Just started after all these years in Silat. My family style, which I just rediscovered. Interesting weapon to say the least, very deceptive.
I'll be interested to see the response to this. If I could add on another twist, I'm wondering how many people are doing silat material with it, versus kali material. My understanding is that it's primarily an Indonesian weapon, but it seems to crop up in kali quite a lot these days, probably due to cross-pollination by the likes of Guro Dan Inosanto (who introduced me to the weapon in the first place).
I am on the Kali side of the fence with it, looking at it as another pointy thing to play with. I generally dislike the false/icepick grip so don't work karambit as much as I probably would otherwise. That said I love watching guys like Doug Marcaida work with it, and my Assistant Coach P-Dog is a karambit fiend
We do. Lately it's been most of our focus. I do a blended Indonesian Silat system. Any kind of 'fistload' is deceptive. There's a miner's weapon called a 'Spar Hammer' used as a fistload in bareknuckle boxing training (not match fights but in the 'self-defence' side of things) that has the same idea behind it. And 'fork tines' held in the hand were long time used as peasant's weapons in Europe and elsewhere. Always thought of a Kerambit (surely used as an agricultural loading tool for rice-bailing?) as the weapon of the disadvantaged - women in peril, downtrodden peasants. Anybody looking for an equaliser with shock power.
Wow, that's a nasty looking weapon - certainly looks effective in his hands [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7TPa1eQ8w"]Karambit Blade Work With Doug Marcaida - YouTube[/ame]
I love the Kerambit as it easily complements most empty hand moves that I've studied. And when you have small hands like mine that gets sweaty during training, the ring really helps.
Mostly, but then I've heard some Silat people advocating putting poison on almost all bladed Silat weapons. Not really prudent imo...
Just to clarify, I had concentrated more on the Golok knife work. Just getting into the Kerambit aspects now, thus the intrigue...
I train with my uncle and our book as well as he is not as healthy as he used to be. Anyhow, the training is different than most other styles of Silat I've done. A lot of scenario based stuff because my grandad was actually attacked quite a bit for real, weapons at that. So the training is based a lot on dealing with surprise weapons attacks. Almost like what you see in the military SPEAR System etc... Especially with the Kerambit, a hidden weapon of sorts. Intriguingly, my family style keeps the Kerambit hidden from sight as much as possible and there isn't as much flashy twirling as you'd see in most videos. Of course there is the normal duelling sparring as well with mock knives. More alive training than usually is in very traditional Silat systems imho... At least from my experience.
Been training karambit since about 2009 now. Have carried one with me on ops and have found it to be a really useful bit of kit. Quick to deploy as well, which saved the bacon of me and a colleague last year! Can't recommend it enough