I can find their video clips, but i see no sign of their website. Did they have to fold? Are they not teaching or selling DVD's anymore?
found this, Notice to Members and Friends Salam Alaikum / Peace Be Upon You After much thought and deliberation, myself and the governing board of SMI have decided to terminate Silat Mubai International as an organization. Over the past two years I mistakenly allowed myself to be dragged into political debate and with time SMI as an organization became politicized and dragged in aswell. This was a mistake. It is a mistake which has led to our Silat, Chivalry teachings, and students being backbenched while political rambling, slander, and arguing has taken the front seat. I did not work the last 15 years of my life on this Silat to have it turned into an object of dejection and horror, rather the opposite was intended. So to keep to the original mission objectives of SMI which are to promote traditional Muslim Fighting Arts, Chivalry and Warrior Ethos, the decision has been made to destroy SMI and start fresh. Silat Mubai as a system will remain intact but will receive a name change to Pencak Silat Sharaf. The last word "Sharaf" meaning honour in the Arabic language. This was chosen to respect those who came before us who left this great heritage for future generations to benefit from. The Silat Tarab which trained the core combatives of Silat Mubai will remain intact without change as a it was before, a quickly learned reality based self defense system. Those persons who were enrolled in our Emir programs or any courses with us, your work will be forwarded on to the new system. The training curriculum will remain the same. We still teach one of the toughest and most functional systems of Silat on the planet. That will not change either. For future correspondences please email us at email address removed as per the ToS and visit the new school site at www.cogtactical.com Your hard work and dedication is much appreciated and respected. Wasalam / Sincerely Ustaz Hussein Udom
Ah yes, i think i remember. Those bloody damn 2006 invasion of lebanon. Those crazy right winger exptremists attacking you. I remember that. And ironically, non-muslims who opposed isreal invading lebanon did not get the stigma you guys did. (look folks, befcore we drag too much politics into this, Im just pointing out a double standard that RUINED THESE GUYS REPUTATION WRONGLY for stuff most people say anyway without anything bad happening.. Im not trying to be anti-isreal in any way, simply pointing out an injustice toward them) Salam. I hope you stilll sell some DVDs.
It was never their intention to get into politics? Hmm let me see now they dressed in military uniforms in many of their videos, often started their videos showing Arab weapons (has nothing to do with Silat) and Arab/Muslim military fighters (has nothing to do with silat) played unusual music which was of Arabic origin (has nothing to do with silat)…I knew it would attract the wrong people because their videos looked like some kinda jihad training camp! In other words I it looked a bit dodgy from the very beginning! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDDV0SWSGu4"]silat mubai - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKBS9bL64d8"]Silat Sharaf 2007 Nasheed Intro - YouTube[/ame]
I think Silat is part of his background in what he crossed trained in. IN reality it really is alot like FMA then it is Silat(though lots of muslims do silat for obvious reasons) As for the military uniforms: Basically 6 out of 10 people I know who do Filipino martial arts are wannabe military men, they wear military clothing, often play with guns. They are either light weight militia men or militant anarchist types. Basically look at how reality based self defense people often promote themselves as, military types. And if you look at Silat Mubais advertising style, it appeals to Islamic 'nationalism' and military self defense types. It's no different from Krav Maga videos and teachers who dress like soldiers and have this whole star of david thing. Their videos look like IDF training camp stuff. NOthing wrong with Krav Maga practioners doing this. I believe they can market any way they want. So why is it wrong for Silat Mubai to do the same thing? And what arabic weapons are being shown in these clips? Looks like Knifes and sticks and guns. Not really arab style.
good point Ahmed. how many martial arts training vids use some kind of elite military group-- navy seals, spetznaz, mossad-- to give their "reality-based" system credibility? It's all just marketing, isn't it? They suggest that by buying and training with these tapes, you can be as deadly as one of these elite warriors. But the reality faced by soldiers in a war zone is not the same as the reality of self-defense for civilians, right? For example, stabbing an unarmed opponent after you have neutralized him (knocked him out/choked him out) like in the video could get you sent to prison for using disproportionate use of force causing death.
AAAhmed46 At the very beginning of the first video to set the flavour before the silat is even shown a selection of Arab weapons are shown and an old photo of an Arab military person, these have absolutely nothing to do with silat in any way! Its like showing a African bush man and tribal spears before showing a tai chi demonstration…exactly! in no way connected. As for the music lets imagine somebody doing Shaolin kung fu to Irish fiddle music…exactly! What have these things got to do with each other? As for the military uniform and the use of guns not really bothered by that, times change and weapons change, things have to evolve to remain practical in todays world. But to then say Oh well we really are just about Silat and in no way political/religious…what a laugh! Was that not their aim from the beginning? ie to steal Indonesian history and somehow attribute it to Arabs, Muslims…and if not why the Arab weapons, military persons ,music and mention of the warrior prophet Mohammad (who never knew a single silat move/jurus)…exactly it should be clear to you what the intention was and is.
