Langkah application

Discussion in 'Silat' started by silek, May 12, 2006.

  1. silek

    silek New Member

    Salam to all!

    Besides evasions and attacks, I am curious how many of us use langkah to avoid takedowns and to free yourselves from locks? In other words to what extent langkah is used as a strategy to prevent takedowns and locks?

    For example in a takedown scenario, you punch with your right hand and your right leg is in front. Your opponent parries your punch and enters with his right leg behind your right leg and tried to pushed you down with his right hand. You try to re-balance yourselves by raising your right leg, pushing his right hand upward and at the same time withdraw one step backward and now your left leg is in front. Then you rotate you body 90 degrees so that your right leg is leading and now you are behind your opponent instead and therefore you have superior positioning.

    In other words you keep changing your langkah, weight transfer, stance and positioning to prevent attempted takedowns and locks by your opponent.
     
  2. Wali

    Wali Valued Member

    Hi Silek,

    Take a look at the following promotional footage shot in Indonesia last November, showing a mock knife fight.

    http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...n=13C90686-143A-1293-EAF8A2B21AB3C35C23441297

    Towards the end, Steve gets swept from behing, much like you describe (almost anyway!), and re-adjusts his langka by continuing the movement into something else... Is this the kind of thing you were referring to?

    Cheers,
    Wali
     
  3. Orang Jawa

    Orang Jawa The Padi Tribe-Guardian

    Langkah is about learning weight transfer, stances, placement and postioning. I had this discussion before, but it seemed everytime I mentioned about the importance of weight transfer and postioniong, someone else will response that they can do better...Okay then :rolleyes:

    In response to your query, the key here is "Your opponent parries your punch and enters with his right leg behind your right leg" If he succesfully did that, meaning that he successfully planted his feet on the ground, it would be too late for you to defended. It would be impossible to lift your front leg up;
    (a)most punches will ended with a front stance, in order for you to lift your right leg, you must transfer your weight to the back.
    (b) your front leg is all ready jammed by his front leg.
    UNLESS he is super slow or being taught to slow mo his take down. We must continuesly secure the perimeter, before, during, and after.
    Now, in an old silat magazine, page 2, paragraph one, we have learn how to counter that move.
    After you deliver a punch, you are sensing the defender moving toward you, since you are in the front stance, most of your weight would in front. Without shifting weight or lift your front leg, move your left leg to 3 o'clock and at the same time counter clockwise block his pushing hand with left hand and take him down with your right hand. This all movement must be executed in one motion, you will end with a reverse front stance and facing 9 o'clock.
    But again this is an old magazine..too elementary to most silat players. :)
    And I could be wrong too,
    Tristan
     
  4. silek

    silek New Member

    Salam Wali!

    Yes, it is basically the same concept I am talking about. The idea is langkah is still functioning even at that stage. In Malay it called "langkah tak mati" (langkah is not dead).

    So how much emphasis is put on such langkah training in your school?

    Besides, is there any langkah applications in your training to free yourselves from locks (completed and incomplete)? What I mean is that when the locks are still in the process and when the locks are already completed.

    Thanks for the video link.
     
  5. Wali

    Wali Valued Member

    Hi Silek,

    We place a huge importance on this, and agree 100% with the "langkah tak mati" concept. We don't believe that you are ever finished or cornered, and even in the most dire of positions, you should be able to slip, turn, twist, coil, etc... out of it using your langka and other movements.

    As you have gathered, the link was just a promotional footage, but was all I could direct you to that resembled what you were describing.

    As far as the locks and freeying from them, in silat, you combine all your arsenal together (lanhka, the pukulan, etc...), so that even if caught in a lock, you have 101 things at your disposal to try and deal with it.

    I will try and find a better example for you to see.

    Peace,
    Wali
     
  6. silek

    silek New Member

    Asalamualaikum Pak Tristan!

    I agree with you it may be too late to raise the leg at that stage and lifting the leg may compromise balance too. But I gave the elementary example indicating many langkah movements, weight transfer so that everybody can see the concept.

    Your solution of the 3 o'clock left leg position is more efficient but since there are not many leg shifting and movements, some beginners may not see the concept. In real fight, yours is better. Anyway thanks for your input and it is very valuable despite coming from the old magazine. :)
     
  7. SilatSeeker

    SilatSeeker Valued Member

    "In real fight, yours is better."

