Videos, News, Pictures and Articles
PICTURES
Guru Derek Owings
My Teacher Guru Besar Jerry Jacobs
Grand Master of PCK International
Guru Derek being awarded a place on the
Board of Directors for PCK International
The Promotion to Guru Penglima in 2006
ARTICLES
"You dont have to be as fast or as strong as your opponent if you know how to strike, when and where to throw it and how to make it invisible."
"It is my goal to train you for a fight that pushes you to the limits mentally, physically and spiritually, and therefore requires any and all advantages we can take to make sure that we or our families are safe."
"Straight out of the jungles of Indonesia, our art is as beautiful as it is deadly. It is truly a fascinating gift from the mystical land of the Sundanese."
"To walk the path of a warrior only to train for the handful of physical confrontations you may encounter in your lifetime, while ignoring the other 99 percent of your life is to waste the gift that the ancestors of your art have given you."
"Sensitivity is the ability to always have your awareness everywhere at once. Even when one part of your body is in use, still to have sensitivity everywhere."
"At all times during your movement even during a strike or juru, that movement can be transformed and redirected into another strike or motion at will if you are relaxed untill the moment of impact."
"This type of movement keeps you in a constant state of potential attack. This fluid movement is the Pencak aspect of Pencak Silat that when combined with its more destructive counterpart creates a balance of relentlessness and the ability to get that destuctiveness to where it needs to be in an efficient and sophisticated manner."
"We use the evasiveness of the footwork, destructive and relentless fluid striking with every possible weapon on the body( hands, feet, fingers, wrists, elbows, forearms, etc.), decoying and the sensitivity to know when to employ these things to be able to create a situation where an opponent becomes immediately overwhelmed and disorented."
What Silat is to me
Silat is the voice of an ancient warrior civilization. It is a language, spoken with the fist, blade and the heart. One that when used in all areas of its practitioners lives brings an efficiency and gracefulness of movement, clarity of thought and devotion, and a sense of the strengthening of presence and the diminishing of ego.
Part of what drew me to Silat in the first place was the elusive energy that was obvious every time I walked into the school, yet I could never put my finger on what it was. It was a presence and I immediately noticed that not all that came in felt it at the same level of intensity. This art will draw you in. It will turn your body into steel and your heart into that of a warriors. It will also chew you up and spit you out if you are not cut out for the journey.
The art we practice is a gift from the Cimande Ancestors. It must always be treated that way. As a sacred heirloom with which we have been entrusted and are charged with representing. Silat is not about showing off or making a name for yourself. It is a tool. It is a mirror in which you can see your true self and improve all aspects of your life: How you carry yourself, how you interact with others, how you protect yourself and those you love, how you see yourself and the world around you.
PCK Silat has transformed every aspect of my life to the point where I know no other way. To immerse yourself in this art is a hard road, but all paths with heart are.
Making the art your own
In Silat there are 2 types of training that I would like to talk about. One is training based on learning Jurus and techniques, the other is training Concepts and Principals. Training Jurus is one of the most important aspects of our training, they are kind of like the letters of the alphabet with which we learn to spell. Training Concepts like using your Jurus in fluid, close quarters, using the animal styles, using weapons, open hand, moving forward, backward, on your back, with breathing or using just the core movement or idea from them can be like learning to use that alphabet to write sentences and then learning to speak other languages. Train both ways. Learning your jurus and 1000 techniques can be very helpful but learning to draw from their principals and concepts are what helps you to make up your own. This makes the art a part of you instead of something that you have memorized.
Using the Elements In Practice
In PCK Silat we teach of four elements. Water, Earth, Fire and Air. We also have 11 basic principals that when combined with the philosophy and energy of these elements and the four animals becomes the Naga or all of our animals,elements and principals combined.
One thing I like to do to help my students think outside the box, is to have them think of ways that the different elements can be used in combat and how they influence each other. Some techniques are water: fluid, downward flowing, adapting to what the opponent does. Others are fire, destructive and rapid moving. I like to show them how to combine the philosophy of the elements which can be kind of abstract, with the principals, which are pretty straight forward
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One of the main principals of PCK Silat is adhesion. Sticking to your opponent when it is necessary through footwork, with strikes or locks, to maintain your ground or to check a weapon for instance. But to take this principal a bit further I like to have my students imagine how each element can be applied to a principal. Heavy dragging type adhesion like earth. Fluid and sensitivity based adhesion like water, flowing around and sticking to a larger opponent maybe. Destructive relentless adhesion jumping from limb to limb like fire or maybe using the air element to place a light check on someone that they may not notice until you exploit the movements that they make.
