Training with the Gurus

Monday, 26 August 2019 18:22

by Guru Scott McQuaid

'We walk in the footsteps of giants'.

A Guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a certain area. They use this gift to guide others. A guru has the power and wisdom to dissolve spiritual ignorance in a disciple. The title comes with dedication, but it is a heavy weight to bear, for with knowledge comes responsibility.

For more than two decades I have been studying in the Indonesian fighting art known as silek harimau or better known in the Western world as harimau (tiger) pencak silat. This Minangkabau tribal combat system dates back more than 400 years, inspired by the Sumatran tiger and developed from its rain forest terrain. My journey is not for the faint hearted, with countless injuries, strenuous training regimes on both body and mind. In truth it is a path less traveled. I studied in various martial styles under many respected instructors before finding my path in harimau silat from the humble beginnings in Essex, England, to the jungles of Sumatra. This art has given me adventure, guidance, discipline and direction. It has shaped me to be the husband, father, teacher and warrior I am today.

I began my training in harimau silat under the exceptional Guru Paul Bennett in my hometown, but I was soon invited to train in London under the head instructor Maha Guru Richard Crabbe de-Bordes. The classes were run in a military fashion, Guru de-Bordes was like a general drilling his students with punishing leg burning stances. His intense eyes looked into your very soul and any egos were smashed instantly. We were broken down and rebuilt as disciplined silat soldiers. His deep slow voice would resonate off the classroom walls. There was little explanation to why he did what he did, but it always worked. Any man that fell behind was left behind. He was the very essence of war, anything you threw at him would return to you in pain. We, as students, became accustomed to broken noses, fractured ribs, sprained hands, bruising and blood shed. He often walked around the class kicking us all in the mid-section while we practiced our breathing exercises. During one session he kicked one muscular guy in the stomach that caused him to double over and fall to the ground. He then walked over to me and proceeded to repeatedly round house kick me to the stomach in front of all the other students. I was seventeen years old and very small in statue and frame but I did not fall. Guru looked to the big man on the floor holding his stomach and said. "The body is easy to break, but the mind and spirit not so." After practicing harimau silat for four years I decided to spend a year traveling through South East Asia with my focus on Indonesia to help me better understand the art and its origin. The path through the heart of silat country presented me with various challenges, stripping me of my Western materialistic habits and showing me the true meaning of what it is to be a pesilat (silat player). As I reached the tribal provinces of the Minangkabau I became disappointed to see how little of the art still lived. This rare fighting system, like its inspiration - the Sumatran tiger, is almost extinct, so finding genuine silat instructors was a task. After I returned and told Guru de-Bordes about my travels and the lack of reality based harimau silat in its homeland, he simply replied "the tigers have left Sumatra". I resumed my training and Guru noted the difference in my training due to the influence of my travels to Indonesia.

So the following year I traveled to the United States where I found myself in Los Angeles standing in a large studio surrounded by martial arts history. Bruce Lee's beaten up wooden man stood in one corner and a rack of traditional Chinese weapons dominated the back wall, while the surrounding walls were covered in memorabilia pictures of Brandon Lee, Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and many other Hollywood action celebrities. One man featured in every picture, some describe him as the bible of martial arts, but to me he is Guro Dan. Guro Dan Inosanto is a modern legend within the martial arts community. His wealth of knowledge within the combative arts is second to none. He is a world authority in Jeet Kune Do concepts and Filipino fighting arts. He is respected by all martial artists for his own merits and his humble nature. My opportunity to train under him came from the recognition and respect earned previously by my teacher Guru de-Bordes which opened the door for me to train with him. Guro Dan spoke calm and slow with a very serious expression. He would often break down every aspect of the technique he was working upon, he never got sidelined or distracted in his lesson. "Technique is useless without the basics," he said during my silat class. He maintained that one drill practiced perfectly has more worth than a thousand techniques taught. I continue this theory today, always returning to the core basics of my silat keeping the art alive and effective. Guro Dan worked on direct techniques with as few moves as possible, opposed to the endless striking often seen in Javanese silat. I remember Guro Dan teaching in short bursts much like the art's application in battle. He would show a drill with many variations as well as possible counters. It seemed endless and by the end of each session I may have only learned five techniques, but with ten or more variations. I trained with Guro Dan for just over two months and although I do not expect him to remember me due to the many students that have passed through his doors, I will forever value the time I had with him.