    What other kind of fight is there? :)

    "Tristan, your's is better in real fights - but on movie set's we've discovered that xyz is actually far more pleasing to audiences world wide..." :)

    Sorry, I'm being a pest. The phrasing just struck me funny.

    We do what Tristan suggested. Assuming the busted the move above on you "and took your balance" that means you'll be twisting down with your right leg trapped. Since the left leg is free we'd bring it to the 3 o'clock and either sweep (maybe) or more likely extract the right leg, then step forward and counter sweep or "buka kaki"(sp?) his right with our right. (don't know if that makes any sense in text vs. video - concepts like this are hard with a keyboard).
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2006
  8. Orang Jawa

    Orang Jawa The Padi Tribe-Guardian

    Alaikumsalam Silek,
    I have a good old friend, a silat player from KL, do you know Mansur?
    I have a question for you in regard of langkah. When you do langkah, how you start from? I meant what weight distribution are you starting it from?

    In an old magazine, we almost always start it with 50-50 or neutral stances. And in langkah some steps begin and ended with lifting our leg before stepping. We been taught to familiriaze the weight transfer without thinking about it, by lifting our leg we do automatically transfer our weigth, it was preparation to kick or sweep, etc. Now I have disagreement that out of hand about this, I don't want to go back to that situation again :) I have a good coffee this morning, life is good, and the sun is shinning in Pennsylvania :) So I want to enjoy my weekend.

    But the important of shoulders and hips movement are very important in langkah, withouth this two, your kicks or punches are not as effective as intended. Can you kick without moving your shoulder or moving your hips? May be? But if you can, then is that an effective technique? And what is the purpose?
    My Pak Lek always said: "Failing to plan is Planing to fail" A very profound word for me.
    Not to change the subject, but my friend Todd the trouble maker :) posted link video on his "silat world" about a group of so called silat players from Malaysia who are jumping from three stories building as part of their training. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! :)
    What is that for? Ritual or stupidity? I'm an airborne trained, we knows how to do PLF. This guys don't! I was wonder if you know anything about it.
    Terimakasih!
    Tristan
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2006
  9. Kertas

    Kertas Valued Member

    lankah tak mati

    assalaamu alaykom brothers and sisters
    if i may, i would fully agree with orang jawas response to the senario. it is a typical manouvre my teacher would adopt.
    i would assume that in any silat, lankah is one of the most important components to learn and apply.
    however, very interestingly i have found that The Silat Cekak system of malaysia only uses one lankah. that is forward. they respond this way to any type of attack and although i cannot seem to get used to that idea, i find it very effective at times. i watchd some guys of this system train and they apply it very well...
    thats just my thought. has anyone heard of this system?
     
  10. tim_stl

    tim_stl Valued Member

    in college, i met a student from malaysia that studied cekak. i had to beg him to show me any of his style, so i only saw a little. he mentioned the same thing that you did- they only move forward.



    tim
     
  11. silek

    silek New Member

    Wa'alaikumsalam Pak Tristan!

    Yes I know Mansur although I haven't met him personally. I was in his then discussion group until it was closed. But a few months ago I met his guru Pak Engku Ansarudin. For those who are interested there may be new series of Sapik Kalo videos.

    When I learnt my first silat at the age of 13, it had a lot to do with langkah unlike some more popular Malaysia silats which deal with buah. From langkah we were told that we are free to create our own buah depending on our position in relation to our opponents'. But my late guru did not really create any syllabus. Kind of, "if he attacks like this, you respond like this". There were no specific Malay equivalents used by him for the terms like weight distributions/transfer, economy of motion, center of gravity etc, but from what he showed more or less we understood he meant the same concept.

    In training there were occasions where his leading right leg jammed behind my right leg but he had more options more than I could have imagined. Those options including yours and mine that we had already discussed before. Sometimes when I thought his jammed right leg couldn't do much, it went to sweep my left leg and sometimes it scissored my right leg. I didn't really know how he did it but he said my fault was to assume only his left leg was free and I should have paid attention to his jammed right leg too. It is like playing chess.

