What is the difference between Pentjak Silat and Tai Chi

by Ben

Here’s another question I was asked recently:

What is the difference between Tai Chi & Silat?

We often talk about the differences between Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua.

  • Hsing-I moves forward in waves like a sine wave or water rolling into the beach.
  • Bagua moves more like a gyroscope & a spinning sphere within a spinning sphere.
  • Tai Chi moves more like a large ball that can expand or deflate instantly from the inside & outside.

But what about Silat?

Well that’s a little tougher.

Unlike Tai Chi, Pentjak Silat isn’t a single art. It’s a whole category.

There are around 900 styles of Silat including arts like Tjimande, Tjikalong, Harimau, etc…

So it really depends on which type of Silat you compare it to.

Here are a few generalizations to get you started:

  • Tai Chi is usually much more concerned with health in the beginning.
  • Silat usually starts with survival first.

 

  • Tai Chi uses very refined structure.
  • Some Silat will throw structure completely out the window in very effective ways.

 

  • Tai Chi will tends to use a very calm quiet mental & body state.
  • Silat will often do the opposite.

 

There’s a lot more…

Keep in mind that with a category as big and diverse as Silat there will always be exceptions to the rule.

You can learn more about how these arts compliment one another in the Internal Combat Arts Course:

www.clearsilat.com/internal-combat-arts

 

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With: ,

My first encounter with Sigung Clear…

by Ben

Many years ago…
I studied Karate for a short time.

I only ever fought in one tournament. I got kicked in the head twice and took second place because there were only two of us in my division.

It was frustrating.

Not because I lost.

Or even because I was roughed up a little. It was frustrating because [Read more...]

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

Bubble toe fighting secrets of Jack Johnson

by Ben

“Move Like a jellyfish, rhythm is nothing
You go with the flow, you don’t stop” – Jack Johnson, ‘Bubble Toes’

1. Move like a jellyfish.

  • Don’t hold tension anywhere,
  • Effortlessly float out of the way of an attack,
  • Make sure every touch is excruciatingly painful for the attacker.

2. Rhythm is Nothing.

- You use rhythmic movement but you are not bound by it. The Rhythm changes constantly and you mix in a healthy dose of broken rhythm.

3. You go with the flow.

We prefer the phrase: “Go where there’s no resistance” but the principle is the same.

Let your movement flow from what is happening.

Don’t try to force a technique or strategy.

4. You don’t stop…

…Ever

Constant motion is critical.

Change the distance, change the flow, change your position.

Never be in one place for more than an instant.

Unless it’s bait.

We teach all of this in the first phase of Clear’s Silat.

In a few days all 17 Phase 1 DVDs will be finished and I’ll put together several instructor packages and discounts for folks who want to study the system in depth.

Get started right now.

Head on over to amazon and get
Internal Combat Arts Vol 1: Kun Tao Silat
http://www.amazon.com/Kun-Tao-Silat-Richard-Clear/dp/B007VTEDE2/

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

Free Lesson: Silat Destructions

by Clear's Silat

From Clear’s Silat Phase 1 Vol 8: Upper Body Art.

A destruction is any technique that disables part of the opponents body for 26 minutes or longer. At least the duration of the fight.

This could be anything from nasty charlie horse that takes out the arm for a little less than half an hour to a broken limb that will never heal right again.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

How to hold a Knife

by Clear's Silat

This free Silat lesson is brought to you by Clear’s Silat Phase 1 Vol 5.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Free Silat Lesson: Waist Power

by Clear's Silat

“putting your hips into it” will destroy the hip joint. Use you’re waist instead.

This lesson is brought to you by Clear’s Silat Phase 1 Vol 5.

Read more about Waist Power, Knee Power & Whole Body Power here:

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Free Silat Lesson 12 – More Power through Leverage

by Clear's Silat

This free silat lesson from our class on “walking style” will teach you how to gain more power through proper leverage.

Learn this and much more on Clear’s Silat Vol 4.

Learn more about Class 12 Walking, Shaking Hands & Running:

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Defeating Karate Kicks

by Sigung Clear

Defeating Karate kicks first involves knowing how the karate kicks are performed and used and understanding both the strengths and weaknesses inherent to the techniques. Of course in our Phase I class we are referring to average basic common karate kicks practiced in most Karate schools in America today.

Defeating these kicks is one of the basic Phase I classes in the Clear’s Kun Tao Silat curriculum and of course there is much more advanced material further along in our curriculum as we definitely understand that a senior black belt in a good karate system will have more than just the basics to work with and will move much better and with more fluidity and less telegraphing than most folks who practice and train these kicks.

