Why Silat?

[infinite beginner]

It occurs to me as I just watched some indian martial artist
a minute ago , and they should know ,having put the ind in
indonesian, I was told thats where silat comes from,but the
point is ,once a set of principles are ingrained into the foundation
then any art that shares the same foundation of principles
is like an outside lesson in our own art,
the genius of any system is in simplifying the complex
where systems cross , in their approaches, to techniques
at that moment they are doing your art and you theirs
where the differences disappeared if point E is as they
attack to have the opponent KO on the floor, and ABC
and D ,is the method of arriving at E , that is if we were
to break the major motions down to frame by frame ,
rare is it , all the frames match identically but if they do
its like a jackpot on a slot machine ,but if enough of them
do you can fill in the blank easy enough to keep it in the
common sense understanding ,as an extension of knowledge
more than an addition to it , meaning to still be able to do
things the same old way ,only with an added trick or two,
picked up ,by watching, its like effortless if they are working
under the same principles no conversion applies ,whats the
big difference is that divides styles ,isn't what their hands
are doing once in range ,but what their feet work was to
step them off into their elbow range , however subtle
some more superior styles might suggest , the core and
heart of the art is in the footwork ,and the hands take a
backseat, that the hands are to put up an leveraging obstacle
so crucial footing can be established ,and once standing
in the same space where they're standing ,or rather
collapsing down into ,then foot stance and structure
has been achieved,like what happens when some one
nudges their shoulder into another while walking
its creates a shuddering little stumble , and a couple
of steps to regain balance,just as limbs are there for
striking ,the stance step and structure ,produce a stumble
effect only thing is their feet are trapped , so they are to
fall straight down with broken legs or darn near ,
which brings us to the sapu , some think of the sweep
as a tool to induce falling, others as something best
done after they are already falling ,the difference is
hitting the floor about ten times harder if you wanna
add in compression principles , so the only way to fall
straight down is to have no legs the only way to take
the legs is bump into them, well its the simplest anyway
just don't forget to say excuse me,the bump can also
be considered a strike ,one way I learned is to take out
the collar bone with the passing shoulder strike ,I say
learned ,cause its not as easy as it seems , in silat
everything is ingeniously converted into a weapon ,

 

[infinite beginner]

I'd say, good clip ,just watched it, busy feet, he's not just beating the hell out of the air in front of him, like some, but he's always turning to check his back , which is better than sometimes , cause its not best sometimes to guess that there's an attacker behind, you , its all the time or no time, put it like this,all it takes is to guess wrong one time, that's to assume at the same time an attacker's coming from the front another ones got your blindside, you're probably already hit if you didn't strike them first, two or more on one aint fair , in this situation you're sandwiched in strikes ,hammered simultaneously, you training responses have to instantly be brought their sharpest point imaginable to survive, you ever even see one good fighter fight two good fighters in the ring , where is it on you tube , I haven't ran across it, if you train that it will take up all your skills or attention for one good worthy opponent ,if you had three seconds now you've only got one to do whatever you planned, after ten years of solid study a decade is compressed into one second ,in the time it takes you to size up the guy in front of you something cold is sticking in your back ,what I did see on you tube is how fast a skinny gansta kid could have his blade drawn on this guy who insulted him ,like a gunslinger used to wear their holsters low on the hip , so the arm doesn't lose a beat having to bend on the draw ,thats what this kid did,just swung his arm past his hip and picked up his straight blade on the way to stabbing up at the verbal offender all just one quick motion,the thing is those of us who wear their pants at a respectable level ,are with out that quick draw gangsta gunslinger advantage, but the funny thing is if the just want to fight their first move is always to tug their pants up my guess is thats when to hit them ,though they mix it with foot work and its done fast , usually with a short back shuffle , cause they know they can't fight like that ,they must practice it allot ,also when they go to do this that might be the only time you see them without a knife or gun in their hand

 

[Reedone816]

Sapuan, depends on how it executed can be several things.
Horizontal sapuan with the heel can be aimed to crush the ?feet eye? Or ankle. The hook kind of sapuan, if done right, to have the head/neck-upperback land first. Similar to sapuan, ankle pick technique also exist in silat (saw it in cingkrik).
As for multiple opponent, a good attack with pancer and langkah tiga can position us to our-just-attacked-opponent behind thus we can see 360 degree and if there actually opponent from once-our-back, we put our-just-attacked-opponent in between us and our once-in-the-back-opponent.
We do langkah, we circle the first opponent.
We do pancer, we makes the first opponent to circle us (putar kepala or side throw).
Basic concept against multiple opponents. But hard to execute/to be outside of the circle.
Sent from my RM-943_apac_indonesia_207 using Tapatalk

