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World fighters join first global pencak silat festival
The festival, the first ever, was not a competition but aimed to present the best of the world’s pencak silat schools.
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A pair of Malaysian fighters present silat pulut, a slow silat art, during the 2019 World Pencak Silat Open Festival in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in Jakarta on March 31. (JP/Suherdjoko)
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s many as 398 fighters from 12 countries participated in the 2019 World Pencak Silat Open Festival double-art games held at the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah cultural park in Jakarta on Sunday and Monday.
The festival, the first ever, was not a competition but aimed to present the best of the world’s pencak silat schools.
The participating countries were Suriname, Thailand, India, Italy, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos and Indonesia. Indonesian fighters participating in the event came from 10 large martial art schools in 24 provinces.
All acts were presented with the accompaniment of music played on traditional percussion instruments like gendang, saron and gongs. However, fighters were allowed to bring in their own recorded music to match their own martial arts movements.
National presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, who is also the chairman of the Indonesia Pencak Silat Association (IPSI) and president of the International Pencak Silat Federation, officially opened the event on Sunday night.
“We wish to promote pencak silat as a sport and also as a philosophy, a way of life,” Prabowo said in English, adding that pencak silat promoted friendship, brotherhood and sisterhood.
Malaysia brought in four fighters for the competition, according to its team manager Mohamad Jasiman. They took the men’s and women’s double matches, he said.
“We are glad to be able to fight in Indonesia,” said Jasiman, who claimed to be descended from Javanese people.
Suriname fighter Kalidjo Rakimin, who speaks Javanese fluently, expressed the same excitement.
“Pencak silat grows well in Suriname. We have many schools there. I am glad to be able to come here. It turns out there are many Indonesians capable of speaking Javanese,” he said. During the colonial era in Indonesia, the Dutch administration sent Javanese sugar plantation workers to Suriname: hence the shared heritage.
The World Pencak Silat Open Festival is to be integrated with the World Pencak Silat Championship in Malaysia in 2020.
Among the hundreds of contestants, two fighters from the US, Anna Slage and Cassandra Morris, stole the spectators’ attention as they accompanied their performances with rock and roll music by the Australian heavy metal group AC/DC.
When both fighters entered the arena, the crowds waited to see the movements that the Americans would demonstrate, but it turned out that the real surprise came from the music in the background. “We choose rock and roll band AC/DC as Americans are very familiar with the music,” Slage said.
Morris and Slage not only managed to attract the crowds with their musical choice, both they also showed a high skill for people who had just began training in pencak silat. Each fighter took turns to attack, defend and display their abilities dodging an opponent’s attacks.
Morris and Slage train in the same martial arts schools: Perguruan Inti Ombak (Inner Wave). Morris has been learning the sport for two and half years while Slage has only been training for a year. “This is my first time taking part in a pencak silat festival. This is interesting. I enjoy it a lot,” Slage said.
After the performance, Morris and Slage were immediately approached by other participants and fans, including a 5-year-old child, for pictures. Both fighters looked happy with the warm response.
The team manager, who is also the president of the US Sport Silat Association, Jacob Richter, told the Post that pencak silat has grown in the US with 25 silat schools in 15 states. Richter said the US would form a national team to compete in the world championship next year in Malaysia.
Pencak silat coach Tri Susilo Haryono of IPSI said that the open festival did not seek champions but a presentation of art. Art, he said, could only juxtapose, not compete. All artists have their own specific characteristics, he said.
“Through this festival the characteristics of each school can be presented optimally. We have to appreciate it so that the martial arts science can be preserved,” he added.
