Peace to all, In my first ever column here, I would like to read everyone's opinion on the subject of silat authenticity. Silat is known to have originated from the South East Asia, mainly Indonesia and Malaysia. But in the past years, some styles originated from The Phillipines like Kali had also been referred as Silat, as well as some Martial Arts from other SEA countries. Many students from abroad had put all their effort, money and time to come to these countries, slaved themselves for their grandmaster and then take the responsibility to spread the art to even the teacher had never dreamt before, the land far, far away. While some still hold tight to the adabs and rules they had been practising whilst living with the grandmaster, some are drunk with fame and fortune that after a while, they decided, "hey, my teacher isn't with me here anymore, so i'm free to do whatever I want." So he then changed the name of the art to his silat, announced to the world that he is the grandmaster and the knowledge of the Silat is all from him. If any people would then ever come to learn the Silat and asked him, "how did this style originated?" He would answer, "I developed it." In some other cases, a martial artist, who had spent almost his entire life to study self-defence, find his life taking a bit of every art he learnt that seems useful, and then creates a new art with his name written in the style's name. He may have learn not just silat, but maybe a few other martial arts and then tried to combine them all so that he can claim grandmastership as well as the fees. So, what is your opinion on authenticity? Do you just study from anyone who claims has one or two knowledge of silat? Do you pay fees to learn from someone who teaches Silat Tae Kwon Do? Do you learn from an Englishman or American who claimed that he created the art of his silat style? Or, do you really looked at the history of the proclaimed art? Do you find it important to study Silat from someone who had truly been passed down the grandmastership from the previous teacher? Did you met the grandmaster himself and asked for his blessings to learn his Silat? I would love to hear your opinion on the matter. Thanks!
Caution...we will not getting to personal here, please In the past each time we discussed silat authenticity, always ended with bitter disagreement and personal. So please not be personal. IMHO. the silat lineage is only important for me, it is something I would love to keep privately, stay in the family so to speaks. We should not used our silat lineage for self promotion or to justified what we are going to learn or what we had learn. We should not use someone else experience for ours. As for student, it is their responsibility to see, check, and question their teacher. Is the teacher practice what he/she preach, is the teacher can perform what he/she teach. Your lineage or your authencity does not mean much if you CAN NOT perform. Peace, Tristan
Agreed - if this gets personal, I'll be getting involved. Too many people here have their own agendas when discussing lineage etc .... At the end of the day it REALLY doesnt matter! If YOU can fight / defend yourself - thats all that matters.
A good teacher is a good teacher...period. Sure, lineage is important. But it became meaningless when you knew that someone who claimed the lineage IS NOT the true appointed heir, something that Silat teachers always do. There is nothing wrong to develop your own techniques and called it Silat. Just don't use lineage to promote it as more than it seems. It is insulting to the true inheritors. I find that good teachers can be identified by their self-confidence. They truly are confident about their silat. They don't need to certify themselves with certificates of authentication or diploma, since they used their own techniques and experience. For instance, I truely can claim to be a student of Silat Harimau. Yet MY lineage is not to Java, but to Medan and then to the old Melayu kingdoms (not the Malaysian ones, but the old Andalas kind).
