I'm a newbie here but I went to diffrent silat topics and always ended with someone talking about Victor. Honestly, its getting old. Tristan
Tell me about it. Every serious post seems to get hijacked and turned into a Serak, Sera or Seraktm...er dissagreement. If we had a post concerning the perfect puter kepala for example. It would probably end up as a post about who invented it, who re-invented it and who owns the copyright :bang: Oh and how everyone then had a big fall out Meanwhile, there are hundreds of of wiry and whiley Pak's in Indonesia passing on perfect puter kepala's to their children and grandchildren In fact that's an idea for a new thread........ the perfect puter kepala
Well, after close to thirty years of Victor acting like the "Don" of silat, complete with "attack students", what would you expect? When Victor's minions start telling us what a great guy he is, a good number of people are no longer willing to just sit and listen to the BS anymore, especially with the "alien influence" on Sarak stuff. It is just a call for Victor to clean up his act and to spend less time sending his students to attack his "enemies" (not that I am suggesting that the man is paranoid or anything). If you think this is bad, you should have see the mess on some of the old public forums and lists when Victor and his people dominated them and everyday we had to listen to a dozen people who had never met him or seen his art tell us what a scumbag William Sanders was. If you had made the above remark to them you would have been chased out of the forum by a stream of hate mail. So while it may be irritating to you, it is at least a small irritation, and has some substance to it, and a little value, even if you don't see it.
Point taken mate, but let's not turn every thread into politics. I think you'd have to be on another planet if you learn Silat and were not aware that Pak VDT is a controversial character. I think everyone is aware of what is going on. Alien Silat indeed :Alien: As for William Sanders, as far as I am aware, he has a great reputation and is very well respected! I doubt if the Seraktm'mafia' will do much to taint that reputation. I would like to believe that everyone is capable of forming their own opinions and everyone has got the point by now. Can't we just keep it away from the threads that are nothing to do with it?
Orang Jawa, I know it might seem this way right now, but I think this is only a recent trend. If you had joined this forum a couple of months ago you might've been under the impression that every thread ended up with the Cimande Pusaka cats rallying against Kiai Carita but that also would not have been a fair assesment. 'Popular' topics come and just as quickly get replaced with new ones. Hopefully inbetween there are enough unbiased discussions that people can have some honest and useful interactions. For a variety of reasons pentjak silat in general has a bad reputation in martial arts circles (at least in the west) of being fraught with a lot of politics and such and a lot of internet forums and groups reflect that. This forum is not exactly an exception and very often it can get down right unpalatable, but while it doesn't always feel like quite the "safe haven" that Wali stated, it is as close to it as I have found on the internet and hopefully will continue to only grow in a more and more positive direction. This particular thread we are posting on here is an older one that before it was reopened recently I felt ended very diplomatically and gave me hope for the future so maybe its not all as bad as it might seem at a cursory observation. Anyway we are glad to have you here and hopefully you will stick around.
Study...Don't..Trip on B.S. Study,learn,and forget the politics,those that do this seem to get on with business,most notable,Dan Inosanto
Salam shadow OB >If you think this is bad, you should have see the mess on some of the old public forums and lists when Victor and his people dominated them and everyday we had to listen to a dozen people who had never met him or seen his art tell us what a scumbag William Sanders was. If you had made the above remark to them you would have been chased out of the forum by a stream of hate mail. ***************** Yes I vividly remember..;( I received some mails..a very interesting mails For the record, I never thought of William Sanders was not worthy silat player. I have a good conversation with him. I am respectfully disagree with his claimed Pusaka, though. I interpreted that name Pusaka litterally (my fault?). I even suggested to him to rename the system William Sander's Cimande. But no cigar. The reason is that, the core of Cimande Pusaka is Tjmande but was heavily influenced by other silat system. Therefore IMHO he is not Cimande Asli say to speak. Its got nothing to do with the silat itself. lets be clear about this. Its NOT about right or wrong silat! For example, In Indonesia, the upperclass and the very close tight silat family system is Tjikalong...their core base is Tjimande and the founder added some other silat system in it. I may be wrong or judgemental in his silat name but again I'm an oldman and grumpy than ever...I need my prozac now.... Please don't make a big deal on it, okay? Let move on to the technique of Maphilindo Salam, Tristan
Against Kiai Carita Peace and blessings to all, I think that sometimes students are sensitive to what they percieve as posts that criticize heir teachers. I have never said that Pukulan Cimande Pusaka is bad silat or that Mr. Sanders is not a good pesilat. What I tried to do was point out some inconsistencies, mostly cultural, in some claims and titles used in their website. Obviousely for reasons formerly unknown to me, PCP people took offense. I appologise for offending and getting threads locked, but I stand by all I wrote. Warm salaams to all, Kiai Carita
Asalaam Aleikum Kiai Carita, Its good to see you here my friend. I was sorely missing you. Hope all is well. Wasalaam, Silkroad
Selamat Pak Tristan, Actually I agree with you in almost every point, depending on the place one looks in his timeline. The original material Mr. Sanders released for Panther productions (about 20 years ago I think) do not look anything like Cimande Asli (for anyone who is wondering "asli" means "original, genuine, authentic, indigenous, native") and I think (or at least hope) Mr. Sanders would agree that this is the case. But a few years ago Mr. Sanders made contact with teachers in West Java who are, to my understanding, helping him to bring his art more in line with original Cimande. As you no doubt remember, that was what started the last flame war with Victor's people. Mr. Sanders put up some information on his website about connecting with teachers in one of the villages who has started instructing him in Cimande from a more traditional manner. This was just too much for some people I guess. As you remember, Mike Roberto started making fun of Sanders and insulting the people who were training him on Vic's public forum, and was joined by a number of others in this, including Vic. Before we knew it there was another shooting war going on for no other reason than to make the VDT guys feel superior I guess. (I never understood why they felt that they had to comment on everyone else's Silat, especially the stuff they had never seen, You would think that they would have gotten more benefit from training harder themselves) But what interests me is this. After a few years training with good teachers in West Java, does Mr. Sanders' Cimande look more like what you would find in the villages? If it does then would it be appropriate to say that his art is still evolving? I agree with you that for most of the time he has been teaching, what he have been seeing is Mr. Sanders expression rather than Cimande Asli, but it looks to me as if the two are coming together now. (of course I could be wrong). Even more interesting to me would be the question of what elements have to be on a style of Cimande for it to be considered Asli? So here is my question to you Pak, if you will be kind enough to consider it, is what makes and art "Cimande" rather than something else?
