no silat Yes, you could be right. but i do notice this : in every national or provincial karate tournaments, the army is always have their representatives competing. i dont know about others, but here the army is always actives in every nationals level sports competition(well they always their hands on everything), strangely not with silat. its also goes to their own internal sport tournaments, no silat. do you know that silat was committed as an martial arts events in our national sports competitions probably just 5 or 7 years ago, despite their existency from hundreds years ago. before that its only considered as dance culture or something.
I also heard from several friends and relatives in Indonesia that he Kopassus do train silat and that the style is Merpati Putih. In Holland MP is also closely connected to the Indonesian Embassy. Garuda...
I wrote this great post, and then I deleted it. Oh, well.... In Chinese Internal arts we call this Empty Force. Its commonly associated with practitioners who have had a longterm standing(Zan Zhang) practice. Which is probably why its considered a staple I-Chaun practice where its used to develop a students enegetic sensitivity. If you've never seen I-Chaun its principle practice is standing. The book series "Warriors of Stillness" is specificly about standing practicies in regard to projecting force though I believe only one covers I-Chaun and empty force. A high level Nei Chia Chaun(Chinese Internal Boxer) that I spoke with told me its basicly real, but its more an exercise in energetic sensitivity, you wouldn't be able to apply that against a high level practitioner. Note, that this refers to empty force and the indonesion mechanics might be somewhat diffrent. I have seen footage of Kumar Frantzis throwing someone without contact, but he stated in the same video he would need a fully commited opponent to pull it off. It looked very similar to the systema footage someone mentitioned. Regarding Merpatih Putih, I showed some footage to Hadji Yasheer Tanadjalan, and he knew some of the people on the tape. He said thier tenaga dalam was good. He actually took some classes but stopped cause of his back(he might have been joking with me). Grandmaster Johny Chuiten of Balintawak, Pronus Supineous and Lapunti Arnis de Abaniko also practicies an Indonesion school of inner power development Tetada Kalimasada. If you read O'ong Maryono's book there's a good chapter on the rise and development of inner power schools in Indonesia in response to the growing popularity of Chi Gung and Taiji. And if you have Cecil Quirino's "Crossing the Sulu seas" Documentry, available at Kris Cutlery, there's a Sinar Putih demonstration of Empty Force/Tenaga Dalam. Regards
Hello Crucible, I pmd you.... I think guro Yasser doesn't have any problems with his back, he is still very fit. Actually I've never met a faster silat player .... I believe he is so strong because of his tenaga dalam... If you are interested there is a I-Chuan expert in Manila, but he only speaks chinese.
This might be a question for a diffrent forum, but do you know any of the Wu style Taiji players in Manilla? I understand Christopher Ricketts was studying the Wu form. Would you know if he's continued in his practice?
I know one good Yang style player in Manila... nothing about Wu style... From what I understood some Taichi (don't know the style) and occasionally Taizu players are in touch with the Kalis Illustrissimo group... I also heard some Chen stylists practice in Manila but don't know where. If you are looking for information on CMAs I am sure Alex Co may be able to help you.
There was a Qi gong doctor my mother was seeing here in San Francisco. Mostly worked with magnets and Electro acupuncture. He liked take his medical assitants "energy field" and envelope it around something living like a banana. He would then slice the banana in two, and turn one banana half 360 degrees so that the polarities were changed. She(the assitant) would imediatly grimmace in pain, or suddenly go weak and limp. He also showed footage of himself projecting force through a Bo staff. He would have a volunteer run at him from a distance, maybe 15-20 ft. Then he would lift up the staff piont it dead center at the person, invaribly they would coil, back up and react as struck and in deep physical pain. Sometimes they would continue to move forward but the pain seemed to increase as they got closer to the instrument of projection. It looked very similar to what you see in footage of Merpatih Putih or Sinar Putih. He also seemed to be able to intensify the sensation by thrusting the staff in the direction of the volunteer. Then he would interview the people afterwards ask them how it felt. The footage looked like somewhere in Golden Gate park in San Francisco. Intrestingly, the gentleman was japanese and his only martial background was jujitsu. The quality of his touch was a lot rougher than the internal players I'm used to. So, I doubt he was doing any standing Nei Gung. My sense is he probably had a very good sense of the human energy field, through his energy practice and other things, and played around untill figured things out. There's a couple other guys like this floating around japan teaching breathing exercises. From what I've read most japanese martial artists don't take them seriously.