I agree wholeheartly...Rizal I was born in Medan, North Sumatra. I grew up in Jakarta, though. But my question is this, when you are talking about Silat Harimau, the one I knew is usually coming from Minangkabau...am I wrong on that? Even the one from Medan, their aliran is coming from Minangkabau. In Medan they were many origins of martial arts coming from Aceh, Batak (North), Mandailing (South), Nias, Minangkabau, Brastagi, Silats from java, Kuntaus, Chinese and Japanese MAs, etc. etc. What do you think? Tristan
I have quite a reputation for cooking good curries, but my beef rendang never seemed to turn out quite right. I had all the right ingredients but the taste was never quite authentic. It turned out I was cooking it in the same manner as I cooked Indian curries and not the Indonesian way Anyway, someone showed me how to cook one properly and now my rendang is as authentic as the one in my favourite warung. Strangely enough cooking rendang has nothing whatsoever to do with where I live or where I'm from However, I still had to be shown how to cook the rendang properly As for my lineage, pusaka or whatever.....that is a private matter between me and my teacher and no-one elses business Oh and you can go to any number of warungs and the same dish will still be slightly different at each one
Salam hormat all, As per request, I shall try to keep this as impersonal as possible, but still get my opinion across I think the idea of authenticity is a very important one for silat styles in Malaysia. However, it would be beneficial to discover just why many Melayu actually think this way. First matter: Adat and Tariqah Based on what I know from my research, this notion comes from two sources, Adat (as in Adat Melayu, not the religious kind) and Tariqah. The Adat of the Melayu are based upon the subservience to royalty and as such, lineage of a successor king becomes an important factor in determining who rules the land. It is said that only royalty can install royalty. Such ideas of recognition stem from Melayu kings claiming lineage from Alexander the Great, and receiving their sovereign status from China, the most powerful country in the world (back then and maybe soon again). They HAD no United Nations Organisation, so China was as good as they got. This idea of authentication spread throughout silat, which demanded that only duly elected representatives of the master could lead or represent the mini-government that was the perguruan. Thus, the master, often a titled Pendekar, Panglima, Hulubalang (given by a reigning Sultan, which is traditionally how Pendekars are titled anyway in Malaysia's history) would pass on such royal authority to his successors, thus creating only one line of succession. At the same time, Islam set foot in Malaysia through various channels, but almost always through the vehicle of Tariqah (Sufi Orders) such as Rifaiah, Alawaiyah, Qadiriah, etc, which places great importance upon Rabitah & Wasilah (the unbroken connection of knowledge that exists from Prophet Muhammad down through the centuries from master to master). In the cases where these Silat masters studied religion from Sufi masters (and in turn inherited the Rabitah & Wasilah from them) to become Sheikhs themselves, these two traditions have been upheld. So, if you bump into a Melayu who would argue you to the ground on the importance of lineage, these could probably be one of the reasons. The next question might be, what is the importance of Rabitah & Wasilah to such a Melayu? I'll answer that only if no one else does. Second matter: ill-defined common references When you sit down to debate a traditional Melayu silat practitioner, the word he will most often use in this context is Asli. If you look up Asli, you'll find that sometimes, what he means is not the standard dictionary definition. Unfortunately, depending on who you're talking to, Asli can mean one of three contexts in English: Traditional, Authentic or Original. Traditional means passed down from generation to generation. This is the general meaning most imply. Traditional means nothing is changed along this channel of transmission. The methods and thought remain zealously guarded, even in the face of newer ideas. Many Melayu arts claim to be traditional. For instance, Gayung Fatani and their claims can be easily verified via the many masters of the art who studied it in separate informal perguruan extant of one another. Yet their styles share amazing congruence in many forms, including tari, terminology and allied cultural expressions (music, dress, adat, etc). Authentic means authenticated or given authority to propagate. This second meaning does not touch upon the veracity of the art's lineage but at one point in time, is given a seal of approval by someone in power, such as the Agong, Sultan or a powerful figure. It is literally an endorsement of the master's skills and abilities which is passed on like a halal logo from generation to generation. In this case, the passing itself is not as important as the seal. For instance, Buah Pukul Mersing, although originally a Yunnanese pukulan art, has found its way into the rightful (by his master, of course) hands of Pak Mat Kedidi who blended it with various