Salam OB, I agree with you in general term.. >So here is my question to you Pak, if you will be kind enough to consider it, is what makes and art "Cimande" rather than something else? ************** This is my worthless opinion, I'm not the authority in Cimande or in MAs. So take it as is, okay As I had told you that I was disagree with Sanders not with his teaching of silat, I'm disagreeing about the nama Pusaka. IMHO, in you claimed that you inheret Pusaka, meant to keep it, love it, care for it as is. That is what I meant by asli. Is nothing wrong for him to add something in his silat system. But the Cimande Pusaka is no longer pusaka, right? He can claimed to be USA Cimande, Sanders Cimande, etc., etc. Just like in Indonesia too, many Cimande core base silat with different names. As of Mande Muda, they have the Cimande base on it. I see in Serak or in PSRA. So the discussion is about the name. It got nothing to do about wrong or right, Cimande or not Cimande. Another example, my dad gave me a keris pusaka, I like to keep the pusaka as is, to add something in that keris IS NOT in my goals or tasks. I have a student who have been learning the art for about 25 years and still have a light bulb moment, now we are not talking about complicated movement here. Everytime I come home to see Pak Lek, I still have a light bulb moment too. One have to ask themselves, do we really mastered the techniques that we have to add something else or move on to something else? That's a matter of opinion, of course. Again I could be wrong too. Tristan
I know this thread has deviated somewhat from the original topic, but if I might be allowed to return to the subject of Maphilindo Silat.... I found out that a Maphilindo Silat class is available within driving distance of where I live. I was wondering how, in technical terms, and in terms of combative effectiveness, it might compare to Mande Muda and (God help me for asking this) Serak. I ask about those two as they are the only other Silat classes available in my area. Any takers? Marcus
In fairness to you, I think you'll need to check out the clasess and make your own judgement. Clearly observing the training methods will be important. One of them may fit in better with your size, body mechanics, and attitude than the others. I know these and many other thoughts are the "stock reply". Actually, it might be interesting to get your assessment. Good luck. Cheers.
It all depends on who the teacher is and what sort of experience he has. If he's had extensive training with Guru Inosanto you could learn a lot. If he's been to a few seminars and thinks he's "incorporated the best and left out the fluff" it will be a waste of your time. Caveat Emptor. Guro Inosanto has had a lot of flight time in Mande Muda and Serak. From what little I've seen it looks like they were strong influences on his own expression of Silat.
Wow! Crazy thread! Back to the original question. Maphilindo is now called Majapahit. Change in name, same art. The main styles it consists of, although not limited to, are: Panantukan (Filipino Boxing) Filipino Silat/Kuntaw Filipino Dumog Bukti Negara Serak Kari Mande Muda - Mande Muda is a compilation of Silat styles created by the late Herman Suwanda, included in it are arts such as Hari Mau (which is prevelant in Majapahit), Cimande, Tjakalong (spelling is wrong I know!) etc. (I probably left something out......... ) One main characteristic of Majapahit is that many times it uses Panantukan and Filipino entrys in order to get into the silat throws, locks, and take downs. (although they do use Bukti Negara entries etc.) So lots of thinks will be done off of a jab cross/hook etc., or a side kick, round house, using a gunting type limb destruction entry, then going into a Puter Kepala, Biset, etc. Again, I'm being very general, and its NOT limited to this, but generally, if you attend a Guru Dan seminar or learn from one of his folks who are certified in Majapahit, that's what you'll see. As to the question about Dallas, I only saw one instructor listed on Guru Dan's website in Dallas. Valentine Espiricueta 972-241-9890. What he's certified in and/or what he teaches I have no idea as it doesn't specify, but he's probably a good place to start. Hope that helps. A couple of good DVDs that I have are the ones by Rick Tucci and Ron Balicki on the subject. Great introduction to the art.
