To love silat is to know silat

I WAS ashamed of myself when an American silat practitioner asked me if I had learnt silat. This happened before I became a pesilat and when I was studying in Baltimore for my degree. It was during the semester break and I decided to take the Greyhound bus to New Jersey to visit a Malaysian silat master who opened a silat academy there.

The person who asked me was a student there and who had trained for a while under the master. I only told him that my late grandfather once taught silat to his 'pondok' students and changed the subject.

That incident renewed my interest in silat after graduation. I researched silat when I was on my university breaks. The only problem was that information on the Internet at that time was limited, especially on silat from Malaysia.

There were websites on silat made by Americans and Europeans who studied or had an affinity towards silat. However, these websites posed another issue. Most of their understanding of silat was either from Indonesian sources or was very generic.

Information on Indonesian silat covered silat from Java and Sumatra. Silat styles such as Cimande, Cikalong, Syahbandar and Serak were dominant in West Java. In Sumatra, the focus was on silek (silat in the Minangkabau dialect) like Kumango, Sterlak and Silek Tuo. Although the information I gathered was not from Malaysia, it gave me insights into the silat styles brought from the Indonesian isles to Peninsular Malaysia.

I discovered that Westerners generalised silat into one martial art. This is not the correct way to understand silat. Silat is just an umbrella term to distinguish martial arts from the Malay people from other martial arts.

The Chinese, for example, typically classify Chinese martial arts into two categories: the hard-styles that are linked to the Shaolin Temple and the soft-styles that are connected to Wudang Temple. In reality, there are many styles in both categories.

Silat did not escape this generalisation. When American practitioners talked about the silat that they learned, they would focus on the techniques rather than the cultures that originated these styles. They were quite disinterested in the cultural aspects of silat, like the performances, dances and rituals.

These cultural traits are what make silat distinct from other martial arts. The techniques used in silat would most probably be found in other martial arts as well, simply because we are all human beings. My instructor once told me that unless a new type of human with more than two hands and two legs comes into existence, the same techniques can be found in different martial arts.

Now there are many sites on the Internet by Malaysian silat organisations and schools. One can even watch silat from around the world on YouTube. Unfortunately, as I discovered recently, there are also videos by irresponsible individuals that misrepresent silat.

For example, there are recordings of so-called traditional healers who claim to have removed spirits from the bodies of their patients. I have no issue with that. The problem is that these healers like to attribute these spirits with the learning of silat.

While it is unknown whether this claim can be justified, there are silat practitioners out there who dabble in mysticism and what not. Yet, just like the Westerners, this is a gross generalisation towards silat that tarnishes the image of the martial art.

I experienced a similar accusation in the past. Once I had the opportunity to teach silat in a high school in a district in Kedah. I drove to the school every Friday morning after prayers from Alor Setar that took almost two hours. In that one year, an incident occurred to one of my students.

She became hysterical at her home and her parents called a village healer to help their child. This healer accused my student of letting a spirit to come to her because of the silat that she was learning. When I heard this news, I was very angry because if you asked my students, not once did I ever taught them unIslamic things or things that had to do with spirits.

I wanted to question this healer myself but my grandmaster forbade me. The last I heard was that my grandmaster went himself to the student's home where he met the parents and explained to them about what we teach and also assisted in the healing of that student.

As a silat teacher and practitioner, I hope other practitioners would not propagate things that goes against Islam. I also hope that non-practitioners of silat would not easily equate any bad things to silat. Do not generalise as the Westerners do.

Investigate such incidents fairly and in their own contexts. Give silat the benefit of the doubt. Then, learn silat yourself or send your children to learn this cultural heritage. To love silat is to know silat.