Salaams Pekir, I agree with you that commercialisation is a big threat to traditional silat in the western context. Lots of teachers will drop the spiritual or moral side as they believe it will put students off. Instead they encourage sport and competitions which they think will attract students. To me the reverse is true - I do not want sport- competition minded people in my class. To come back to your point about Silat predating Islam , as I said in an earlier post , muslims do not see it like this. Islam signifies the religion that came with Adam , Abraham ,Buddah, Moses and Jesus. True that the practise of silat predates the historical _physical appearance of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him ) but he came as the Seal of Prophets not as the originator. I hope to post more about this soon , as it is apparent from this and other forums that even muslims are confused about the relation between silat and Islam. adios
Sulaiman, Commercialisation I believe is not only a western thing, the expression may be different, off course not all but there obviously asian schools that are pretty commercial too. I'm not saying that silat has no religious component, I only tried to state that it is not a Islamic fighting art. I do believe that much of our sense of moral attitude, respect and so on have their respective foundation in religion or faith for that matter. I also have no doubts that silat in most originating countries has for the greater part strong relations with the Islamic faith. In my view this is unavoidable since is has been the dominant religion for hundreds of years. sampai bertemu lagi
Silat is a strictly Islamic fighting art? That is going to come as a surprise to a lot of Hindu Balinese. Of course, I've heard some people try to claim that football (the real stuff, not the American version) is Sunnah
Well I suppose the English invented football but that has lost it's meaning since the Dutch showed them the true beauty of the game Pekir
i seriously wanted one of those guys to fall wrong and get stuck with a big peice of glass in their back...not that im corrupt or anything
That's the best 'contender' for Wali's light relief thread yet Mind you, after seeing some of the outfits at Seni this year.............
Imagine that? I remembered many moons ago, many silat students practice with a pants made from flour bag canvas... There is no peci (hat) or blankon, no sarung (sarong) no vest or fancy clothing. What people in the West do not understand is that, a gi or uniform is a luxury at that time and is not necessary. Only few people from the uppety have a gi/uniform. I wore my sarung and peci to go to the masjid ONLY! Now days people using it as a part of uniform...go figure.... Just remembering the good old days, Tristan
Thats why I wouldn't even consider attending something like seni competition. Besides our lack of kembangan everyone is dressed up in authentic (I believe it's mandatory but I might be wrong ) 'original' regional dress. It does look nice though and don't want to be judgemental but we don't have them and I probably would not be able to persuade my students to wear them anyways. We do have black uniforms though, but then we are from the uppety Pekir
Well said Sulaiman .... I hear you're still in the UK ! We need to link up again soon and take some fresh air together
