But You Guys Dance!

Pencak Silat has always been known for deadly grace. Never have I seen Pencak Silat been called awkward or stiff or robotic. Dance on the other hand requires coordination, grace, power and intelligence to remember what to do next. Remember in College how the geeks who could not dance always made fun of those who could, but who got the girls???

Even Pro football players have been asked to study various dance classes to try and give them more ability to move on the field. Sadly some bumbling types will never get it.

Now the thing in Pencak Silat is you have to have the gray matter to be able to keep the grace and power working while fighting and remembering the moves at the same time. Some can do it and those who can’t chew gum and walk at the same time need not apply.

Over the years I have had a few types of students those truly gifted who can cross the gap between art and fighting and make it as one, those who can move pretty well until they have to fight someone and those who could never figure out how to move at all no matter what. The middle group is the saddest as these ones "LOOKED" the part but since they never figured out how to fight with it went away looking for some other way and saying well it is just dance.

Hmmm…. the Indonesians who recently all across Java were lost in sparring session after sparing session may disagree. But here is the thing the dance is what makes us different, better and supremely DEADLY.

Speaking of Dancing what about Mohammed Ali? Recognized as one of the greatest fighters of all time, his motto was move like a butterfly and sting like a bee. According to Eddie Jafri, Ali went to Indonesia and had his rib broken by a Silat player that gracefully moved in and out of his reach until landing the telling blow. Ali developed his snapping blows from this experience according to Jafri. Either way, Ali was known as a Dancer and, oh yea the greatest boxer of all time. He was not known as a plodder or a slugger, he did not need to bring a weapon with him in the ring because he learned to use his body as a whip and dance around his plodding opponents until he beat them silly. Ali was also a very smart man and fighter so this kind of intelligent art appealed to him. Others like Chuck Wepner ridiculed him as a dancer and kept bleeding and loosing to him all the while. Take your choice Wepner or Ali.

If you can’t dance just get a stick, or some other weapon or some other Pencak Silat that is more like karate,  but leave Pukulan Cimande Pusaka.

WE LOVE OUR DANCE AND CONSIDER IT A BIG COMPLIMENT.

Pendekar Sanders