Matt
ex-m@Triate
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2005
- Messages
- 10,765
- Reaction score
- 275
Um. What? I'm guessing you've seen a few demonstrations of kembangan, in which an individual performs his silat artistically and set to music for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation. While practicing kembangan regularly does train your sense of timing, among other skills, it is very different from actual combative silat, which is not only pared down and "unpretty" but in which every attack is meant to be followed by another until the opponent is incapacitated. Or maybe you're thinking of the pulut demonstrations of Malaysian silat as opposed to buah. I don't know. As for the supposed absence of head strikes, this is just wrong. Silat is a complete system. But the different styles, of which there are hundreds, do have different emphases: nerve strikes, throws, etc. Silat is not above dirty tricks to distract the opponent, and it has a penchant for found weapons. And practicioners are often most comfortable fighting in extremely close quarters in order to utilize their elbows, knees, and head. Rather ideal for the bar environment in a fight against the hypothetical drunken jackass and his friends.
Persilat is the official governing body of Pencak Silat. Here are its rules.... Note...
No head strikes...and please...no bad words. Now you may then want to argue that it is a style of an archipelago of a zillion different islands and ten zillion different villages, and every village is different and some are more deadly than others etc etc etc. You would be right...however, stylistically speaking, having to go school to school to work out which particular East Javanese village the teacher studied in, and why he chooses to ignore the unified rules of conduct in order to make a No Can Defend style, is hardly an efficient means to finding a 'most effective for self defense' style. You may also argue that codifying = diluting....and again, you would be basically right, but that is hardly unique to silat. Hell if we wanted to undilute styles, take away the on-your-back time limit, the point-when-takedown-complete and add back in leg submissions, and judo would be an incredible self defense style... Oh and if you just want to see the little dancy things, well that's easy...go watch the Fight Quest from Indonesia. It'd be on youtube somewhere.6.4. Prohibitions Prohibitions which are declared as violations: 6.4.1. Serious violations: a. Attack illegal parts of body ie. neck, head and navel downwards to groin causing injury/knock-down to the opponent. b. Direct attempts to break the joints. c. Deliberately throw the opponent out of the arena. d. Hit the head or attack with head. e. Attack the opponent before the ‘MULAI’ command or after the ‘BERHENTI’ command is given by the Referee, causing injury to the opponent. f. Wrestle, bite, scratch, grip, and pull the opponent's hair. g. Oppose, humiliate, use rude words, spit the opponent or competition officials (Referee-Jury, Council of Referee-Jury, Competition Chairman). In the event of hitting and kicking competition officials, the Pesilat will be immediately disqualified. h. Break the competition rules, after getting ‘Peringatan 1’ (First Warning). i. Deliberately attack on valid but non-scoring area/target to injure the opponent.