized. He told me besides Muay Thai (with the Thai rules) he also practices Pentjak Silat in his hometown.

I told him my school of FMA is mixed with some silat and he was interested in coming by one of the classes but I think the fact that I carry a knife scared him...

[Jim_Jude]

I did a style of silat for 4 or 5 years give or take.

It's mostly bullshit. There was one guy in the system that scared the **** out of me when I fought him. Two actually. Both of them would go full contact when they fought you if you pressured them at all.

You didn't want anecdotes so fine. **** it. But I said the above to say this: it looked like good fighting the way everything else looks like good fighting. They covered or evaded when you tried to hit them and then punched you in the face or knocked you on your ass. There wasn't any mandancing.

These two guys were the product of the style back when everybody beat the **** out each other. Then the people in charge decided to make it all marketable. This was about when I hit the scene so I never got o experience the good stuff. Everything after that was a bunch of really goofy ****.

Silat has great potential. The problem is that in nearly every case you have severely flawed training methods. Nobody is training live. They think it's live training, but it really isn't.

Jim and I have gone back and forth on this subject ad naseaum. I won't bore him or you anymore with it. We pretty much agree.

If you find a good teacher they'll give you some great stuff. And they won't shy away from beating your ass if you ask them to fight. That ain't the hard part, the hard part is finding them. I don't even know where to look.

I absolutely agree. I actually "lucked" my way into my current training situation with a top student of Rudy Terlinden (RIP). TBH, I've been on a break for a little while, work and school has been interfering for all involved parties, but we always come back to it, don't we? us martial arts junkies...

[Jim_Jude]

What about his student Steve Gartin who got arrested with nine edged weapons on his person?

The deThouars folks are pretty weird. They're all pretty hard core Christians.

Uh... yeah... there are some strong historical connections between the deThouars family Silat and my style, all info available by way of Google. Steve Gartin is admittedly quite a character, I think the jury's still out on that one (for all parties involved)

The guys that I train with all put Willem above the rest, even though in the deThouars family hierarchy he's at the bottom, with Paul at the top & Vic somewhere in the middle. As far as the Christian bit goes, what kind of Christian practices decidedly lethal blade arts? I don't know...

[selfcritical]

So, I have a strong prejudice against Silat.
Most of it comes from a Silat school which I trained at for a month several years ago, but the trauma of which still haunts me to this day; outlandish prices, forms/djurus/otherwise mandancing that wasted entire classes but still didn't look as cool as wushu, lengthy exposes on how Silat is way better than BJJ/kung fu/karate, and a mystery cult atmosphere steeped in goofy mysticism which gave me the very heebiest of jeebies.
Now, compound that with the fact that all of the Silat I've ever seen on TV/internet has consisted of happy slapping, Javanese man-dancing, and, at best, TKD-style point sparring, I'm not exactly impressed.
So I don't like Silat. Not one bit. I like it even less than I like Ninjutsu and Aikido.
But then I keep running across all these folks on Bullshido and MAP who insist that ZOMG Silat Totally Rules!! And hey, I'm an open minded guy. So I'd like to make an open invitation to give me evidence contrary to my overwhelmingly negative impression of Silat. Show some Silat that isn't garbage.
Here are my conditions:
-Show me, don't tell me: that is, post videos. If I wanted anecdotes about the totally hardcore training you do at your Silat school which is way better than everyone else's Silat school, then I'd be posting this on MAP.
-In particular, post videos of people actually fighting. I've already found my fill of youtube clutter of STREET SILAT REAL SELF DEFENSE RAH demos on how deadly Silat is the deadliest of all arts against a compliant opponent who means you no harm.
-Ideally,said people fighting should be those who fight for a living, or at least as one of their principle hobbies. Backyard MMA matches and sparring sessions are less impressive, and demonstrate the effectiveness of Silat about as well as my butterfly kick at the Detroit Throwdown demonstrated the "effectiveness" of performance wushu.
-Explain to me how what is going on in said video is related to Silat. For example, when I watch Serkan Yilmaz fight, I can tell that he did TKD because of the way he kicks; when I watch Lyoto Machida, I can see the Shotokan influence in his footwork.
-I realize that at least someone out there is already queing up there favorite fifty dog brothers videos, but I'm much more interested in watching people fight without weapons. That's what my training is in, and that's where my most of my interest resides.