The website claims that they teach people of all faiths/backgrounds asking only that they show respect to Islam. Fair enough. But, it also says: (emphasis added) The Muslim world is made up of many different cultures; their martial traditions are likewise very diverse. It feels wrong to me to present this martial art as representing all of these peoples w/o recognizing the specific groups (minangkabau, sundanese, malaysian, mindanao, etc...) from where the techniques come from. there is also a broad spectrum expressing faith throughout the Muslim world. I feel it is wrong to turn all of the silat practioners in Southeast Asia into pious Muslims who pray five times a day. In fact, Indonesians are more likely to study Karate, Akido, Tae Kwon Do, etc..., rather than silat because the former are seen as more prestigious (upper class) and, in contrast to silat, are taught openly.
Being from Malaysia, I can safely say that THAT is not Silat. At least not the way we know of it here in Malaysia.
The truth is that Arabs don’t have a martial art so what exactly did they add to silat? Its all fiction what these people are promoting. Like afrocentrists trying to steal the ancient Egyptians achievements and reassign it to a different people. Its all over the world though, you have people teaching “African yoga” basically rip-off Indian culture and rebrand it as African knowledge or invent something and say it is ancient. Now I understand why some of the Chinese masters refuse to teach non-Chinese people, they probably know that they will rip it off and rebrand it.
Careful Narrue. Your analysis is important, but let's try and keep it respectful please. Critique all the technical aspects you like, but let's not turn this into a critique of any particular culture. Your technical points stand on their own merits.
I would say Arab Martial tradition consists mostly of wrestling and some rudimentary boxing. Wrestling for sure, as there are countless references of it. I would say about Silat, we know it predates the time when the dutch and ottoman traders landed in indonesia/malaysia. But martial exploration of Silat continued well after they were around. While silat is not arab, you did have muslim silat practitioners keeping the tradition going, many silat styles having arabic terms in their style names. IE like this: Suffian(Abu Suffiyan was one of the sahaba, clearly arabic) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB1QegAS2oU&feature=g-all-u&context=G2b07686FAAAAAAAACAA"]Silat Suffian Bela Diri - Restraining & Joint Dislocations - YouTube[/ame] That said, yes that video was trying to show a turkish/arab connection to silat as a fighting style. Of course, stylistically really they didn't add much. HOWEVER, look at Krav Maga again. IS krav maga a jewish martial art or is it just like Silat Mubai, grabbing a bunch of styles, military combat courses and then patching it together into something else? Did pre-jesus jews practice this? Or even after jesus died? Or was it after ww2 was krav maga created. Saying Krav Maga is jewish because the creators were jewish. YEt we call krav maga a jewish martial art because the practitioners were jewish. The constant usage of the isreali flag in alot of the videos also can be percieved the same as the Silat mubai guys. What is Silat Mubai doing so different that they are not? They wanted to grab the attention of a demographic(muslims) and they used such methods. Besides, saying Silat mubai isn't muslim because teh MUSLIM men who made it borrowed it from 'non-muslim' fighting styles is like saying that Krav Maga isn't really jewish because they borrowed from a bunch of non-hebrew cultures. Despite the images shown, they never claimed it's some old arab silat fighting style. AGAIN i will talk about showing the star of david in a krav maga video. The creators of Krav Maga have EVERY RIGHT to claim that jewish heritage is teh inspiration of their fighting style. THey worked hard at it, jews contributed in it's creation, whether or not they studied an 'ancient hebrew style' or not. And the fact they don't claim it has roots in ancient jewish martial arts makes it all the more credible to me.
Why call it Silat Mubai? Just give it an Arabic name... That will market it better to their target market methinks... Btw, I'm sure that there are pure Arab Martial Arts... Sword, spear fighting and archery... From horse back even... They did have lots of wars in their time. The wrestling was more the sport they did from what I've seen, but could also be seen as a Martial Art... Why call it Silat is my question? Strange...
Yeah good question. Though, probably because of his background in silat and FMA. But I personally would go for another name myself.
Yeah I'm not sure I would refer to Krav Maga as a Jewish martial art as much as it would an Israeli martial art. I would think a better comparison for Krav Maga would be Kajekenbo which is fairly modern and an American blend of martial arts. I don't know anything about Silat Mubai but perhaps the analogy fits that as well. If that is the case then it doesn't strike me as what I know of Silat but would certainly work for a broader context definition of Silat that I have seen posted here before.
Silat is not a muslim art. Yes a large proportion of muslims practice it but the art was there long before the muslim faith. Putting any religion into any art does not improve it.
As a silat aficionado, I can tell you for sure that silat was heavily influenced by Indian martial arts. I've studied some of the earliest Sumatran systems that spread east across the Indonesian archipelago and the Malay world--Islam came later with Indian Muslim traders from Gujarat. On Java, there is a definite Chinese influence on many silat systems. As for Mubai and Islam...silat is today considered a Muslim system in both Indonesia and Malaysia and many teachers will not teach outsiders (especially non-Muslims). Many teachers will vehemently deny the Indian influence on early silat. Islamic militancy is a major issue in modern Indonesia today. I was out there last year and saw a massive mural for Bin Laden (in his camouflage even) on a truck right in the heart of Jakarta.
Yes, on my own until I see my Guru in Malaysia next! He was formerly based here, but moved to KL for a job opportunity.
