Initial motivation to practice a MA?

[Rebo Paing]

I'm interested in people's intitial motivation to take up and practice martial arts in general and silat in particular. Considering that most martial arts have their roots in "a long time ago" when fluency and currency in personal survival tools were paramount, why did you choose to study something archaic? While survival skills for today's world is no less important, the types of skills required are generally different in nature.

Do you fear that civilisation will run out of steam and you want to be prepared, just in case, do you feel safer, are you a history nut, you feel you're living in the wrong age, do you want a personal last line of defence (and do you really feel that you need one?), for physical fitness, are you searching for a personal higher meaning to life & everything etc ...

Salam

[realitychecker]

I suppose that I statred into MA in my early twenties to channel some aggression. I grew up in a fairly rough part of Chicago too. Maybe back then I was looking for an edge. It kept me out of trouble, and it kept me in good shape. I was in a JKD school then. In the early to mid 90's, one of my JKD instructors started training Bukti Negara under Pendekar Paul de Thouars. Once I felt that difference, I was completely hooked. Ever since then I have been in search of the correct understanding. I can't think of ever leaving it (MA). I have been ashamed of a few of my old teachers, but I'm in a great place now.
Thanks for bringing that up, KA.
Take care,
JR

[Injury Time]

I do NPM kungfu, not silat, though I think a fair bit of silat. I found this question on the New Posts list. I took up martial arts for these reasons:
-Physical fitness. When I started training I weighed eight and a half stone at six feet one and couldn't touch my toes.
-Self defense and, for lack of a less vomitworthy phrase, self improvement. I was sick of always backing down to people, and I thought, the ultimate threat is violence. If I get so I can deal with violence maybe I'll be braver in other ways too. I was also sick of not feeling I could defend myself or my friends, my girlfriend etc if I had to, or in situations where the threat of violence was in the air if I did it verbally, and of feeling afraid to go to certain places etc.
-Fascination with martial ability. I saw people doing martial arts and thought, that looks cool, I wish I could do it. Well, I thought, they must have learned...
-Curiosity/philosophy/spirituality. I'd read Tao Te Ching, and a few books to do with Zen etc, and thought, I'd like some of that, and martial arts is an activity traditionally associated with those things so I went for that.
Sorry if, being a non-silat player, I'm cluttering up your thread.

[Orang Jawa]

As for me, I don't have any choice. I was told to take it by my father and uncle. We practiced gerak badan every day after sembahyang Subuh. My uncle come to my house every Tuesday and Thursday, and every other weekend my father and I drove to Depok where he lived. Honestly, it was hard for me growing up and have to follow the routine. As a matter of facts, I starting to hate it :). Because of my parent and my uncle patience, persistence, and authority over me. I don't have any choices but to stay with the program. I'm started to enjoy the program when I was in High School. I really do enjoy the benefit of gerak badan and I'm addicted to it.
My two cents,
Tristan

[kmguy8]

there are many reasons....
one of my arts has a silat root... I am jst a lurker in this section most of the time

I am posting because the OP might really enjoy a book caled:
"the fighting arts" by micheal rosenbaum

he breaks down the reasoning for various training methods, MAs, and peoples resons for taking them up...

if you are really curious abou thte topic... this book is a must read

cheers

[Rebo Paing]

Orang Jawa, I think as we get older we appreciate gerak badan more than when younger. I know that I don't feel invincible anymore LOL!

Interesting answers from all, and thnx kmguy8 for book recommendation.

I look from perspective that human being can only survive in thin band on environmental strata on earth, where there is oxygen and a thin strata band of temperatures. Also in that thin band we are not as strong as a tiger or a banteng bull and we can't move as fast as a cheetah, emu or kangaroo, we can't kick as hard as a kangaroo which can disembowel a man ... so man on animal from a purely physical skills we are lacking the strength, so we have overcome the animal threat using our gretaest weapon, our brains.
Yet we train to get powerfull, strong and skilled. Why? Because for a long time now our greatest danger comes from other humans ... and maybe for our self image/ego.
I think that in most places where there was a thriving population and social structure, it was not conducive to ones health to blatantly carry weapons, unless employed as a soldier or warrior caste.
I think also that a trader or a farmer would not want to draw attention to martial ability ... so training was in secret and an edge was always eagerly sought, like increasing strength or conditioning parts of the body etc.

