Seminar Was Fantastic; Hours of Video to Review

My apologies for not posting sooner to the blog as an update; however, since returning to work I've been inundated since I was out the last week dealing with the seminar and catching up with family.  The seminar was phenomenal!  Unfortunately, Uncle was struck ill at the last moment and unable to fly in, but Sigung Philip Sailas was able to make it and greatly awed my students.  His amazing skill and wonderful personality truly won everyone over immediately.  43 years of training with Uncle!  I also have approximately eight hours of video to review.  Nothing will be available to outside folks, but those who attended the seminar and other kuntao silat brothers will be able to purchase DVDs for a nominal fee (probably $20 plus shipping just to cover my costs of the DVDs, packaging, labels, ink, delivery and wait time at post office, etc.  No, it doesn't even come close to paying for edit time and burn time otherwise I'd simply burn the whole thing raw to multiple DVDs and be done with it.).

That said, what did we cover?  As promised we went over Uncle's Serak Silat.  Sigung Phil could see we have been practicing and my students did have many of the basics, therefore we quickly went into more advanced apps.  Outstanding!  From there, we reviewed Uncle's Cimande / Tjimande Silat system as inherited and practiced by him from his father-in-law, Bapak Carl Deems.  Truly a wonderful system with many things to impart.  Similar to, but also very different from, Serak.  One of those things you have to experience and/or study to understand.  We spent a great deal of time on the buah and sambuts as well as the 18 djurus and langkah of Cimande.   Later we worked on Kuntao Monyet, or Monkey Kuntao, as well as the advanced drunken movements of the system.  It must be understood that I have one student that is truly huge, and athletically so.  Former powerlifter, elite level college football player, former pro football player until a knee injury; also a blackbelt in multiple arts and law enforcement officer that instructs others-- very nice guy.  But to provide comparison, he is in his mid-thirties approximately 6'4" and nearly 400 pounds, squatting ability of 900 pounds and bench of 500 pounds for reps...raw.  Yeah.  Sigung Phil is 63 years old, approximately 5'3" and 130 lbs.  He effortlessly and repeatedly threw my student over his head, end over end, to the mat with a thunderous thwack!  Drunken monkey is no joke.  Later, we moved to internal striking which opened up many eyes, then kuntao silat knife.  We ended the seminar with kuntao silat stick techniques and Q&A. Two days of joyful mayhem for practice.

I wish a speedy recovery and constant well being to Uncle and a heartfelt thank you with much gratitude to Sigung Philip Sailas for making this seminar such a resounding success.  It's cliche', but it truly was awesome.  I hope to get Sigung Philip back along with Uncle as quickly as possible.

Uncle Arrives Tomorrow for the Seminar

Here is a video of Uncle performing a langkah from his art.  He and Philip Sailas, his longest studying student, arrive tomorrow for the seminar.  It appears that heavy rains are in the forecast for Saturday and Sunday and I reserved space in the park as outside training in good weather is always best.  Now I'll need to reserve a gym at the last minute.  The video is Willem de Thouars: Hakka Kuntao Silat de Thouars - Pasang 1

Only Four More Days!

I'll be picking up Uncle and Philip from the airport this Friday afternoon for the workshop this weekend.  A large crawfish boil is scheduled at a student's house right after I pick them up.  Attached you'll see Sigung Philip Sailas performing some of Uncle's forms.  The years of dedicated training sure do show.  I'm greatly looking forward to seeing them both again.  I'll be presenting some clips of the seminar once I download it all.  The theme for this weekend will be silat serak, kuntao silat knife and monkey kuntao, or as I like to call it, "Blood, Sweat and Steel".

Pentjak (Pencak) Silat Pamur / Pengasinan Jalan Enam

This series of movements looks similar to the pentjak silat pamur djurus that Uncle showed me many years ago although there are some definite differences.  Pamur is from the island of Madura and what I was shown was  a series of blade movements that was also trained empty-handed.  Now, I see something that uses hand transitions similar what I learned at the time that I haven't seen since except in a couple other silat arts.  The clip is entitled "Pengasinan Jalan Enam" and is labeled as being from the area of Jakarta, not the island of Madura.  I hope you enjoy it.