Why I am with Silat

A while back, a friend of mine from the Filipino Martial Arts community, Troy Lannoo, asked how I came to settle into training in the world of Pencak Silat/Silat. The following is a short story (without all the details):

I had trained for years in a lot of the more standard fare – wrestling, Judo , American Kenpo, Shou Shu, Chinese Kempo, Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, Shotokan Karate, Wu Wei Gung Fu, Kyokushinkai, Jun Fan Gung Fu, and the list goes on. I was training in Larry Hartsell’s JKD Grappling association in the mid /late 80’s as I recall. At that time, I had seen only some brief material attributed to Silat from him and maybe a bit from Guro Dan Inosanto (at that time Sifu Larry was my primary JKD source).

While in USAF Spec Ops, I spent some time in some interesting places overseas. At one of those locations, I also spent some time hanging out with a particular US Army Green Beret/US Special Forces member who had also been a Tunnel Rat in Vietnam. He was a Chinese-style fighter who was pretty rough and tumble and had great footwork and body movement. He liked Thai Boxers when he was in Thailand, because of the full contact work they did. He also liked the Kali/Escrima folks because of their weapon base, willingness to train with live blade during their development and their attention to footwork.

However, he seemed most excited about the Silat people he had some contact with. He told me of a few times he ran across Silat stylists in South East Asia. He mentioned that the first time he saw a Silat practitioner in action was in Malaysia, and it really unnerved him. I won’t go into details of his story, but he was impressed with the lethality of what he witnessed, as well as the fact that he could not figure out how the attacker was being torn up. (He did not learn this until much later).

Up until that time, as a member of  US Special Forces, he had done a lot of serious training (and used it in real life),but he did not feel it had prepared him for what he had witnessed in this particular altercation. He did eventually make some friends within the Silat community and learned a bit about their methods. He said he trained pretty hard to learn to deal with some of what they did.

He told me that this focused training was probably what saved his hide one day when one of his team members was about to get in a scrap with a local who, he figured out, was a pesilat. As he attempted to get in between them and break up the fight, the local man turned his attention on my friend. Based on some insights he had gained from some Silat practitioners who he had worked with, he managed to recognize what was about to happen, took some very immediate, decisive action and he attributes that to why he is alive today. He encouraged me to seek out ANY Pencak Silat/ Silat teacher I might ever run across and try my hardest to get some training.

Well, that pretty much “put the bug” in my ear.

When I was in Texas, training with Joe Purcell at the Academy of Progressive Martial Arts, I heard Pendekar Herman Suwanda was conducting seminars within the region. I went to see him and had an absolutely wonderful training experience. His art seemed to have everything I wanted and seemed to exhibit the motions and skills my teacher/friend had mentioned. Later, Bill Stutesman introduced me to Maha Guru Richard Crabbe De-Bordes and the experience was similarly exciting . The more I trained with my Silat teachers, the more I saw the concepts and skills being developed that I had been working on when studying JKD, Jun Fan Gung Fu, Wu Wei, grappling, Muay Thai and Kali. There seemed to be a bit of redundancy in many respects.

I decided to place my focus on the study of Silat and have been with the art ever since, with no regrets. One day, my old friend came to to the Dallas Fort Worth area and searched me out. He dropped by one day and saw me working with Dave Goodenow, one of my training buddies at the time. He just grinned and said he had nothing more to teach me, it was obvious I was getting what I needed from my Silat teachers.

Of course, why I am with Silat is because it fits my needs and is the art most suitable for my particular way of moving, as well as my psychological “worldview”. I am certain many other folks have found similar satisfaction within their own non-silat arts. You just have to find one that you can make work for you in an effective manner and one that seems to meet all of your training needs. For me, it was Silat.

by Guru Doc Dority