If you want to see a lot of silat takedowns in a live environment against fairly proficient full contact fightsers, see if you can nab Ron Balicki's "Fighting Sarong" and "Filipino Boxing". The silat sweep game largely looks like lyoto machidas takedowns. While I believe a lot of the core silat techniques(leg sweeps and head manipulations, some of the entries for elbows/forearms) work, i think a lot of the way the material is presented in training over the last two centuries inhibits developing the attributes needed to do the techniques.

When i started silat, i had a hard time landing ANYTHING on resisting opponents(this was also back when my teacher was using the traditional instruction method that pak herman wanted people to use, which he doesn't anymore). I started doing a little bit of shooto, and all of a sudden, once i learned basics about wrestling, all those silat techniques just started popping out in sparring....somehting about "delivery systems", I think. The inosanto model of learning silat really is appropriate....if you're taking it, you should really crosstrain in another grappling art or FMA.

[theotherserge]

What about his student Steve Gartin who got arrested with nine edged weapons on his person?

The deThouars folks are pretty weird. They're all pretty hard core Christians.

I didn't know it at the time, but he was 15 min from where my parents lived when he got busted. Extradited to Colorado/wherever.

Sort of missed a training opportunity it seems. My pal who knows Steve well said he called him from jail, " Hey __, you want some students?" it was his one phone call! LOL

[Jim_Jude]

I told him my school of FMA is mixed with some silat and he was interested in coming by one of the classes but I think the fact that I carry a knife scared him...

The truly informed Filipino FMAers know that most FMAs came out of the Indonesian kingdoms that reached into the Southern PIs close to 1,000yrs ago. Of course, considering there are hundreds of Silat styles throughout Malaysia, Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo, and the P.I., it's no wonder most people have been exposed to B.S.
Besides the fact that most good Silat has never been taught to Westerners. Guys like Don Draeger had very high opinion of some of the Silat he saw, he stated in one of his books that he wished he'd STARTED with Pentjak Silat rather than Karate and Judo, & coming from a skilled guy that would literally vaporize anyone participating in this discussion, that means something. Culturally, Silat is a point of pride for the Indonesian & Malay people, & most Westerners are fed bullshit first, IF they're ever taught anything useful. So no one should hold it against the style, they should probably hold it against their teachers for teaching them bullshit.

If you want to see a lot of silat takedowns in a live environment against fairly proficient full contact fightsers, see if you can nab Ron Balicki's "Fighting Sarong" and "Filipino Boxing". The silat sweep game largely looks like lyoto machidas takedowns. While I believe a lot of the core silat techniques(leg sweeps and head manipulations, some of the entries for elbows/forearms) work, i think a lot of the way the material is presented in training over the last two centuries inhibits developing the attributes needed to do the techniques....The inosanto model of learning silat really is appropriate....if you're taking it, you should really crosstrain in another grappling art or FMA.

I agree, Ron Balicki's material and the Inosanto Silat materials are all excellent, I have a bunch of their dvds & as long as you have some FMA or Silat in your background you'll have no problem getting a lot out of them. Dan Inosanto's Silat comes from deThouars and Suwanda family sources, being Dutch-Indo and Indonesian respectively.

[Whosthemaster]

The truly informed Filipino FMAers know that most FMAs came out of the Indonesian kingdoms that reached into the Southern PIs close to 1,000yrs ago. Of course, considering there are hundreds of Silat styles throughout Malaysia, Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo, and the P.I.,

My school calls itself "Kali Silat" so for us it's a no brainer, althought I don't think anyone teaches or practices Silat itself around here.

[Deadmeat]

John Will was a pentjak silat stylist before he took up BJJ, and still believes in silat's effectiveness.

For those who don't know who John Will is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Will

[Jim_Jude]

My school calls itself "Kali Silat" so for us it's a no brainer, althought I don't think anyone teaches or practices Silat itself around here.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In the "Kali Silat" I've seen, there's a lot of Silat juru mechanics and some pukulan too. Yeah, in Pentjak Silat you officially have to have the combination of juru and langkah among other things. I don't think that takes anything away from the Filipino forms/interpretations of "Silat". Hell, with the mess of Silat coming out of Indonesia and Malaysia, there's really no room to talk!

[selfcritical]

As of last year, my Mande Muda instructor has pretty much cut out the Djuru and mimimized the kembangen- some lanka still remain, but it's mainly "here's a takedown- here are some variations. Work this entry"