The 5 most basic karate kicks are

  1. The front snap kick
  2. The round house kick
  3. The side kick
  4. The spinning back kick
  5. The crescent kick which can easily be an ax kick

Each of these kicks have their strengths and defeating them means avoiding those and taking advantages of the weaknesses of the kicks as practiced by most people.

The biggest weaknesses of Karate kicks are as follows: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

How to Fight Multiple Attackers…

by Ben

Be somewhere else…

As always the first priority in any attack is to be somewhere else or to escape.

However attackers will do their best to make escape impossible.

Only fight one person at a time.

In the movies when the hero is surrounded the bad guys step up one at a time to fight and be defeated.

This is ideal. Unfortunately in the real world attackers don’t do this for you.

You have to do all the work yourself and prevent them from surrounding you in the first place.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

Free Silat Lesson 8: Retreating Forwards

by Clear's Silat

This lesson is brought to you by Clear’s Silat Phase 1 Volume 4.

You can read more about Retreating Forwards here:

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Free Silat Lesson 7: Ranges of Fighting.

by Clear's Silat

Brought to you by Clear’s Silat Volume 3. On Sale Through Nov 6.

Learn more about the Ranges of Fighting.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Free Silat Video Lesson #5: Silat Decoy & Welcoming Postures

by Clear's Silat

This is from Clear’s Silat Phase 1 Class 6: Decoy & Welcoming Postures

Read more about Decoy & Welcoming Postures:

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Silat Jamming

by Sigung Clear

In Clear’s Silat Jamming is used as a technique to control the other person’s entire body through one point of contact.

For instance if the attacker has their fists up in an aggressive stance then the defender can jam the arm at the elbow to control the attackers body through the elbow.

To do this you must…

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

Free Silat Lesson 3: Using Your Legs

by Clear's Silat

This is from Phase 1 Class 3: Habud

You can read more about Habud drills & Training here:

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

Silat Lift Kicks

by Sigung Clear


Silat Lift Kicks are a nice and relatively simple tool that you can use to defend yourself.

The movement is simple.

Think of moving your leg the same way that you would to move a box that is sitting on the floor with your toe.

Simply reach out and push the box without any extra movement or telegraphing.

However, the internal aspect of lift kicks is very important.

The idea is to [Read more...]

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

How to Build Bone Breaking Power with Standing Bear

by Sigung Clear

Standing Bear is one of the basic entries in Clear’s Silat Phase I that contains critical skills for more advanced training in the art.


It is long power based movement that is most often seen in the orangutan movenment in the island arts.

The first skill worked on and learned is how to use the power of gravity to drop an enormous amount of whole body power on your opponent. At more advanced levels it is easy to use the skills learned in this kind of fighting method to break an attackers arm.

Most people will find the basic training method unusual both in look and application but after you have trained the basics actually apply this fighting method becomes easy.

Basic Practice Method.

To practice Standing Bear start by [Read more...]

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat

Catch Full Speed Punches out of the Air

by Sigung Clear

One of the classes in Clear’s Silat Phase 1 is how to Catch Full Speed Punches out of the Air.

This is a timing and perception training class much more than it is an application class. In other words, it is not that we Catch Full Speed Punches out of the Air and hold the attackers punch while making some maniacal B movie laugh as the attacker falls to their knees and melts away at our feet.

In fact if you can successfully catch an attackers punch you had better be moving on to your next attacking technique in process without delay or you are likely to be holding their first punch while they land the second punch on your head and then continue to hit you. They will marvel later that you actually caught their punch but then they beat you badly as you stood there attempting the maniacal movie laugh.

So, what is the benefit in a fight of Catching a Full Speed Punch out of the Air?

First of all if you can perceive well enough to do that then your response to any movement the opponent makes should be timed well enough that you can outpace and out position them fairly easily.

For most people speed and power diminish after they reach a certain age somewhere between 40 and 60 years of age. However, timing and perception continues to improve as long as you are physically well and continue to train.

I have had quite a number of teachers in their 70s and 80s who are physically quite capable and who move quite fast and well. When you talk to them about speed they will quickly tell you that they are much slower than the average 20 year old in good shape but that their perception and timing are what is making them appear to move so fast.

To catch a full speed punch out of the air you will want to train the basic Clear’s Silat vision method of sleepy eye as well as action beats reaction and positioning skills such as Welcoming Posture # 1 and constant motion. When you put all of these elements together you really get a good look at what the art is supposed to look like and it makes sense how this is an art that is used to defend yourself against multiple attackers armed with bladed weapons.

