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Style Highlight: Pencak Silat

In my last style highlight, I talked a little bit about the “origin” of martial arts. Basically, I said that forms of combat, armed and unarmed, have existed as long as human conflict has existed.

Last time, we looked a bit at Kalaripattayu, an Indian martial art. Pencak silat, or just silat, is considered an umbrella term for Indonesian martial arts. Meaning that there are a lot of styles which fit into silat.

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Tournament Forms: It’s All in the Details

Tournament forms are all about the details. Check out this video of Rika Usami (a world tournament forms champion). She’s doing Kosokun Dai. She does a few of the moves slightly differently than in our Seito Shito-ryu Karate version, but that’s not important for now.

What is important is to watch her presence in the ring and sense of timing. This is a form that is performed at a very high level, with 100% attention to detail. Nothing is out of place and there is no wasted motion. She is totally focused on her imaginary opponents, and you can tell that she’s winning the imaginary fight.

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Karate Bunkai: Jion

One of the things I do a lot (probably too much) is watch martial arts videos on YouTube. I watch a lot of form tournament competitions, but I also really like to watch Karate bunkai videos.

Karate bunkai (or bunhae in Korean) means analysis or application. Bunkai partner drills involve using moves from a form to defend against an attacker.

I’d like for our students who read the blog, as well as whoever is interested, to take a look at this video. It is bunkai (bunhae in Korean) for the Shotokan-ryu Jion, and it is a very good video with useful information.

Then I have a few notes on Jion for those of us who are interested in and research forms lineage.

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Style Highlight: Kalaripattayu

Today I have a video clip with related commentary for you. I spend a lot of time watching forms and training videos on Youtube, and there’s certainly a wealth of information to be found and shared. Hope you enjoy a little something different!

As always, *please* do not to attempt to imitate anything from this site, all of its pages, or from anything we link to/from.

This video showcases Kalaripayattu, an Indian martial art. What I like is that Kalaripayattu utilizes the attacker’s momentum against them in a very fluid manner. I can also see movements that are very similar to some of our Arnis techniques, which shows the probable influence of Kalaripayattu on the rest of southeast Asia.

A lot of people consider Chinese Kung Fu the beginning of martial arts, but in reality, there were all kinds of arts all over the world, including southeast Asia.