I am at an "Inosanto school" (in other words, my teacher is a long-time Inosanto student, and has been certified by Dan. I do silat there. I was just wondering, what you guys think, about mixing silat with other martial arts. For example, I have just started silat, and have a bit of JKD and kali experience. I was just wondering what you think about doing silat at the same time that I do, say, kali. My instructor told me to do 6 months just of silat, but I am already doing JKD in the hour immediately before silat. It would be "so easy" to just "cross over" and do kali. But I don't know if it makes sense. Maybe I should keep the silat "pure" and just do that. Maybe I should do kali-silat, etc. I am a bit unsure on that. Anyone have any ideas on that ?
If you're determined to mix in another art with Silat, then Kali is a better fit than most others. Kali is a good fit to compliment any art and it also certainly stands on its own. However, if you are just starting in Silat it would be better to focus on Silat for a while and do as your instructor recommended.
I'd say that, more than anything else, the answer to this depends on you. Focusing on one thing for a while - at least until the rudimentaries are understood - is usually a good idea. But if you're a person who can assimilate both separately then training both shouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't recommend trying to blend the two until you have a solid foundation in one or the other. I would recommend, though, that you choose one as your primary or your core. Look at the others as supplemental to that core. Which one you choose as a core depends on which one you feel works best for you or which one you just enjoy training more (which often implies that it suits you better). Mike
My advice is as pesilat. If you start something, commit to learning the basics first. I would not encourage you to "mix" silat with anything else. When a person teaches a system that they have spent years studying and trying to perfect, passes it down to people, after many hours of gruelling conditioning and going through the lesser interesting aspects (drills, jurus (forms), footwork, etc.) it is disrespectful to simply take techniques or bits and bobs as you please. You will also find that the bits you take will not simply "slot" into other systems you may be trying to incorporate it into. I have seen people do this before, and what they were left with was a mish-mash of sloppy techniques that didn't flow from one to the next, as they were changing from Silat principles, to bjj principles, to Thai Boxing principles etc. If you want to cross-train, then so be it, but don't "mix" things in, as you are really doing both the arts and yourself an injustice. Cheers, Wali
I also train at a school where we train in kali, silat, jkd,muay thai what I like is in the beginig we built the foundation for each art indivdualy and have class's for each art indivdualy to understand and respect each art but also slowly begin to intergrate and learn let the arts complment each other.
Mike and Wali are right. There's some difference of opinion as to whether wide and shallow is better than narrow and deep. But everyone with some skill agrees that you need a firm foundation in your base. The most eclectic JKD Concepts teachers don't just throw out random bits and pieces. Their early phase programs have an internal logic and goals that you need to achieve before you are ready to do more.
silat Thanks. I think what I am going to do is, have silat-serak as my "core" system, because it is so good, and then go to kali occassionally. They also have JKD. I don't think that those systems contradict one another either. In fact, our teacher last night said, silat-serak is very aggressive and offensive-minded (no retreating !), and the JKD people find that it fits very well with JKD, because of that attacking mentality.
I am learning the arts of JKD, kali and silat (buka jalan pentjak silat) all at the same time, however i started learning them at the same time, and it is important to set a base for all of them. These arts seem to compliment each other very very well and i can flow from one to another without any hinderance in drills or sparring.. i do use JKD as my base but that is just me..
Silat - Jkd - Kali You can deffinetly find similarity in Kali, JKD , Silat But if you really want to get good at Silat... You should focus on just Silat. If you dig deep enough in your own art of Silat you will find all you need to succeed in defending yourself. You wont or don't have to forget what you learned before. If you are studying a system like Wali Songo or Serak or any system that has both an internal and external way of looking at things you will be studying a lot of structural integrity in your body positions and this will make you understand what will or will not work in combat. Body position and structure is a big piece of the puzzle. Unless you are 100% aware for your body , alignment, structure, you will be relying on Muscle and force to use your art. Also if your structure in hitting sucks you will be injuring your shoulders and back in time. Which means as you get old you wont have that same kind of power to defend yourself and all your years of training are now fruitless. But you want to aim to be like the old masters who use 4 ounces of pressure to kick your ass. And still can execute their art even at the age of 90. Cross training has its place and is important. But if you understand the lines of attack, body position and structure , timing, footwork, angles, and be able to apply them standing, kneeling, sitting, lying, on the toilet, on the ground you don't need to be crosstraining cause you are covering all ranges. Fighting is Fighting it has no style per say. This doesn't mean you don't train but find the art that suites you and make that your base. Dive deep into it. For me personally I noticed that when I decided to go 100% into Silat , it made it easier for me to understand other arts because it is 100% principle based. Any good art that is principle based will make you a good martial artist if you train regularly and analyze everything with in it. Anyhow bottom line if you do SILAT do it all the way. The art teaches you! - santi