The better you can get at naturally moving with all of these elements happening at the same time the more correct your practice and performance of the art will be. This includes your evasion, flanking attacks and your counter attacks.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:

Fighting Rhythm

by Sigung Clear

Fighting Rhythm refers to the repetitive pace and timing that you are moving to when you are in motion to fight.

A rhythm is a pattern that continually repeats. In a fighting rhythm the movement of the person continually repeats or flows to a certain beat in a repetitive pattern. The movement can range from quite simple to very complex.

The benefits of a rhythm are that the average person can normally maintain a rhythm for quite awhile (several minutes or longer) without fatigue. This is partly due to the fact that the conscious mind is not overly stressed and is able to rest in a rhythmic state.

The downside of rhythmic motion for fighting is that the movement pattern can usually be figured out by an observing opponent and then they can reasonably predict your next move or moves and counter you just prior to the move or as you begin to make the move.

A simple drill to work on rhythmic motion for fighting is to have your partner stand in the center of a circle and field your strikes while you use rhythm and move around them and throw your strikes from the outside position of the circle.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With: ,

Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running 2

by Sigung Clear

Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running are aggressively moving attacks designed to overwhelm or trick an opponent while giving them no time to decide when or how to counter the coming attack. The less time the opponent has to analyze the attack the better. Part of the surprise of these methods is the sudden turning of the tables on the attacker. They were attacking and now with very little or no warning they are having to defend themselves. It is designed to take out the attacker before they can mount a decent defense of any kind.

Running style is intended to overwhelm and run over the opponent in the same manner as walking style but much faster and with a greater ability to close in and change as needed. The real use of running style is to get all the way next to the opponent and pepper them with full body power open hand shots to the tune of 6 – 12 per second. We train 2 basic running style drills to help build the ability to do this properly while maintaining safety in the training.

The first Running style drill is to have your partner hold their arms up in front of them in the hug the tree or hold the bowl posture then run up to them as fast as you can and pepper their arms with open hand strikes. Start in the front and run to the left or right as far as you can up your partners arm without hitting your partner on the shoulder(s). Then, continue back in the other direction back across the front of your partner and all the way back up the other arm. When you get close to the opposite shoulder then quit hitting them and run past them to simulate having gone through the opponent.

The second Running style drill starts with your partner in a fist fighting position. They swing on you in slow motion and try to maintain as much fighting integrity as they can while continually slow motion fighting and moving while you are performing the drill. The running style practitioner runs up to the fist fighting partner in slow motion and in slow motion open hand peppers whatever they can hit wherever they can hit it. Start with the arms and move into the face, head, shoulders and upper body. It should be obvious that in a real situation that the recipient would quickly and aggressively get the living daylights smacked out of them.

This drill is intended to get you as close as possible to the reality of using the technique while maintaining safety for both people and particularly the recipient of the Running style. If the Running style is performed correctly then the recipient will feel completely overwhelmed and shut down by the running style practitioner.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With: ,

Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running I

by Sigung Clear

This post is about Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running. I have already written several posts about Continuous movement and it is important to note that Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running like most Silat utilize continuous movement as a fighting tool.

One of the things that set the Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running class apart from the other basic Clear’s Silat Phase I continuous motion classes is that the Silat Walking, Shaking Hands & Running styles are offensive in nature. Instead of evasive movement to lead the attacker(s) into a bad position the Walking style heads straight for the attacker to run them over. When performed correctly the aggressor will “feel” like they are about to be ran over. This requires the practitioner to let the arms swing fully and to stride forwards with an intent to overwhelm and go through the attacker. Not around or to them but through them without breaking stride.

Walking style is a great technique to use against a stationary attacker who is blocking your path. Shaking hands style is used against an attacker who is moving around a bit more but who is not yet scrimmaging or running. Running style is for an attacker who is scrimmaging or swinging with a lot of physical motion such as a boxer who is dancing around using a lot of footwork.

The shaking hands style is a decoy art that is about timing. I extend my hand to the attacker as if to shake their hand while using walking style to go right up to them. If they so much as look at my extended hand then they will normally physically respond to late to protect themselves. It is a trick and timing is of the essence. If I extend my hand to soon then the attacker has time to see my hand and move, adjust or attack before I can reach them. If I extend my hand to late then the attacker will not see my hand and will move or attack.

Filed Under: Pentjak Silat Tagged With:
«Older Posts