    With regard to shoulders and hip movements, I hope I can learn more from you and I think my late guru tried to communicate to me the same concept but I failed to understand.

    Shoulder movements remind me where I also used to train under a silat whose senior students fight with their hands behind their backs. The reason given by them among others is that our opponents won't know from where and when their hands will be coming. So they tried to bait and trick their opponents with shoulder movements. When their opponents falsely sensed their attacks by moving even a little then their hands act in concert with their langkah. Sometimes without their hands with only their bodies they execute takedowns on their opponents i.e. by entering with the right angle at the right speed and right timing onto their opponents' bodies. It must be done skillfully otherwise you'll get problems when a 120 kg American footballer attacks. They told me without langkah, buah/pukulan cannot reach you. So their priority is to checkmate their opponents' langkah. Of course the hands behind the back scenario is not suitable for every occasion especially for new students but it shows their heavy reliance on langkah and it definitely enriches my knowledge on how creative human beings when they fight.

    On another topic, I watched the footage of the Malaysian silat students jumped from the 3 stories building way back in 1984 but I didn't rush to join them as my late guru told me you should be able to use silat even when you are old and with such strenous training I doubt whether I will be able to apply it when I am old. Last sunday if I am not mistaken a local newspaper reported that they claim to have 840,000 members. FYI the whole population of Malaysia is 25 millions. Don't ask me whether the number is true or not but their demonstrations and ceremonies have been attended by VVIP including no less by the Prime Minister and cabinet members themselves. After all, who can afford to take chances with 840,000 potential voters?

    They may truly have such amazing abilities like jumping from 3 stories building just like some other silats here which promote that you can do silat minutes after reciting certain holy verses and mantras. But I don't really like the idea to totally depend on the 'outside forces'. I believe that we should train hard and fight with the best of our physical abilities and then put our fate in the hand of God.

    Bye for now.

    Silek
     
  12. silek

    silek New Member

    Dear Kertas!

    Ustaz Hanafi was the founder of silat cekak who learnt it from Guru Yahya Said. Few students of Guru Yahya Said founded Silat Kalimah. Now they have various names of silat kalimah.

    I learnt Silat Cekak around 1990's. Now it already split into another silat cekak called Silat Cekak Hanafi. Yes it moves forward without evasion in defence and counter attack. When their leading right legs are behind their opponent's right legs, for example, they move one step forward with their left legs and then rotated 90 degrees from 12 o'clock position to 6 o'clock position.

    Bye for now.

    Silek
     
  13. Orang Jawa

    Orang Jawa The Padi Tribe-Guardian

    Wa'alaikumsalam Pak Tristan!
    But my late guru did not really create any syllabus. Kind of, "if he attacks like this, you respond like this". There were no specific Malay equivalents used by him for the terms like weight distributions/transfer, economy of motion, center of gravity etc, but from what he showed more or less we understood he meant the same concept.


    Ach, this is reminding me of Pak Lek, In the begining he would say the same thing, only after ten years of training, then he started scrutinized every movements and relations between techniques and body mechanic.
    He can make you feel worthless but at the same times gave you a light bulb moment :)

    In training there were occasions where his leading right leg jammed behind my right leg but he had more options more than I could have imagined. Those options including yours and mine that we had already discussed before. Sometimes when I thought his jammed right leg couldn't do much, it went to sweep my left leg and sometimes it scissored my right leg. I didn't really know how he did it but he said my fault was to assume only his left leg was free and I should have paid attention to his jammed right leg too. It is like playing chess.

    Fighting is like playing chess, if you made a move, prepared and expected your enemy's make three moves in response. This is why we practiced sambut menyambut frequently and less on sparr. Only after you are successfully playing with your sambut menyambut then we are allowed to do sparr. They were two school thoughts on sparr, and I don't want get into sparring words on that. :rolleyes:

    IMHO, they were some myths around the students that they were able to sparr without first understand how to attack and defense with a technique that they just learned. I'm not too sure about that, but again I'm a slow learner too :)
    The issues that being repeated again and again is how they practiced the techniques. Lack of understanding of the techniques itself.
    For examples:
    1. The attacker only attack with one punch and the defender response with 5 or ten techniques, at all this time the attacker just standing there and waiting to get hammer. This is a myth! No one will let attacks or punch you like that out side the dojo. If you are practice the defense part of your technique, anticipate any styles of punches, the boxer combination punches, wild punches, and the silat's punches.
    2. Practice to attack or to punch or to kick during the sambut. Meaning when you role is attacking, this is your time to learn how to attack properly. NOT to do slowly so your defender friend can do their stuff. In our school, we are started with 4 attack/defense each in one set of sambut. The first two, the attacker slowly attack with a correct techniques and the defense learn to adapt the defense technique, the last two is a full speed with control, of course. But must be with full intent to hit. Pak Lek will scrutinized how you performs in attacking and on defense. He will let you know if you punch like robotic move and how your defense like an old pregnant yak. :D
    How many times did you see students practice self-defense doing the slow motion punch and willingly be thrown? How many times did you see someone who are claiming the master but doing the choreograph movement before the demo? In my life time, I did several public demo, I have never once choreograph the move. I will always asked the audience/the students to participate at an instance.

    With regard to shoulders and hip movements, I hope I can learn more from you and I think my late guru tried to communicate to me the same concept but I failed to understand.

    As I explained before, in order for you to move naturally or effectively, you must have this two moves in synchs. Can you move or apply the technique without a shoulder or hip movements? The answer is yes..but less effective and a risky movement. Then why you do it in the firs place, the solution is first to accept the natural human body mechanic and lastly be one with the technique.
    And I could be wrong too,
    Tristan
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2006
  14. rizal

    rizal Valued Member

    Years ago, my guru usually humbles his students by actually beating their students only by langkah. He only uses his hands close to the body to parry. It still amazes me when I remember how in a few small steps, he moves around or even penetrate the opponent's defense and placed himself in a position where he can have many options on how to take out his opponent while his opponent has no change to escape or defend.

    Regarding the scenario, always remember while your opponent is jamming your right leg, by default your leg jammed his too, a simple concept that tends to be forgotten. In chess, it is called Gambit :D . But then again, I always prefer throws.

    I am concerned nowadays for new students of silat. They simply prefer to study how to punch, kick, and throw, while ignoring langkah. They always think langkah is only important to get in. Yet, i know that if you study only langkah properly for a few years, no one can touch you. You simply dance around them....then run :D
     
  15. Gajah Silat

    Gajah Silat Ayo berantam!

    But surely the Langkah is the basis of all attacks including throws?

    Sometimes we practice langkah with no arm movement. Sparring with just langkah as it were, trying to gain the advantage shin to shin etc.

    Makes you realise how important the 'base' is :)
     
  16. Pekir

    Pekir Valued Member

    Hormat Pesilat2,

    In my silat the langkah is your main fundament. In the seventies we created a basic curriculum of langkahs the make it easier to grow towards the strenght and agility needed for our low stance trained asli (original) style. Next to that we created person to person latihans derived from the techniques used in the (asli) langkahs.

    In the asli curriculum however it's pretty much all about the langkahs. We have several langkahs for every of the following patterns/forms: straight line, triangle, square, cross and circle. The difference between langkahs of the same pattern/forms lies in the application of the arm, leg and upperbody (hips upwards) and foremost the combination of these techniques. Since we sincerly believe in training the techniques in such a way that it becomes an instinctive part of your acting one main technique is being repeated throughout the langkah.

    So what you get is a langkah pattern/form in combination with certain arm/leg technique but there is no holy bond between these. Your understanding and instinct, after a long ways of training, makes you move and react to your opponent based upon all the langkahs you learned (not limited to one predefined langkah). The direction you take doesn't limit the use of any technique, the (wrong) choices you make makes ofcourse do decides more or less if you will be able to continue the fight :) :bang:

    I'm not sure I understand your specific question in regard to the feet but I might offer you two other options (amongst surely a lot more). We use a technique for example where when blocked by an opponents leg from behind we turn shin on our heel towards his and (in theory and when executed on the right moment, I agree with Tristan) take over the movement, our shin will be against his at this time (don't forget to attack him fiercly now :rolleyes: ) The other could be based upon a the completely different principle that it is not always wise the confront the opponent at that certain moment. What I mean is, you could opt for getting out of it by rolling away from the attacker in an effort the regain posture and more or less start over again.