Looking at the elements and principals in this way can lead to a better understanding of the art. Eventually you can use maybe the rooted, heavy and destructive adhesion of earth in your footwork while simultaneously using bamboo like water element adhesion in the upper body. Combining principals and elements seamlessly in this way is how we move with the Naga in PCK Silat.
There is no line where the physical and metaphysical separate in this art. They only appear to be separate. By learning to apply one to the other you can explore, find and destroy all limitations in your fighting and daily life by learning how to flow seamlessly from the most appropriate move to the next. Each strike in a fight or moment in your daily life will be an expression of one of the four elements. Learning to work with and balance these elements and live a balanced peaceful life is the goal of Pencak Silat.
Hit everything that moves
In Pukulan Cimande Kombinasi Pencak Silat we like to hit the limbs a lot. You will hear the term "hit everything that moves" thrown around often. When sparring you want to practice this as much as possible. Punch,kick, forearm, elbow, backfist, slap, crush, break, claw, pull and tear your path through your opponents limbs as you take over their space or evade. Use every available weapon on your body, employing the closest part to the closest limb of your opponents body. If you can reach something hit it. Damage the limbs before you try to pull off a take down. This is not to say you can't just crash in and crack someone and take them down, but if you keep that mindset to hit everything that moves you will always be ready if things on that takedown start to go bad. And throw those kicks. Students, watch the Bungha video we took and count how many kicks you throw. That is your longest weapon. Use it. Flow combinations of destructive lower body strikes together just like you go with your hands. Don't settle for perfecting kelid or kepruk sero, add something to it, more strikes, an elbow or animal mannerism. Make it better. And when you get good at that add something else like a compacting strike or poison hand blow. Grow, and let your jurus come alive. Then take them out in the field and beat the crap out of your training partner with them. Then learn from your mistakes and use your healing techniques. Selamat.
Being in a constant state of potential attack
I would like to elaborate a little bit on the use of slow bungha movement in Pukulan Cimande Kombinasi. In my last article I listed a few uses for this type of training. Now I would like to isolate a few to go more in depth with.
In combat you must move fluidly. You should be relaxed, your awareness spread out into your surroundings and you should be using movements that contain key elements from the art that are being strung together seamlessly. This type of movement keeps you in a constant state of potential attack. This fluid movement is the Pencak aspect of Pencak Silat that when combined with its more destructive counterpart creates a balance of relentlessness and the ability to get that destuctiveness to where it needs to be in an efficient and sophisticated manner.
Moving fluidly in between your strikes during combat is a way to link strikes together in a rapidly moving and ferociously destructive manner that does not require the usual strike/recoil style of hitting. Rather than a traditional recoil to a static stance, the strike is recoiled back into a state of fluid motion. The specific motion is chosen based on the feeling and sensitivity of the practitioner. Any fluid motion that is used is an expression of a particular strike, technique or posture.
Every move that you make that is relaxed contains within it the potential to be fluidly transformed into any other strike or juru at will. For instance any time that an opponents limb comes close enough to hit or intercept if you are in the middle of a motion that contains an inside or outside forearm twist, it could be turned into any strike that contains that core movement, such as a back hand speed punch, cross hit juru or thumb slice for example. Knowing the right time to use a certain strike and using that information to take advantage of an opening or situation is known as the principal of Timing
Every strike that we use contains some sort of core motion that gives it power and gets it to its target. At all times during your movement even during a strike or juru, that movement can be transformed and redirected into another strike or motion at will if you are relaxed untill the moment of impact. As well as for developing power, this is why we only tense at the moment of impact when we strike, so that if at any time another motion is more appropriate you will never be overly commited to any movement.
As well as learning the core motion and means of developing power for each juru or strike, you also will train the body to be able to sense or feel the most appropriate strike to deliver based on the motion that you are in at the time a certain technique is neccessary.This teaches the blending of timing and sensitivity. This will insure the strike you choose at that moment is the one that has the potential for the most power behind it. Long story short you can feel when a strike will be a solid strike. Knowing how to move in this way will make every strike a solid strike by giving you the sensitivity to always choose the best strike at the right time.
