Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s the Malay fighting style, Silat
I received an e-mail from a friend of mine the other week. “There’s a row on boards.ie about your martial arts column,” he gleefully typed, and sent along a link to the supposed debate raging on the popular website, which invites random web surfers to give their opinions on whatever floats into their consciousness.
When I logged on, I discovered something akin to a Martial arts for the uninitiated fan club. Sadly, the temptation to wade into the debate on the merits (or otherwise) of my weekly offering proved too strong to resist.
Naturally, things soon took a turn for the worse and the row my friend accidentally prophesied in an attempt to wind me up quickly came to pass. It seems some members of the martial arts community are of the opinion that I was a bit over-the-top in how I encouraged people to laugh at some of the martial arts I didn’t like – namely, the metropolitan swashbucklers in the iaido club, and the ninjitsu headers who had me playing hide-and-seek in the bushes around Bray Head.
I remained unrepentant, which meant the sickly, passive-aggressive barney I found myself in rumbled on – sucking in ever-increasing portions of my time as it did so. Things got to the stage where I was about to run away from the argument and never look back, when I suddenly noticed I had received a private message from another board user. I half expected it to be from one of the iaido guys, seeking to defend their honour by a sword fight at dawn, but it proved to be something far more useful.
The message was from a ‘guru’ named Liam McDonald, who runs classes in an eclectic Indonesian martial art called silat. Now, my mother always told me that if a friendly stranger should ever ask me to meet with them, particularly via the internet, then I should always accept their kindly offer – and I decided to take her advice.
As it turns out, Liam – who is a full-time martial arts instructor – operates all the silat classes available in Ireland, which run in Firhouse, Lucan, Blanchardstown and Walkinstown. The Walkinstown class is on Thursday nights at the Sheldon Park Lesuire Complex, down the road from the Kylemore Road Luas stop.
Now, despite the fact that I’ve been born and raised in Dublin and have been working or studying here since the Luas was opened, I have never been on it. It was initially just one of those things that I hadn’t got around to doing, but as the tram attracted massive numbers of commuters, it was starting to seem like I was the only one yet to give it a shot.
So after 20 minutes of gawking in wonderment at the triumph that is Dublin’s newest light rail system, I was off to the Sheldon Park. I sat down in the swanky health club’s lobby and started chatting to two guys dressed in the all-black garb that’s characteristic of silat practitioners. “Ah, you’re the guy Liam told us not to hit!” one announced after I introduced myself as a journo there to write about their class.
Shortly afterwards, Liam arrived. He turned out to be a really friendly guy who told me he has been instructing in silat since the early ’80s. After a quick rundown on the background to silat, I got changed and headed up stairs for the start of the class.
The 15–20 people (all but one of whom were men) in the small hall were all busy wrapping sarongs around their waists when I walked in. I’d done a bit of research on silat – which is a predominantly Malay martial art that involves striking, grappling, weapons training and pressure point fighting that, while designed for self defence, has also been adapted into a competitive form – so the use of the wrap-around skirts favoured by monks, hippies and David Beckham didn’t come as a surprise. What did shock me was the lesson in peer pressure the situation presented. I was the only bloke without a sarong. This made me want one.
We started off with a basic stretching routine before going into a bit of pad-work as a warm up. The combinations we used, which involved low kicks, open-hand slaps, knee strikes and elbows, were reminiscent of the pad-work practiced in Muay Thai – which originated, in geographical terms, just up the road from silat’s ancestral home – only minus the slaps.
Next, Liam demonstrated some blocking and counter-strikes which we then practiced on our partners, who rotated after each drill. We quickly moved onto yet more strikes and counter-strikes, this time with a number of arm-locks thrown in, which we practiced for the rest of the hour-long class.
Silat is an extremely distinctive martial art, marked out mostly by the odd, flowing hand movements that precede each strike or defence. It reminded me a bit of how ravers used to dance in the ’90s. That said, Liam was quick to point out that the movements – which are essentially a method of distracting the attention of the person you’re fighting – would generally last less than a second in a genuine situation before the opponent would be bombarded with a flurry of strikes in quick succession.
One of the key differences between striking in silat and in other martial arts is that silat practitioners seem to rely on the quantity of strikes rather than the quality. But while they might lack the knockout punch found in the likes of boxing, the hand-speed that silat’s followers generate by practicing elbow, forearm and hand strikes is something to behold. That said, when beginners do it, it looks a bit like a scrap between two 12-year-old girls flailing wildly at each other.
While I’m still a bit sceptical about the weird hand movements, Liam’s classes definitely have a lot to offer – there are usable techniques in silat, and his classes are enjoyable. Plus, if you go regularly, they might tell you where you can get one of those sarongs.