silat styles and tomoi to become LianPadukan. That it was no longer the original form is not as important as the fact that he received the Nukil (written and spiritual authentication) from Chu Aman to develop the art as he saw fit. This authority is now passed to his successor Haji Hasyim Haji Salleh who continues to upgrade the art. Original means that the art in question did not and never has borrowed from any physical source but came about as solutions to several combat conundrums. This is, however, debateable, since it is very rare that an individual just wakes up one day and decides to create a silat style from nothing. But, with the prevalence of masters who purport to receive their styles in dreams and inspiration with no previous martial training, there are those who rightly claim such originalness. So, I suppose the next time someone comes up with this word Asli, you might want to ask them, exactly what do they mean? My personal opinion? If you're a good fighter who made up you own art and its works, and you catch the eye of a Sultan somewhere and eventually have a large school for thousands of students that span several generations, you would have already laid the foundation for your art to become Asli in all senses of the word. Salam persilatan,
Peace To All, As the topic states; silat "Authenticity". Read it again; "Authenticity", not "Lineage". Once more, "Authenticity", not "Lineage". What I mean by authenticity is that, do you really care that the syllabus of the silat style you are learning is really from the silat world or do you just read the name and blindly follow it? As I mentioned, silat is known to have been originated from mainly Indonesia and Malaysia, so what's your opinion if you had heard a Silat that was created in the North Pole? What if your master told you that he had created his style of Silat when he was having a vacation in South Africa? What if one day, you find some one who claims to be teaching silat, but when checked thoroughly, what he was teaching was actually Tae Kwon Do. But as silat is becoming more and more popular, he changes the name to Silat Whatsoever, so would you still learn form him? Would you pay fees to learn Take Kwon Do but with a new name to it? What would you do? What is your opinion? Remember, I was talking about "Authenticity", not "Lineage". Please give your views about Silat "Authenticity", not "Lineage". Thank You!
I think it is obvious to watch if the art is Silat or not. To a beginner, maybe not, but it would not take long in an art to start researching it, and seeing others who claim the same art. At that point it should be obvious whether you are learning Silat or not.
This is too deep for me First of all, how can one person define that movements in someone else so called silat system is NOT AUTHENTIC silat? IMHO, in many so called silat asli movements is no longer useable in the real fights, due to environment, situation, and how people fights this day. Secondly, silat is influenced by MAs from China, Japanese, Portugese, and Native part of Indonesia. So how we judge one person silat is authentic and the others is not? Third, just because your guru have many thousands students and they believe they are learning authentic silat, it does not mean they are and it also meant the other silat system can be authentic or not authentic. Lastly, this is only important to student, if you believe wholeheartly that you learned authentic silat than YOU ARE. If you don't believe than you have the right to move on. Bickering about authentic or not authentic is an EGO BOISTERING and SELF GRAFITICATION, which is not the silat philoshopy. That is my opinion and to there is no doubt. Tristan
Ma'afkan aku Mas Taker, I thought we were going down the old 'pusaka' route so I couldn't resist a comedy curry analagy So the question is more along the lines of, "how do I know this is Silat and not karate in black pyjamas?" Generally it will have langkah & no fancy high kicks. Then again, as Pak OJ says, you could travel from Malaysia to the southern Fillipines via Indonesia and find a thousand different 'authentic' styles. So, who knows?
Salam GS, I was so very happy to tell you that now we have a warung just recently open in Scranton, PA. Makanan Indonesia Asli, made by orang Jawa. Anyway, I was acting like a kid in candy store, duh? I bought so much food home. Never reliaze that my stomach is not condition to the hot spicy food, to make a long story short..Mylanta is my savior...The food is outstanding, so good that I took the risk to eat it again and again Now going back to the meaning of Authentic or Asli or whatever. Just like the indonesian food, to me is a very athentic and taste so good. But for people who do not care the Indonesian food, the food is a junk and they do not even want to taste it. That's unfortunately apply to Silat too Got to go to you know what Tristan
Ha ha so you've lost the sambal tolerance I had kari nangka, sate kambing (well...dombu! ) & kang kung tonight Indonesian food is much like silat. It is undeniably Indonesian, but has absorbed many different influences too, and each region has it's own particular style. They do say to understand a country you must first eat it........
