Once upon a time, back in '90 Pa Herman Suwanda, Cikgu Sulaimen Sharriff of Gayong, Richard de Bordes, Pendekar Sanders and others would all pass through Guru Art Rhemrev's school to share and demonstrate. Occassionally the different schools would spar for practice against other styles - then go out to an Indonesian resturaunt afterwards. One of the great nights was when Art, Aimen, and Suwanda were all sharing their responses to different attacks and sharing the principles and fundimentals of their arts. Everyone shared openly, they even shared students. No one was hung up on titles and posturing. Everyone called everyone by their first name with respect (respect doesn't come from the use of titles but the heart). The intense factions and rivalries didn't exist like today. I realize now that for a brief moment I was living in Silat Utopia. May those days return.
I think I have a video of a seminar from those days. de Bordes was instructing. Pendekar Sanders was there and I think Guru Rhemrev was too although I'm not sure what he looks like.
I think it is hard sometimes to get beyond personal egos. I know that I have been guilty of showing off, wanting to be seen as "the most wow guy" in the group. Things spiral down from there . Sometimes I think (and that's absolutely a good description!) ... that any form of silat or martial art is at it's deepest levels an introspective art and not a community art such as soccer or basketball.
Not entirely gone... We're trying to recreate this in the South Bay area, and hopefully elsewhere, starting with an event called Silatapalooza. Details will be posted at www.spiralsky.com in the next week. It runs the weekend of Nov. 4-6. Headlines with Paul Silva, Steve Gartin, and Chas Clements, and has about 10 other instructors, in an informal politic-free enviornment. We are trying to *find* different groups, and invite them, and hopefully create a rotating cast of characters... You can e-mail SpiralSky@comcast.net for more details...
I'm pretty certain that this is the same event (At least all of the evidence would indicate so) so a lot of inormation can be found here: http://www.kuntaosilat.com/seminars.htm I've met/trained with a few of the instructors featured and I can warrant their skills. If its well organized and scheduled it looks like a pretty incredible event.
We've had trouble getting the site up .... but the pre-registration price was extended through 10/15. The other link supplied has the info... Thanks...