    Sampai bertemu lagi
    Pekir
     
  17. Gajah Silat

    Gajah Silat Ayo berantam!

    We use 7 langkah, each of which can be interchanged with different applications. Of course some work better than others, but for the most part things flow from one to another.

    What I particularly like about Silat is the adaptiveness which allows for the opportunity to 'come back' from either a misjudged move or an unexpected turn of events(me doing something stupid usually) :)
     
  18. Taker

    Taker Valued Member

    Peace to All

    As an instructor in Silat Cekak Hanafi, I would like to address the question so that everyone would know and understand more on this martial art.

    In Malaysia traditionally the steps is called "tapak" (and I must tell you, "tapak" is different from "langkah"). Occasionally this refers to how many steps it takes for the opponents' punch/kick to be blocked, hit him/her back and then locking them. The quality of Silat in Malaysia is often graded by it's tapak, the shorter steps it takes, the better the silat was as it'll be quicker to defeat the opponent, but this is a relative evaluation.

    Most silat system use "tapak empat" (four steps) eg. Silat Gayung Fatani, some like Silat Sendeng use "tapak tiga" (three steps) and the lowest number known is "tapak dua" (two steps). Silat Cekak is one of several silats that only requires two steps to defeat the opponents complete with locks. :cool:

    As for using only one tapak, I doubt there's any silat uses only "tapak satu", but in Silat Cekak Hanafi there are times where we only block and hit back the opponent without locking him/her (almost as short as it gets - tapak satu?), especially in tight situations like being attacked by several people at once. :rolleyes:

    In Silat Cekak we didn't evade any attacks, everytime we move closer and closer to the attacker, so this is a really close-quarter combat. That's why in the past Silat Cekak was nicknamed Silat Papan Sekeping (literally means Piece of Wood Silat). Because we didn't evade backward or sideways but continuosly move forward, Silat Cekak can be used in very tight places, even on a bridge made only from a single piece of wood. :eek:

    I think that's enough for now, and I do hope this post helps in one way or another. Should you have anymore questions please feel free to email me at undertaker@cekakhanafi.com
     
  19. Pekir

    Pekir Valued Member

    Hi Taker,

    Interesting post, but one question. If you talk about tapak tiga and empat do you mean they allways end with a lock? Like defense, hit back and lock (tiga) and defense, hit back, hit again and lock (empat)

    In our school almost all techniques are tapak dua if I've understand your post right, which doesn't mean you are limited to 'two steps' of course. Locking is not a typical preference, we do have them though.

    We make a difference between what we call our pukulan betawi and silat. The latter is more or less based on point circle movement, the first is based on confronting the opponent straight forward. If performed well both of them are agressive in the sense that one is not supposed to step back in defence but towards the attacker. This doesn't always works out right in training of course....

    hormat, Pekir
     
  20. Taker

    Taker Valued Member

    Peace To All,

    I'll try to elaborate about tapak as much as I can, as some can confuse tapak with langkah (in my place the two words have a totally different meaning).

    Langkah is the basic single moves that we use, eg. block, punch, kick, etc. A block is one langkah, a punch is one langkah, a step forward/backward is one langkah. So if you block a punch, move to the side, kick him to the ribs, then you locked him/her, it means you used four langkahs.

    Tapak is the sets of langkahs used at one single moment. Lets say we have four basic moves; block, step, hit, lock. These four langkahs can be interpreted in three different kind of tapaks; 2, 3 or 4, depending on how many moves you do simultaniously at a time.

    Tapak Empat 1. Block 2. Step 3. Hit 4. Lock.

    Tapak Tiga 1. Block and Step 2. Hit 3. Lock.

    Tapak Dua 1. Block, Step and Hit 2. Lock.

    A silat should include locking moves in the package, as in many magazines in Malaysia including the leading magazine, Seni Beladiri had stated; a buah must end with locking the opponent, as the lock is what makes the technique a silat's buah. :D

    In some cases we didn't lock the opponent, like when we were attacked by several thugs at the same time, but that doesn't mean we abandon locks. It's the locks that differs Silat from other martial arts, so locking techniques is crucial. ;)

    I do hope my post helps in some way. Peace to All! :Angel:
     

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