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Jakarta Post

Tarung derajat looking for bigger stage

Tarung derajat, West Javan martial arts, will enter the international arena as an official event at the 2013 SEA Games in Myanmar

Agnes Winarti (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, November 13, 2011

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Tarung derajat looking for bigger stage

T

arung derajat, West Javan martial arts, will enter the international arena as an official event at the 2013 SEA Games in Myanmar.

“With the support of eight ASEAN countries, we are confident that tarung derajat will be an official competition in Myanmar,” Achmat Drajat, alias A.A. Boxer, the 63-year-old creator of tarung derajat, said on Thursday.

For a sport to be accepted as an official the SEA Games event, it needs support from at least four countries.

The host of the next games, Myanmar, also supported featuring the sport in the biennial games.

“The heads of state from both of our countries have agreed to make tarung derajat an official event at the 27th SEA Games in Myanmar,” said Myanmar tarung derajat team manager San Hlaing on Thursday.

Hlaing revealed that Myanmar’s head of state, Col. Thein Nyunt, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had both taken a diplomatic approach to promoting the sport that originated in Bandung, West Java.

Tarung derajat will be introduced at the 26th SEA Games on Sunday and Monday at Hall A and Hall B of the Senayan Basketball Court in Jakarta.

The exhibition offers six gold medals — four in men’s events and two in women’s events. As many as 148 competitors from eight countries will participate in the exhibition: Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, Laos and Malaysia.

Achmat Drajat said that the name tarung derajat came from the Indonesian word tarung, which means to fight, and derajat, which means honor.

“I used to live in a harsh environment where people bullied me,” Achmat said. “In 1968, I started developing tarung derajat as a form of martial arts to help people defend themselves. The core of tarung derajat is in the reflex movements that all human beings naturally possess when defending themselves.”

After establishing his tarung derajat academy, which was named the Indonesian Boxer or Bela Diri A.A. Boxer in 1972, the martial art was acknowledged by the Indonesian Sports Council (KONI) as a competitive sport in 1997.

Tarung derajat has been an event at the National Sports Week (PON) twice — at the 2008 PON in East Kalimantan and the 2004 PON in Palembang, South Sumatra.

Today, tarung derajat claims 10 million followers and has its own International Federation of Tarung Derajat.

Thai tarung derajat coach Anuchit Sathit acknowledged that the martial art had blossomed in his country, as proven by the many muaythai boxers who were switching to tarung derajat.

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