A Student's Journey

Monday, 01 April 2013 14:27

by guest writer Brendan Lanza

I have been involved with silat for a number of years now; it is a passion and a way of life. My background included other martial arts as well. I have seen a number of teachers and have been in a number of sparring matches in my time. I came to Malaysia in an attempt to find out more about how modern silat was progressing, first hand, in the “cradle of silat,” (Southeast Asia) so to speak. 

To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. There are some amazing silat practitioners here and in Indonesia as well, however they are becoming fewer and fewer, many of the local youth don’t even know what silat is. This is a result of the “Kampung mentality” where many of the locals of the previous generation, parents of the present generation, felt that silat was a village art and favoured sending their kids to learn TaeKwonDo or Karate. The Chinese community here also seldom celebrates its kung fu styles from their homeland. In the past few years I have only seen one school that teaches Wushu and one program in a national school that teaches amateur Wushu as well. This is surprising as 30% of this country is in fact Chinese.

In the first months of my arrival I felt very down about this, but I was content enough to seclude myself to practicing my Cimande and Sera which are deadly pencak silat arts in their own right. This is when I met Guru Scott McQuaid and was introduced to Silek Harimau Minangkabau from the Richard Carbbe de-Bordes lineage. How I met him and how he came to know that I practice silat is a matter that I won’t go into here as I explain it elsewhere. Suffice it to say that my Cimande teacher told me to seek him out because what he does is quite “real,” and our groups are quite friendly with each other. How this came to happened is not for here and now, but I will tell you about what I found when I went to my first training session with Guru Scott and how I was introduced to his dark art.

Upon first viewing the opening of the class I was a bit surprised at how long it was and how much respect and time was put into this endeavour. I later learned that there are many secrets to be learned in just the opening of the class; once again I won’t go into this right here. That is something reserved for only the initiated into the art, receivers of the Dark Gift, something which requires one too many broken bones and much blood and sweat for a slip of the tongue on any of its secrets to be likely.

In the class I expected a technique to be explained and then drills to come about. I was met with a very big surprise. The teaching process was like this:

• A technique was explained in a minute or two.
• You were shown how to do a movement, twice.
• You had to perform it several times in real time or you would literally be knocked out or crippled.
• You better follow up with something or you would be hit with something else.
• Go back to step one.

Oh yeah, all five of these steps will not last more than one or two moves when in combat. I had found what I had been looking for. Since that day Guru Scott didn’t need to keep track of me, I was asking him for the next lesson. I have now been learning from him for the past couple of years, and it has never slowed down, been less respectful or secretive a practice, or been a painless (this part is a given, believe me) learning experience.

Guru Scott is a master of combat, and he is a good teacher, through combat. This is how he learned, and how his teacher learned. If you meet him on a regular basis you are not aware of who he is in the Padepokan (silat school). This is like Batman and Bruce Wayne, there is no comparison.

In real life he is a witty, smiling, talented and amiable person. In the Padepokan he doesn’t talk much, only laughs if you try something stupid or incredibly ineffective, and generally communicates with his eyes. There is a lot of communication of the eyes in this lineage. You don’t look at your opponent's eyes, but your eyes say a lot, yet reveal nothing. Your intent is everything. You are not yourself, you are something else, or perhaps this is you and the regular person you meet every day is someone else. Those who have met Scott in both places, or any of his long time students will understand this concept, those who haven’t only think that they do. Those in the know don’t try to describe it, I think that what I have just written is the best possible way to put it into English. We don’t communicate in English so much in Harimau, we communicate in instinct and reflex, like tigers do. This is a great gift that Guru Scott knows how to deliver well to his students.

Silat has a number of philosophies, silat styles with animal movements in them tend to have an animistic influence, which sets it apart from other martial arts in general. You are not trying to learn forms, you are trying to become the art, it is a state of being and a set of reflexes. It’s a predator mentality. Harimau is the embodiment of such a philosophy. If you hear someone is a good fighter, you want to test them, in order to test yourself. You will have the speed of a cat, the wallop of a bull, and the eyes of a tiger. This is Silek Harimau Minangkabau from the de Bordes lineage, and it is not for everyone.  It will try and test you in a number of ways, but if you master its path you can apply its blunt philosophy to a number of things in your daily life. It is not an art to teach you something, it is a gift that will teach you to become something, this is something that you have to achieve yourself. You can only understand what this gift is through the blood and sweat, not through certificates and formalized tests and training regimens. Every lesson is a test, and you don’t know if this test is one that you will pass to make it to the next lesson/test. This is why we are few in number and we maximize the few. This is how Guru Scott McQuaid taught me and how I’ve been initiated into the art of Silek Harimau Minangkabau from the de Bordes lineage.

We have a lot of “visitors,” martial artists from various backgrounds like Wing Chun, Capoeira, Karate, etc. They always come thinking they want to test the teacher to see if he’s good enough to teach them or if he’s got something better than what they’ve got. They always lose, and get hurt, claiming they will come back and that they have never seen anything like this art before. I would say that only 1 of 10 actually return for a second lesson, and half of them return beyond that. They just don’t have the endurance or mentality required, or the tolerance for pain. If they make it past the third lesson then they may make it to the first year. So many don’t even get that far and if they do, there’s no promise of a certificate or belt. The art demands a lot of you, but it can give you back so much more. Only the true warrior will be able to receive such a gift, and in today’s world there are few warriors left. It matters not, because every teacher of this art would not bastardize it as to give it to someone who hasn’t paid their dues, the Minangkabau way. The art will die as a legend before it goes in the hands of the unworthy.

Self defense is a bi-product of what you learn, not actually the main idea. We always say we teach Bela Diri mainly, though not in the conventional sense of the word. We teach you to attack your opponent's attack, in a way you are taught to rip through your opponent as if you were attacking them in the first place even if it were the other way around. To perfect this methodology you must go through trial and error in your application, and this means you will be injured mildy if you are good, severely if you are not. This is why we all get “good.” There are no incapable players in the Black Triangle Silat tribe. We are a close nit bunch, and we have seen it all. My advice for those wishing to learn this art would be to bring a good medical kit to patch yourself up after lessons.

There is a saying that Guru McQuaid told me to which his teacher told him and so on, ‘we walk in the footsteps of giants’. I am presently tracking the footsteps of my teacher Guru Scott McQuaid, maybe if I am able to bear this gift, someday Harimau students will step in my footsteps. I hope that I should be so worthy.

Thank you Guru McQuaid and all of his teachers, and all of their teachers, all the way back to Poyang Lebeh, from whom our lineage of the Dark Gift originated.