The next guru I would train under was based in Kuala Lumpur. I had struggled to find the entrance to this gym amongst the shops and restaurants in this busy district. I initially moved to Malaysia to further my silat knowledge in blade warfare and there was only one man I trusted to teach me - Maha Guru Jak Othman. As I walked up the staircase I heard the unmistakable sound of punch bags being pounded followed by a voice shouting instructions. As I entered the gym, a friendly face emerged behind a focus pad. He immediately approached me. Guru Jak was born into a family of Malaysian silat warriors, his destiny to follow in the silat path was determined by his elders. Guru Jak trains in harimau berantai (chained tiger) silat which is primarily a weapons based system. Guru Jak is somewhat of an enigma. His pace is extremely fast, he will teach silat and muay boren (kickboxing) at the same time with the students split down one side of the class. Although Guru Jak is short in statue, there is nothing little about this man. His voice is loud, his energy relentless and his personality fills the room. After each technique demonstrated, he lets out a booming laugh. He might be showing you something very deadly with a knife, but his serious game face will soon develop into a big smile followed by his unmistakable laugh. It can be quite disturbing if you don't know the nature of this guru. "Don't waste your cuts, get straight to the point," says Guru Jak. I know of no other fighter who is as efficient with a blade. I had to quickly adapt to Guru Jak's manic pace. He rapidly moves through techniques and as a student you want to perform the drill as well as feel the effects of the action, so learning with speed is key in his classroom. Guru Jak showed me how to utilize the blade on every part of the body, focusing on arteries and instant kill zones. I remember one lesson where he got me stabbing and slashing tires for the entire session, rotating the blade in different angles stabbing into the rubber recreating a flesh like feel to the motion. The next day my arm was numb and it felt like a heavy weight attached to my shoulder. As my blade work improved over the years I started to shift my focus to upgrading my stick combat known as tongkat in silat.

So I started to make frequent trips from Kuala Lumpur to Cebu in the Philippines to train in the kali stick fighting style known as Balintawak, which is a single stick system that works at close quarters. This style of stick fighting is closer to the origins of tongkat. I walked through the dirty rough shanty town of Cabantan, looking for Guro Nicomedes Elizar, also referred to as Guro Nick. I asked a street kid of his whereabouts and he directed me to Guro Nick's house. I had not made any appointment to meet Guro Nick or forewarned him of me coming to the Philippines, yet when I asked if he would be willing to train me he accepted me on the spot. We immediately began training as he broke down the basic principles. Guro Nick has been practicing in kali for almost thirty years and is a highly respected eskrimador within the Philippines and the arnis community. He was the barangy (neighbourhood) security during that time. He was the local lawman of his small town and often during our sessions his walkie talkie would sound off and he would talk in his local Visaya language back into the radio about some incident. We trained outside under a bamboo canopy. There were a set of car tires stacked in the corner and I would have to practice my drills on them. After hitting the tires multiple times with great speed and power, the smell of burning rubber would emerge and today when I'm practicing or teaching a pupil on my own stack of tires, the smell of burning rubber takes me right back to the Philippines. Although Guro Nick was proficient in English he would teach with very few words and use sounds to alert me. He would use eye contact to show me the direction of where my stick should be placed. So I learned by sense and sound as he would often recall "listen to the stick sound". I would have to say he was perhaps one of the best stick fighters I have ever met. His stick was literally an extension of his arm.

When the time eventually came and I was awarded the title of guru, I knew it was an honour I would have to continue to earn for I can only hope to aspire to reach the heights of these great gurus.

Published exclusively for Black Triangle Silat 2019.