You can also use a fluid expression of a technique or strike to disguise it as a non threatening motion. This motion may be used to manipulate your opponents awareness, giving them a false sense of your intent, feeding them a false sense of what is really happening. You can feed them false information, give them a false sense of distance, a false sense of which direction your body or a strike is headed. This leads to the principal of indirect hitting which is an extention of one of the core principals in PCK Silat, which is deception. You keep your opponent in a constant state of confusion by never making your movement obvious or readable. All Silat is known for this type of deceptiveness.
Timing, Sensitivity and Deception are principals at the core of PCK Pencak Silat. When blended together they can make a opponent feel absolutely ineffective in every way, as if you were constantly a move ahead of them. And you are, because you are telling them where and when to strike at you, what strikes to throw and constantly making them over commit causing imbalance, by creating their awareness of the fight for them. Once they get caught in that web, even a little, they just become prey. We use the evasiveness of the footwork, destructive and relentless fluid striking with every possible weapon on the body( hands, feet, fingers, wrists, elbows, forearms, etc.), decoying and the sensitivity to know when to employ these things to be able to create a situation where an opponent becomes immediately overwhelmed and disorented. We can use timing and sensitivity to get in and deceptiveness to make sure that even simplest of techniques can be performed because they had no idea it was coming.
Moving in with a combination of fluid and destructive allows your Silat to have realistic effectiveness in combat. You can't just fluctuate BETWEEN fluid and destructive, your fluid movements must BE DESTRUCTIVE, only with that destructiveness hidden. Otherwise you are giving a decoy stance and then when the opponent punches your lack of knowledge of your stance will make you just a sitting duck. Anyone with real power would blow right through this type of movement.
If you can blend the fluid and destructive together into something new you will be very difficult to read, and much more difficult to trick. You dont have to be as fast or as strong as your opponent if you know how to strike, when and where to throw it and how to make it invisible. Using Bungha to learn to understand the real core movements of the art gives you a great tool. It teaches you to stay in motion, which allows you to be faster, have more of an economy of movement and energy, to be more adaptable and more sensitive than your opponent. Even the slightest amount of motion is enough. Through this movement you keep yourself in a constant state of potential attack. Ready to employ everything in your arsenal at any given time in any direction, at any range or height level by having all of your guns already drawn so to speak.
I hope this helps a little bit. I dont claim to be an expert on anything, all I can do is give advice from my own personal training and experience and hope it helps you better understand what you already have. Have a great holiday season and DON'T EAT TOO MUCH!
Bungha: The fluid aspect of our movement
Bungha or flower dance movement has many purposes in our training I am going to list a few to help give you a few ideas:
- helps a student to detach from their movements by moving fluidly in almost a moving meditation type state helping to imbed them into the subconscious
- Teaches you how to capture your opponents awareness through deceptive fluid movements
- will allow you to express your techniques in an unrestricted creative expression that can lead you to realize an unlimited amount of applications
- teaches you by moving slowly and fluidly where the means of developing power are found within a certain movement
- helps you to learn to flow a constantly adapting stream of strikes together which can translate to adaptation and spontaneity in combat
- builds tenaga dallam
- can help you to learn what you can and can not do as far as follow ups or other strikes by exploring the openings or advantages of each individual position at any moment during the movement
- helps you to learn to breath correctly with your strikes and parries
- helps you to learn to use indirect vision while moving
- bungha is the most beatiful aspect of silat and can help you to learn how to disguise the destructive aspects in a cloak of deceptiveness
- can start to teach you to flow hands and feet simultaneously
- can be an expression of 1 or all animals or elements and can be therefore a practice of an isolated idea or free flowing movement between all of them
These are only a few ideas to get you started. Hopefully this will help you to see the value of the softer side of the art, which is the means to delivering strikes without needing them rely on just speed or strength, but giving you the gift of deception. The ability to hit someone and just have them not be there to block it because they have been decieved by your movements. It will give you the ability to send strikes out disguised by a flow of movements that destroy an opponents ability to keep his awareness on the reality of what your intentions are, because you are feeding him false information and unpredictability constantly.
