There are certain terms in Silat that are helpful to know in order to understand the art. One such term is aliran – which translates to style. These styles developed based on the geographical area and cultural preferences in the particular region. No one master or school can hold exclusive claim to an aliran. Examples of aliran:
- Cimande
- Cikalong
- Silek Harimau
- Mantaram
- Cingkrik
- Syahbandar
- Serak
- Kari
- Madi
- Pamonyet
- Pamacan
Cimande, a more upright style can be differentiated with Silek Harimau, which has low stances and tiger-like movements. Although these are very different styles, they both fall under the umbrella of Pencak Silat.
“But isn’t Silat a style in itself?”, an inquisitive individual might ask. “What is the difference between a perguruan or Silat school and an aliran“. Perhaps one can understand the meaning of aliran through an analogy of “vehicles”. Generally in martial arts you have multiple styles – which can be analogous to different types of vehicles. Just like the different styles of martial arts (Karate, Kungfu, MuayThai, etc), you have different types of transportation vehicles: airplanes, boats, cars, trucks, helicopters, etc.
Pencak Silat would be one type of martial art, similar to a “car” being a type of vehicle. When it comes to perguruan or Silat schools, those would be similar to the different car companies (Ford, Chevy, Honda, Toyota, etc). Perguruans, similar to car companies, try to offer students comprehensive offering in martial arts and many times are competitive with each other. Often they will pick and choose techniques from different aliran in order to have a more complete curriculum.
An aliran would be analogous to different styles of cars i.e. sedan, SUV, sports cars, etc. A perguruan might focus only on one aliran (like Lamborghini focuses only on sports cars). These are called perguruan aliran. Yet many perguruan combine several alirans – just as car companies have a mix offering of styles of vehicles, from sedans, SUV’s, sports cars, etc.
George F. de Groot in his book Pencak Silat, Self-defense Arts of Indonesia describes an aliran as follows:
Aliran mean style or art of performing Pencak Silat ethically, technically, aesthetically and athletically which is coloured by local culture. Every style has its outstanding distinguished uniqueness, characteristic and peculiarity when compared with other ones, and is only related with physical side, not with spiritual side.
Elsewhere in his book, he gives more information about aliran:
It is not easy to distinguish the aliran Pencak Silat. Only those who are experts and who understand various technical performance of Pencak Silat thoroughly can do so. The difference of the alirans is only concerning the physical and not concerning the mental-spiritual and philosophical aspects. Therefore, the alirans is not a system of sect. No matter what kind or aliran Pencak Silat, it is always inspired by and based on the philosophy of noble mind and character.
de Groot (2008) Pencak Silat, Self-defense Arts of Indonesia, Volume 1. PT. Granesia Bandung, Indonesia
Another good summary of the differences between aliran and perguruan are summed up in the book The Fighting Art of Pencak Silat and Its Music by Uwe U. Paetzold and Paul H. Mason:
An important differentiation in the understanding of the organizational structures in the ‘world of pencak silat’ are the distinctions between style (in Bahasa: aliran), and school (in Bahasa: perguruan). A common saying in Pencak Silat circles is “the schools are many, but the styles are few.” Each style will have at least one school – though usually one will find more than one. Schools with a dedicated monostylistic repertoire are sometimes labelled “style schools” (BI: perguruan aliran). Except for “style schools,” the curriculum of most schools will consist of the repertoires of more than one style. Since the 1970s, there have been moves by schools to declare themselves as ‘styles,’ though their profile, if seen from the systematics of a fighting system, often gives little evidence of this kind of approach. Again, we will find different definitions of the core characteristics of a fighting curriculum to become a style.
Uwe U Paetzold and Paul H Mason (2016) The Fighting Art of Pencak Silat and Its Music: From Southeast Asian Village to Global Movement. Brill’s Southeast Asian Library.
A particular aliran does not necessarily have to be verbally explicated, but has at ]east to be able to be felt and experienced by the practitioner. These principles are usually based on physical movement, but psychological and spiritual principles can become style defining, too. A universal movement based principle can be the thought of as ‘all movement can be utilized to become pencak silat.’ This philosophical approach is one of the basic principles of the West Javanese Cimande style. A completely different organizing principle is utilized in the regionally neighboring Cikalong style, where practitioners are encouraged to ‘execute actions along the shortest trajectories, and with highest possible efficiency.’ One of the basic styles defining elements of West Sumatran Silek Tuo is a movement called gelek: a defender standing in a deep posture with his legs bent at the knees ( a position called kuda-kuda, BI: “standing like in a horse rider’s seat”), screws his or her body in a 90 degree angle from the hips upwards, away from the attack, coinciding with an optimal redirection of the attacker’s momentum. Movements like gelek give this West Sumatran style an almost dance-like appearance, even when performed as self-defense – an excellent pre-requisite for becoming the foundation for various dance and dance theatre forms.
The utilization of an opponent’s momentum is also a basic principle of the West Javanese Timbangan style. But while tight body contact with the opponent is kept in Minangkabau’s Silek Tuo, such tight body contact is omitted in Timbangan. The overall appearance of Timbangan, therefore, reminds one on the Japanese aikido fighting art; a comparison noted by some West Javanese specialists, too.
H. Sariat Arifia, a senior Pencak Silat practitioner in the Perguruan PPSSA and student of the late Pak Rifai Sahib, has a different take on the term aliran:
Aliran in english should be translated as genre, categorization composed by its character, form, style and origin. Meanwhile perguruan in english should be translated as Pencak Silat school name, while gaya translated as style. Aliran or genre can be categorized into different based measurement: a) Based on the geography and the name, the genre of Pencak Silat only two exist. The first is in West Java which, in the past, was called Pencak. The second is from West Sumatra is called Silat or Silek. The unified body of this two styles of self-defense after Indonesia’s independence is called Pencak Silat. So the name of two alirans become one term.
H. Sariat believes that the number of alirans are actually much smaller – possibly only Cimande, Silek and Pencak. At least they are the oldest ones that are traceable.