Salam hormat, Let me try and understand what you're trying to say, Taker. Authentic in the sense that someone teaching 'Silat' never actually studied any 'Silat' style but founded one nonetheless? If that is what you mean, then I'll have to categorise my answer. Answer 1: If my intention is to study a style that is combat worthy, irrespective of whether it is a silat style or not (case in point, Silat Lian Padukan or Silat Kalaripayat [remember this one? Not many remember Ustaz Hamzah being allowed to use the word silat and even once being invited to join PESAKA), then I would say YES, I would study it. Answer 2: If my intention is to immerse myself in Melayu culture and what the master teaches is not a direct product of that culture, then I would have to say NO. Answer 3: If I discovered that my teacher was teaching a particular style under the same name as another style who hasn't given him the authority to teach and was just riding on their popularity or worse, is purposely concocting untruths, then I would say NO and probably learn from someone else who did. My point is, even if the quality of the instruction is good and the material almost identical to the authentic, rubbing noses with bad characters only reflect and often colour your own. I apologise to Taker if I misunderstood the original post and if this response misses the mark too.
An authentic teacher , can show the seeker the steps along the path but the ultimate-reality for authenticity exists in personal experience. Personal experience is often achieved from numerous sources, and in the end when you have insight through the crucible of your own experience, when the body knowledge is you, then and only then is your silat authentic. Second hand experience is not the end of your journey! In other words, when you have ownership of your body-knowledge, your silat is 100% tulen/asli. On the other hand, if you don't fully understand your body and it's relationship to the environment at an intimate level you are still a neophyte. If I were I to seek a teacher, I would look for one as I've just described, regardless to the cap asli or not. Tulen exists in the action, in the complete persona ... not in the ijasah or certificates. If that teacher called his system ilmu silit ( ) instead of silat ... I still wouldn't care. While our physiology might all be similar, some people have developed a far more sensitive relationship with their own body and how it relates in a three dimensional environment. These people are masters of their own body movement because they know it ... not copy, and not following a system blindly because the system has existed for 100 years ... all irrelevent! Taking this line of thought to the highest degree, I would have to say that true authentic silat is formless, changes and responds flawlesly to it's environment. My worthless opinion only. Salam, Krisno
Salam Mas Krisno, For a youngster, you have a lots of word of wisdom to share.. Thank you! To all of you. As I had said many times before, I'm a straightshooter, therefore, I will tell it like it is. Along the way, I may insult someone ego or give them the light bulb moment, its all up to them to decides Like everything else in the world, what's is valuable or junks is in the eye of beholder. My valuable things is not necessarily valuable to you. When we are talking Silat, Silat only valuable to the people who learn silat, to others who wish to learn ballet instead, to them, Silat is worthless exercises. One can claimed their authenticity of their silat, that's only good to the people wish or wants to hear it or to the people who study silat. To Karate students? Probably does not mean much. So, why we are talking about silat-authentic? I don't know If one not looking for publicity, not looking for students, and not looking to be accepted as a legit art, than silat authenticity, lineage, tittles, or ranks does not mean much. As a matter of fact, my guru did not discuss the lineage, authenticity of our silat, unless we ask for it. Even then, its like pulling our teeth to hear his answer. His word is that, "you are the mirror of our silat system, represent them well. No need to depends it nor to argue about it. Silat is behavior and performance. Both have to be balance. For my guru who survived the Independent War (against Dutch and Japanese), G30S, and Kalimantan Conflict. His words meant alot to me. The bottom lines is, what is your objective learning silat.....The rest will come easy. My trully worthless opinion, Tristan
Likewise with my Guru. She went through a lot, and through many war battles and conflicts. It is for this reason that lineage is important, as it is down to us to honour and acknowledge their gargantuan effort and sacrifice, so that the likes of you and me can learn this beautiful art. Otherwise how do we ensure that any old Tom, Dick or Harry doesn't take claim to the efforts and sacrifices that were attained with sweat and tears?
LOL Mas Tristan! I am always still learning hehe. Hi Wali ... and what if some old Tom, Dick or Harry ... say your garbage collector knew how to move and knew how to pass it on ... would you also spurn them? Are you searching for a fancy sticker, or are you looking to realise and embody the principles of body knowledge? When one makes a choice to buy food at a restaurant, is it more important to ou the reputation of the chef, is one more interested in the cutlery and china, or the quality of the food from the point of view of individual tastebuds? Salam, Krisno