Hehe, anyway I ramble on ... but it seems to me that humanity is most worried about the unpredictability of other humans, and that is why fathers pass on to sons, and why seekers look for answers. Also in this uncertain world sometimes a MA comes packaged with an ethic which can be a moral/spiritual guide for the seeker.

But even then, it's a lot of faith to put into something that isn't designed to defend against M16 or AKM ... or the modern robber barons :woo:

Salam

[Steve Perry]

Originally, self-defense. I was a shrimpy kid, and while I didn't get beat up that much, I worried about it. I started karate lessons at the first school that opened in my home town, I was seventeen. I didn't really learn very much, it was mostly forms, and I moved before I had been training for long.

Thirty-odd years and half a dozen martial arts later, I came across silat for the first time in person. (Thanks to Todd, Tiel, and Steve Barnes, who were training it it.) As a writer, I had done a series of books in which there was a martial art I made up, called "sumito." Based on walking a pattern on the floor, and more about positon than strength or speed.

I was more than a little surprised to see that silat had swiped my made-up art!

After watching Stevan Plinck move, and realizing he could turn me inside out with one hand while holding a cup of coffee in the other and not spilling it, I was at the next class he taught. Been going to most of them for the ten years since ...

[tellner]

Self defense. I was the strange nerdy kid. I learned that hitting people really hard made them stop hurting me and wanted to be better at it. Other reasons came later.

[Garuda]

As a kid I always wanted to do martial arts, due to the kung fu movies that I saw. I started when I was 6, with judo. The reason for this was that my parents thought that this was a good MA for a 6 year old. But I did not like it. I although still had the wish to do a MA. So in elementary school I did Karate and after that Kung Fu, but again I did not like these MA. Finally when I was in high school, my father said you are Indonesian why don't you try PS. And he then sent me to PS school were a friend of him trained. I loved it from the first training. I found my MA, pencak silat. Now many years later I still do it. So my reason was that I really wanted to do a MA, but I still had to find the one for me.

Garuda...

[Narrue]

When I first started doing martial arts there was really no reason in particular for starting it, just something I somehow became involved with and found fun.
My teachers would oftern say "this is not for fun" but to me thats what I did it for.

When I got older I realised that all humans living in the modern world need to do some form of activity to maintain and increase health. Naturally I asked myself “what is health”, I never would have believed that answering that simple question would have taking me on such a long journey or require study of so many subjects.
However here are just a few qualities a healthy human should possess.

Strength
Balance
Coordination/ harmony
Speed
Flexibility
Rhythm
Breath (internal knowledge)
Concentration (mind)
Sensitivity

Each one of these can be broken down further but inevitably my next question was what activities develop all those things, my answer was martial arts, qigong & yoga.
Yoga is good but Martial arts (a good one) includes all the benefits of yoga plus it has the added bonus of self-defence which yoga does not.
I realised that martial arts is one of the best activities from a health perspective and if I had to recommend a health activity It would be martial arts.
For me if a martial arts does not study or have an internal aspect it is not complete, health is after all internal and external.
My two requirements of a martial art are that it should be circular in motion and have an internal aspect.
How many martial arts do you know of that have those two requirements, if you can think of it ive probably done or studied a little of it.

[firecoins]

I wanted to be a ninja! But now I will settle just for being a McDojo owner.

[Orang Jawa]

Narrue has said it all :)
As for me, the little gerak badan that I knows, complemented me with other sports. I felt easy to excel in any sport that I choose. I was team captain in High School soccer, a Tennis Pro, Ski Instructor-PSIA level 3/Racer/X-country guide, River Guide, Sailboat Instructor/Racer, Mountainbike guide, and member of static line with over 25 free fall and did HALO in the military. But SUCKS! in golf.....:)
Sorry for jingo boistering a bit :)
Tristan

[Rebo Paing]

Ya, I agree. Narrue has said it well.

Hehe ... Orang Jawa, you are a very accomplished individual.
Hey, if you have the trumpet, then you should toot it I say :D !

