Chris Yabut – The Filipino Silat Star

At the 2012 World Pencak Silat Championships in Chang Rai, I met Christopher Yabut. Representing Team Philippines, he fought in Tanding Male Class A, a notoriously competitive class in sport Silat. After annihilating his opponents, match after match, he entered the finals against a Vietnamese fighter Nhan Bao Phaong with an injured knee. Although he ended up losing the final match, winning silver, what struck me about Chris was his pleasant personality and warm smile, even when fighting. His would eagerly answer any questions I had about Pencak Silat to the best of his knowledge.

Christopher Yabut was born March 25, 1976 in Philippine province of Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. His interest in martial arts began in college where he learned a variety of martial arts including Karate, Arnis, Judo and Taekwondo. Pencak Silat in the Philippines had started becoming popular, with the perguruan Pencak Silat Nusantara providing lessons to the public under Pak Hadi Mulyo. Sport Silat was introduced at the 1991 Sea Games in Manila. At that time, a Filipino pesilat named Jojie Haducana had managed to win silver in that SEA Games edition and later won gold in the 1997 World Pencak Silat Championships.

Chris’s martial art talent was quickly apparent as he began competing in various martial arts disciplines. He won championships at local school tournaments in Karate (retired as a seven-time local karate champion). However, once he was introduced to Pencak Silat in 1994, he immediately gravitated to the art because of its unique versatility and also its focus on discipline and character development. “I choose Pencak Silat because it is unique and there is a lot of variation of technique and it helped to build my personality and make me strong in discipline. And Silat helped me a lot especially when I came on the national team.” Chris recalls.

After winning his first gold at a local Pencak Silat competition, he was accepted to the National Pencak Silat team and trained under the world-famous Indonesian coach Suhartono. At his first international competition in 1996, he won silver medal at the International University Games in Brunei Darussalam. His winning streak continued and he won gold at the 2003 Asia Pacific Games, gold at the 2004 World Championships in Singapore, 5x medalist in the SEA Games, Gold at the Pencak Silat Paris Open, and silver at his final competition 2012 at the World Pencak Silat competition in Chiang Rai, Thailand where I first met him. He also competed in artistic element of Silat (regu) and won silver at the World Championship in Indonesia in 2010.

We met 3 years later at the 16^th World Competition (Jan 2015) in Phuket where we both became certified international judges together. Although currently retired from competition, he continues to train and coach his team as well as referee international competitions at the highest level. When he is not coaching Silat, he is a father and works as a policeman in his local area of Pasig City, near Manila.

Chris is a devout Christian with deep respect for all faiths. He continues to teach and promote Pencak Silat along with his fellow coaches and team mates. Philippines recently gold medal in Tunggal Putra in the 30th SEA Games 2019 and 3 golds at the 8^th Singapore Open Pencak Silat in Singapore on 2019.  

Written by A-Malik Ahmad, a former USA Pencak Silat head coach & international judge, author of Training for Tanding course on Udemy.