Online Silat Training

It's 30 years since I started teaching and training silat and I am still astounded that it hasn’t taken off. Instead people pick parts of the systems and add them in to something they already do. It shocks me that people prefer to mix and match, rather than learn something properly. Why learn to do 20 things badly when you can do ONE THING RIGHT!!? 

Which are you? 

Dear Reader

The fact that you are reading this probably means that you are interested in learning a martial art- hopefully even learning silat. 

These days everyone seems to have a back story like X-Factor.. "I was mugged, bullied, attacked, so I learned how to fight so I could defend myself and then I developed this super secret art that I am gonna share with you.."

Mine isn’t like that. I grew up with huge amounts of energy. As a kid my mum would send me to run around the house 50 times, then another 50 times till she had had enough caffeine to wake up and sort things out. I couldn’t sleep if I wasn’t worn out. SO my parents enrolled me in every sport they could think of or find at those times.. I did Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, and Wing chun, as well as playing hockey to close to international standard, I ran for an hour twice a day in the holidays, and took up ballroom dancing..i even did tap dancing at uni, but that’s another story.. I did everything I could to get tired enough to sleep.. 

My martial arts journey took me as I said from judo, where I was too small , to TKD where I was too short, to Aikido, where I was too hard, to Wing Chun where I wasn’t Chinese.

Being an Asian kid growing up in the 70’s with punks and mods and skinheads roaming the streets like packs of T-Rexes, I was prey for these marauding gangs. That and the racial bullying at school made it very difficult to keep going. I realised, like Bruce Lee, that the arts to which I was exposed had their limitations, so I wanted to break free of the constraints of being a puny brown boy.   

Even back then I researched and found JKD and FMA but there was something missing for me.. (maybe not for everyone, but it had something missing FOR ME). I read an article by Jak O describing his style, and that set me off on my journey in silat. I am a very analytical person. When I realised that these arts wouldn't work for me, I looked at their respective weaknesses. When I found Silat I KNEW I had found the art I wanted. When I found PUKULAN.. OH MY LORD, it was like nothing I had ever experienced. I knew I wanted to fully understand this amazing art. One of the main issues for me is that silat is an art that allows for smaller people to overcome larger ones using angles and leverage. As an Osteopath I have a keen understanding and knowledge of the biomechanics of the body and used that skill to translate and decipher some of the techniques and principles of silat that get lost in the philosophy of “Just do it”.. To be honest I still love that idea, because people ask the “why?” before they try.. I invariably say “do it 100 times, then ask me!”, when I invariably get asked a different more enlightened and in depth question. 

I have been researching the body mechanics, training with some f the best martial artists and some of the keenest minds I know. My training partner Andy Smith (yes that’s his real name!) is a lawyer. He used to ask me great questions- perceptive in depth questions that clearly came from cross-examination!!  But the insights that gave us allowed us to develop and hone our skills. As we developed Pukulan Langkah Mati, we pressure tested various aspects and worked out the what, where, and why we do many things, making our art much more thought out than its predecessors. 

YOU could be struggling in the field of drilling techniques with no apparent purpose, or playing games with drills but unsure if what you do would work if tested. Have you reached a point in your martial arts training where you aren’t progressing, learning new things, developing your skills, but are just repeating forms and patterns. Do you feel like you are missing a component of your training? 

2 of my teachers reckoned they could improve your training whatever style it was.. Jak did that for a lot of people, and Pa Flohr took my skills and understanding to a whole new level of comprehension and function. I taught a seminar a few years ago, and afterwards we were in my hosts living room talking about his Ju Jitsu. Pa Flohr was a black belt in Ju, and he taught me how to walk out of many locks.. with a few principles. IN 10 minutes I has demonstrated this to my friend, and TAUGHT it to him. He said it blew away 10 years of ju jitsu training. IN 10 MINUTES. This is the type of skills I have been lucky enough to learn and want to share with you. 

Silat has become better known recently, with films like the Raid.. and…. The Raid 2.. but even the FMA based arts and films and tv programs are very similar to silat. The word is out there.. BUT apart from seminars, there are so few people out there teaching authentic silat from a recognised source.. 

For decades you have been led to believe that original Silat comes from Indonesia and the rest is not as good. I’m here to tell you you’ve been duped. Lincah was challenged in its early days, they EVEN went to Indonesia on a tour and took their art around and showed it off.. AND were challenged, and weren’t beaten.

Much of Malaysian silat is still taught as a combat art-traditional keris based duelling art. I see a lot of silat is technique based, and it ignores the seni as irrelevant arty waste. ITS NOT. If there is a secret in silat THIS IS IT. 

NOW there are a few other people who have gone out and trained in Malaysia and it is becoming better known. BUT YOU have the opportunity to train with the FIRST person to go to Malaysia to train silat and bring it back to Europe.. I have decoded some of the arts I have learned- 2 of the biggest and most effective..  

So Lincah went to Indonesia accepted challenges, and accepted the challenge from Karate in the 60's and also prevailed. It is not a mugs art. It is KNOWN for being a hard Pukulan art. Gayong Harimau, my original art has been re-branded, but I am still one of the original students who learned it in the UK.  My Pukulan teacher’s grading was to deliver a parcel to a friend of his teacher in another village.. On his way, he was attacked by several different people who, unbeknown to him were students of another teacher who were testing his skills. This devastating style, proven in street combat, has ALSO been incorporated into the system I want to teach you.

I have painstakingly unravelled the techniques of these 2 styles of silat, and the principles of the 3rd. I have combined them into a comprehensive combat system, and have build a syllabus around them that enables you to learn this new art with considerably LESS EFFORT and LESS cost than it took me. 

I travelled to Malaysia every year sometimes twice, training for a month at a time, learning the culture, traditions and techniques of the art, till the Maha Guru told me I had 99% of the art. I have learned from several Lincah Gurus combining EACH syllabus to create probably the most comprehensive syllabus of the most respected style in Malaysia. 

Adding this in to the street combat effectiveness of Gayong Harimau and the close in fighting of Pukulan creates a system that covers ranges, mechanics, physics, body mechanics, weapons, fight strategies and tactics and so much more from over 35 years training in silat.. While some try to synthesize the essence of a fighting form down to numbers, and strip away anything THEY see as inefficient, we have created a system that you can follow to make you effective, safe, and confident in any encounter from the office to the street. It remains an ART of fighting, holding to the rich heritage of the sources. 

As well as teaching you the techniques of the art- we teach you to COUNTER it too.. After all, there is no point in having a collection of flashy techniques that other people can do on you too, and not knowing how to deal with them. 

What I want to teach you ins NOT just a collection of techniques, but a true art, passed down from the Masters, codified, condensed, refined, and developed to face the new challenges of other cultures and peoples. We STILL hold to the traditions and culture of the ART, but have developed the technical fighting aspects to suit the way we want to do things. WE like, we think you will too!