Rahayu

[Kiai Carita]

Ya, I agree. Narrue has said it well.

Hehe ... Orang Jawa, you are a very accomplished individual.
Hey, if you have the trumpet, then you should toot it I say :D !

Rahayu

Peace to all,

I agree that Narrue is very clever!

And Mas Tristan, one of our sesepuh on this forum, is a fine example of an Orang Jawa who asks not to be called Pendekar! I like the combination of Jawan ilmu padi and the US military style that he has. Very unique!

I liked martial arts since as long as I can remember. My Bapak did a bit of SH and all the village kids played gelut. My older brother (I believe that is you, Mas Kembang Alas) used to get magazine articles on aikido and he used to try things out with me. There used to be reog troupes and ketoprak performances every post-harvest and silat was always a major attraction. I was attracted to silat because of the beauty, not for self defense because as a child I did not feel the threat of violence around me.

When I was 12 I left home to go to school in SMP XII, Jl Wijaya, Jakarta Selatan, and joined karate. Suddenly in Jakarta karate seemed the cool thing to do. And the atmosphere was much more violent than in Sekaralas. SMP XII was at 'war' with SMP XIII, and the SMA's in the area, namely SMA VI, IX and XI plus STM Pembangunan where one of the Suharto 'Princes' was studying, were also involved in traditional anual 'wars'. The wars involved alot of shouting and running, throwing stones, kidnapping and beating kids up, randomly beating people up for gang entertainment, dangerous driving things like that.

A whole lot of boys in my class carried knives, some would also poison the blades. Kids with parents high in the military would occasionally bring firearms to class or to gang disco parties. Amazing grace of God is that there were relatively few deaths in these (for me) VERY scary 'wars'. A film titled 'Ali Topan Anak Jalanan' characterised the romantic jago notion of those (late 1970s) times and in Jakarta we (young people) invented a language called 'prokem' where ibu is nyokap and bapak is bokap while makan is kemek and so on. The writer of the novel Ali Topan also published a bahasa prokem - bahasa indonesia dictionary.

After three years in Jakarta I moved to Yogyakarta -again for school- and it was here that I rekindled my interest with silat. Yogya doesnt have prokem it has basa walikan based on hana caraka. I became involved with Bengkel Teater Rendra and so by default also began to train in the Bangau Putih silat moves, hear and think of it's concepts and internal legends and so on. Rendra was a student of Bangau Putih and he took me several times to visit Suhu Subur Rahardja and I was very impressed by not only the silat, but the whole community that was thriving around these movement exercises. It felt that the place was blessed and content and prosperous but not many students actually paid. The kitchen always cooked enough for all guests (always many) to join in at meal times and never seemed to waste anything nor want anything. There were also alot of Americans and Europeans and some Australian organic farming hermit types one who planted strawberrys in the hills of Tugu, Cisarua, which made it a rather multi-cultural community, which was a learning experience in itself.

I fell in love with Bangau Putih silat and am still beginning to learn it today. When I am in Indonesia I make it a point to visit HQ in Kebun Jukut and listen to all the different views and experiences in silat while I get myself corrected and have a health check-up. I don't trust doctors I don't know especially if they want money to see me but I trust Suhu Gunawan Rahardja and his students with my health.

I don't like any other sport they all feel a waste of time to me but Bangau Putih silat has made me feel better with myself and my body as I get older. I don't get bored even training alone as there is so much to experience in every movement and form every time I do it again. Last but not the least I am proud that on the web Bangau Putih is one silat school that is a dot org not a dotcom: www.pgb.org and when I get there and train for free for as long as I want I also get meals (yummy) for free and if I get sick or injure myself I also get healed for free. It is so free that I start to wonder how can everything be for free? The reason is because for our Suhu and us silat is a commitment for a lifetime relationship of love and love pop songs say, is free. For us Bangau Putih silat is more than wealth it is a treasure the more we dig the more there is to it. In the wider world, outside the school I study, silat also has brough me many friends and brothers and sisters, like people I meet on this forum who then I meet in real life.

So to answer your question, Mas Kembang Alas, why do I play silat? It is because I love it. Initially I loved it and now I love it more. Insya'allah silat will also love me.

Warm salaams to all,

Kiai Carita