 

[infinite beginner]

oh wow 50 000, yes the sapu or sapuan its like a swiss army sweep i was taught to see it ,primarily as a kicking technique , bone or muscle to nerve points , lots of pain and destruction on the way down,thats in actual application , the mechanics of the sapu alone contains a good portion of the foundation of the art , the raising the knee ,the torquing of torso the balancing on one leg ,the lines the hands and feet follow, the push pull motion, the exact angle of the leg and feet , the timing between hand and foot ,allot of material hidden in what looks to be a simple sweep yeah its always harder to fight the one behind you ,strategies for multiple opponents cannot be over emphasized like getting behind the guy who's behind you, or in front of you , but one of the keys is finding a human shield to hide behind if you are behind one in control of them the other two or three okay nine are gonna have allot harder time getting to you and if you really know what you are doing they might well even happen to start accidentally knocking out each other ,yeah yeah in silat everything is a weapon everyone knows this , even the one attacker is considered our weapon against the other,so if two attack you essentially have two weapons to chose from , at all times though at the same time you have no time, this all has to be preprogrammed through all your training , i think most silat is multiple attacker principled , but how multiple is the question ,

 

[infinite beginner]

minding your own business say fights break out a strike comes you meet it with what intent, to parry to deflect ,hit etc or is your intent that you meet it to control its force now 100%, to do with it what you will, so its no longer theirs at all ,do you own the striking limb immediately,

 

[infinite beginner]

how fast do you have to swing a bat, to hit a fast ball, and of all the silat etc , skills, which is the most valuable , if a fist is made, how much force would it take an elbow or a knuckle to destroy ninety five percent of the hand , if we make our best fist with one hand then tap it with the back of our other knuckle , especially around the thumb , it becomes obvious fast how fragile a fist is , now if that fist is the fast ball do we have to reach fast to meet it ? the point being if we have excellent enough timing skill ,to meet that force when its in close range ,then the foe is defanged, of course you have to slightly guide the strike off to your line not theirs , in reality its very very hard to execute ,not cause one has to move fast or far just more being at the right place right time , in fact you have to only move a few inches, their fist , has to travel a couple of feet , also exposing allot of vulnerable underbelly of the arm targets,as well as exposing the armpit, to a finger jab when the hand goes extended ,these are all basic techniques few can really pull off ,because you have to time them just right, to me this seems the highest level of martial arts skill not spinning kicks and sweeps or lighting fast hands ,but if you can pick up every weapon extended and relabel it a target, if you can destroy every strike that crosses your line, no one could touch you end of story , and so its back to the batting cages,

 

[infinite beginner]

I think we see why now , that we better understand the art , why our teacher always told us to do the jurus slow but no one seemed to ,too busy unlocking the striking dynamics around the puzzle, and the jurus are a puzzle thats never finished , spontaneous composure of combinations are whats locked inside the jurus, say a juru has seven motions ,that could be unlocked by many formulas or keys , it could be seven fights , each motion is a new opening move as the set is being done, so each motion is a whole note waiting to be split down into a sixteenths , If you cant split the note, you can't, make a very good song no puzzle has seven pieces, unless each piece, is a puzzle in itself ,and then those pieces minute puzzles too and so on, now we have a picture of the the jurus, in chess no one looks at one piece in one time, when all the pieces are active at one time ,chess strategy is not of the present but of the future moment ,so say if the first jurus motion is strike, whats the second motion always going to be ? first who would send their queen out on attack on the opening first few moves more rationally a pawn attacks a light knight is sacrificed and a dark castle lost, so what do we see, when we do jurus in the mirror, but the same thing, an opponent sees, a teacher can let you in on all their secrets, but they can't hand over one ability of their skills ,you can move real slow and imagine your going fast , but if you go real fast you can imagine nothing , are you gonna stand in front of the mirror just to watch that guy attacking you, ideally we are going real slow the opponent is moving along in our time warp and the main thing is to imagine everything with the idea of perfection, instead of striking into a thousand possibilities we limit it down to two or three, and one ideally, so the second motion in our jurus practice is always of course, that badass opponents counter move,

 

[Reedone816]

jurus is useless without any intention behind it.
jurus was made first by philosophical idea of what the intention is a person want to do to the opponent.
that is why jurus made from "kaidah"/rule of law of that system.
jurus is the representative of the rule of law of the system we learn, thus as example what is the right implementation of one.
so it is better to understand the jurus "intention" instead just to be able to execute it "looks" perfectly.

you don't have to be the fastest, you just need to be there first.

 

[infinite beginner]

jurus is useless without any intention behind it.
jurus was made first by philosophical idea of what the intention is a person want to do to the opponent.
that is why jurus made from "kaidah"/rule of law of that system.
jurus is the representative of the rule of law of the system we learn, thus as example what is the right implementation of one.
so it is better to understand the jurus "intention" instead just to be able to execute it "looks" perfectly.

you don't have to be the fastest, you just need to be there first.

everything looks different, at least I still got my beginners blue belt,
wheres my box, I want my own box to write in, not sure know where I am
but in silat first you have to become a robot once this is accomplished
the next step you must become a magician to stop from being a robot,

 

[infinite beginner]

too often intention goes with out mention
but at rush hour the freeways are packed
and the longer winding canyon roads are
much faster

 

[Reedone816]

everything looks different, at least I still got my beginners blue belt,
wheres my box, I want my own box to write in, not sure know where I am
but in silat first you have to become a robot once this is accomplished
the next step you must become a magician to stop from being a robot,

that's similar to mine, but in term of that upper hip and lower hip are two different entity, just like robot toy we had when we were a little kid.
upper body movement is a whole, arm, body, shoulder are one entity, the trunk, while the feet toes gripping the earth, the root.
this is visible technique, once we past that we enter the magic realm as you said
unfortunately i'm just a beginner, haven't reach the magic world...

 

[infinite beginner]

just saw a photo of a demo of a renown practitioner, had a guy
in a lock I'd never seen after throwing him ,instead of puzzling how did he
wind up there I thought I know that move or one like it, its in the jurus

didn't have to think, his arms here his knee is there no it was automatic
even though it didn't show the start, only the finish the jurus provided the instant tool to frame the scenario around opening all the possibilities

thinking , the jurus are never about positioning some one learns a jurus position or two or ten or a million they can still be less than useless its like a globe with no countries drawn on it

the form can only show one way , all forms are shown like straight lines
too attack with or defend with any full jurus set, in sequence and

survive is almost impossible, the idea is where ever you find yourself to be you are at home, the jurus , aren't just landmarks, they become the map
that link allot of structures together, like there is always, only one point a and one point b , etc, the puzzle is in how many ways can you find to

connect them ,say if I want to hit the mid section then the last thing I want to do is hit to the mid section, not the, first, I want to hit something high so I can strike something low, in other words I want to knock them out, on their feet so I can sweep them, and visa versa, that would be the attitude in the timing

 

[Reedone816]

the first thing my instructor pounded on me is intention, be firm, every action you do is to realize your intention.
if you cannot have a straight forward route, make one, make your opponent open up so you can do what you intended to do.
and the key to that is window of opportunity, don't let your opponent becomes ready.
time it right so your opponent are not reaching the ready state, or if he already ready, makes him un-ready.

 

[infinite beginner]

silat is such a strange art the dance is <staccato >

centrifugal and contortionistical , where the arms

are like rubber bands that untwist into whips ,

like a coiled sidewinder , as motions implode so

they can explode, the jurus don't teach you what

your first move or response will be because its

too impossible to say , but rather to save the combo

to flow from out of the first motion, as it sets the course

you can't walk up to a seasoned silat practitioner and decide

I'm gonna work combo b , on them they will leave you swatting

the air as they test for response, leading with sneaky decoy strategy

making sure the opponents lead up to their attack is their first mistake,

 

[infinite beginner]

how many opponents do you want to fight or to feel like your fighting

none, sounds the wisest ideal answer on two dimensions of perspective

to feel any pressure from the opponent means all the training has just

fizzled out the window into a struggle of strengh, meaning if its detectable

how much mass speed wt or force is flying in, then your in the wrong place

in relation to your opponents balance, its like walking in the street and being

almost hit by a kid on roller skates or almost being hit by a semi truck , which

caused the most damage by completely missing you, all because of not being

in or moving out of the wrong place at the right time , when the best place to

always be everyone would all agree is to be behind the opponent as fast as

possible, its the art of controlling where and how one stands ,in relation to

the force and its source, this is used with putting a spin on the oncoming

barrage of momentum, just as the billiard geometry needs a geography

of the table , using the enemies strengh against them is bllishtt , being able

ideally to feel the energy of the opponent is bulshiit , ideally and at the

highest level the whole goal is to be not able to feel any energy from any

opponent, like if you even feel anyone there you are in front of the force

not behind it,which is why subtle precise footwork is the key to invasion

through evasion,all force should feel the same what of it we don't kill

and smash down should be smoothly guided passed,like it wasn't there

and when then the opponent has no balance ,they are not there when

we walk through their legs, to stand the exact ground they once held

down, when the opponent is without their balance an assortment of

new options become available to fill that window, namely compression

techniques, imagine no legs to stand on then being swept as the shoulder

is pressed making a b line driving it straight down into the ground , that is to

crumble their structure ,into a ball or if they go airborne from the sweep

then they can be bounced and smashed flat by compressing the hip as well

this is application gained from sweeping from point blank range,the moment

balance is disposed of

 

[infinite beginner]

so they fall like a vertical accordion with legs twisted

up under them or stretched out flat as the earth

traveling up three times the speed of falling gravity

the sapu starts its fiercest at close quarters , like a

left hook it gets weaker as it loses distance , its

measures of devastation are determined by

how much the structure is affected prior to

the sweep if it can be done from long range and

in the process the ground is covered all the better

far less travel time involved but that skills akin to hitting

ten fast pitched home runs over the fence in a row ,

goes to show any technique theres still always for one

thing for sure the sapu that can be thrown in ,at most any

range ,at any time of the day

 

[infinite beginner]

Cross training versus having one system,as an argument,cons,seems you're

better off, with one rooted system every good system has thousands of

techniques, though most not so unique, they do them their way ,

with one system one can preserve, and have closer access and reference to

that styles entire arsenal, as they say once a karate guy, always a karate guy,

now, I don't know that its true or if I just made it up but ,how many times

can you expect train and untrain learn and unlearn countless repetitions of

rote motion,driven into auto reflex, in one lifetime

of course in silat the thousands of techniques are the jurus , in two

perspectives the basic formula of motions and the complex formula of

meaning, three if you count then going back to the flow of motion as meaning ,

where there is no standing even close to halfway across the board bulls eye

technique , any more then there are fortune tellers at fights or crystal balls

at the track, all training should teach one thing if anything,,

the strategy of being un predictable, if one practices and knows, what they

are going to, when a big strike comes flailing out the gate, loaded for gold,

then they are

no sooner being predictable ,if only to themselves , in their thinking , in any silat

system there is ultimately really only one giant juru and it reduces all technique to

transitional shifts of adjustments, say, if a jurus sets one through ten each

has ten motions then thats physically speaking, a hundred rooted seamless

reference shifts of position at any given moments notice,to go in or to deflect

off and or move the hell out

of the way ,just the transitioning of position ,even without the strikes has and

instills a moving target is harder to focus on principle value of common sense,

rooted behind it , should we prefer they strike out at where we were, not

where we are, we have to appear presented as a target to control the

opponents motions, motivation, they won't make the right mistake, unless

they really want to

 

[infinite beginner]

but then who knows maybe multi styles approach is way

far more practical and convenient and the way of one style

is fading , overall , and there is cool knowledge in most

every enduring system no wonder so many compile it up

what makes an art what gives it its name are the masters

of the art, all styles have titles but its up to and only the

contemporary masters renew their ancient names, relevance

too many, it appears like a torch that as it leaves it source

through the ages gets handed down dimmer and dimmer,er

till its a candle in the window dressings on main street

 

[infinite beginner]

so one must know a martial arts secrets and trainings

have the art in their head then the question is how

well and precise they can perform the motions in

the understandings absorbed , like a boxing trainer

may know everything about the sport yet

couldn't last one round with a boxer his class ,

because its not like discovering a shortcut

after going the long way all this time , the

foundation of the training must be precise

in tune with the top of the training , you

can't go back and rebuild the roots of

training, but it all becomes how well

can whats known be demonstrated

physically ,its like to say yeah I represent

this style art or that style art , one must

to train with constant consistence to keep

physically sharp and wired enough to perform

the art at a high standard and it must be

intent for precision behind every motion,

practiced, best known strategy and tactics

won't matter while moving like a slug ,

or rolling a rusty flatbed out onto the

raceway,or out the jet rocket launch

pad, to climb closer to the art, some

train in an art for years and say look at me

look what I can do, what I can do,

not look what the art has aloud

me to accomplish, the techniques skills all

belong to the art we just provide its physical

form and vehicle

the art starts past where we can grasp and

goes farther than we can see ,

 

[infinite beginner]

the martials art each is held like the ax, the novice

practitioner lumberjack looking as some experts

chops may be fast to say they have a better

ax in that group than mine, think I'll get one of those

like saying santana has to have a better guitar ,for the

how and why he plays so well, while any great player can make

most any cheap guitar sound good, so instead of

learning and sharpening ones own ax ,in hand to keep

buying into new ones that arrive seeming almost as dulled

down , as the ones left, behind , if the jurus are not a walk

thru guide book of the art, what does the symbols A -Z tell us

about what it is, the jurus are like that, within them lies a hidden

language , like one note in music individually taken means nothing

but clump several together and to a trained ear suddenly songs can

be formed and sorted there is no linear order to the notes chosen, the

ones that when mixed sound good, are then selected and composed

into song ,