um dan tante admin ikut post tentang seminar sabandaran jurus 5 jalur aki ochim yang diadakan di jogjakarta berikut ini ada sedikit komentar dari peserta. ini hanya share saja kesan dan pengalaman dari salah satu peserta seminar tersebut. // Mengikuti Workshop Sabandar di Jogya Berikut adalah pengalaman Rekan Antara yang ditulis di situs sahabat silat setelah mengikuti workshop Sabandar tanggal 8-9 November 2014 di Jogya ..// (*sayang dalam bahasa ingris*) First, I need to give a little background about my relationship with the style. Other than to inflate my ego –which my wife always complains about-, I feel obliged to manage my readers’ expectation. I don’t know Sabandar. Certainly I have heard that Sabandar, along with its sisters, Kari and Madi, are the building principles of many Sundanese styles, but I don’t know how. My limited experience with Silat is mostly with Betawi styles, which are direct and practical. With Betawi styles I know, there wasn’t much talking about principles. The main focus is about defeating the other persons as quickly as possible, “if he did this, then you do that”. If there were any principles at all, students must discover it themselves with years of practice. I consider myself a principle loving person, to the extent that I love talking and reading about them and don’t have time to put them into sweat. And that is how I come to wonder about Sabandar and its sisters. It is from the first workshop held few months back – that I missed— I learned that Sabandar is a ‘tenaga dalam’ kind of Silat. And out of the many versions of ‘tenaga dalam’, it is the one that throw other people without touching. “Oh that one”, I thought dismissively. I have my reason for being apathetic. I involved with such practice more than twenty years ago, and it didn’t work. After a year of practice, I still cannot push anybody with the supposedly invisible power, nor to feel the power that people claim to be projected on me. It was very discouraging to see people were gloriously thrown away around me, those who in rank were my juniors, and I just stood there like a bronze statue. To make things worse, it was me who was labelled as numb and insensitive, and not them as weak and powerless. It took fifteen years for the ego-wound to heal. On a conversation with the late O’ong Maryono, whom I and everybody respect as a leading figure in Indonesian Silat, I learned that he had the same experience. Except that while I took it as my own disability, O’ong challenged the masters that claim to possess such power and literally knocked them down. He didn’t believe in such force. For him, Silat is physical. It is all about speed, power, and timing. I am forever grateful for his story. However, close mindedness is sure path to doom. Healthy sceptics don’t dismiss, they ask for evidence and conduct experiment. They observe, ask questions, and see from other people’s perspective. So when I learned that there will be another workshop in Jogja, I enrolled immediately. Maybe I was the first person to enrol. I am not going to explore about the history of Syahbandar/Sabandar here, other than that it wasn’t discussed in the workshop, there are already many versions written in the internet, with varying degree of quality and authority. Hence, allow me to focus only to my personal learning experience. After two days driving from home and one full day of Merapi Lava Tour with the children (you’d believe that they will allow me to go to Jogja alone?), I arrived at Really Fitness Center, place of the workshop. Still recovering from fatigue, I shook hands with other participants. Some I already knew, some I knew that we’ve met somewhere, and the rest were new. Basically it was the same old people all over again, those marked by my wife as Silat crazy people. The facilitator, Pak Bambang Kurniawan of Sukabumi was a pleasant person to chat with. He radiated full confidence with his art, and didn’t seem reluctant to answer questions. To my surprise, he admitted that he was of Chinese origin with surname of Chen, like those of Chen style Taichi. When I joked whether he would teach us Taichi instead of Sabandar he laughed and exclaimed that it is Sundanese Taichi all right. He suddenly turned serious and said that if I had learned Taichi before, I would soon see the resemblance. ... and off we started. No speech, no formalities, and no warming-up. Just simple order, “take your position”. First, we learned a jurus. According to Pak Bambang, there were only five juruses in the Sabandar he learned, that is from the lineage of Aki Ochim. He taught us the first jurus. It was a very simple jurus, and certainly not a “how-to” kind of jurus. We were asked to form a wide stance (kuda-kuda) of our liking... the details were not important. Pak Bambang dismissed any questions about angle, direction, toe position, or the likes, he simply said “as comfortably low as possible for you.” I was immediately hooked. It was likely a jurus of principle, not about details or forms. With arms stretched forward, bent at the elbow, and formed a loose fist, we were asked to inhale and tense all muscles while holding our breath. It reminded me of isometric training, similar to those Kata practiced by old Okinawan styles (e.g. Sanchin). Then we made a small step forward, thrusting our fist forward a bit, and exhale in single explosive burst through nose, all done in single count. Afterward, came the signature and most important point of the jurus; total relaxation. Just after the explosive move, we must relax all our muscles while still maintaining our posture, from one hundred to zero in a single blink. That ended the jurus. We restarted another round by inhaling again. After few rounds back and forth, I noticed several things worth mentioned from the jurus; 1. It taught first time students the basics of striking. Everybody who stayed in martial art for three months can appreciate the importance of the triumvirate of striking, i.e. strong exhalation (sometime manifested as a yell), selective muscular tensions, and putting bodyweight behind the strike. This jurus, done correctly, would allow students to learn all threes together. 2. Muscle-skeletal form. Having the arms loosely (but at the middle of the jurus, tensely) stretched forward, give the student basic understanding of body structure behind a strike. Students are not allowed to withdraw those arms before stepping forward and exploded; they must remain as they were throughout the movement, like people thrusting a spear. This taught the student not to rely on arm muscles alone, but to use them to channel bodyweight instead. 3. Core strength and utilization. Whether students realize it or not, performing the jurus would give them better control over core muscles. Moving forward with all muscles tensed exaggerated the sense of movement, hence giving students with sort of “kinaesthetic/neural awareness” of the muscles used for movement, especially core muscles. Certainly, as the jurus was isometric in nature, it also strengthened the muscles. 4. Control over muscles, ability to relax muscles at will. I see this to have two benefits. First, at physical level it allowed students to get rid of unnecessary tense that will reduce effectiveness of their combat techniques. Second, it taught student to remain calm in combat. Moreover, at more practical level, it is important for fighter to be able to switch between relaxed and tensed as situation demanded. The jurus gave basic of such critical skill. Of course, I imagined that first time students would find it difficult to gasp all those concepts behind the jurus. This is the stage when student must simply work diligently, and even blindly, under supervision of qualified master, until the benefits manifested by itself. The feature I like about traditional training, you don’t ask questions and simply put faith to your masters. A parent-children relationship. Now, those were my understanding of the jurus, using my stubbornly dominant and scientifically-educated thinking brain. Approximately an hour and few out of breaths later Pak Bambang stopped us, it was time for banbanan. rolled my eyes and looked around. What on earth is banbanan? Apparently it was the game of thrower and throwee (if such word existed at all) that has damaged my ego years ago. I didn’t know that it has a name. So as if a divine hand had turned back the time, I found myself standing around people who were happily being thrown around. It was a twenty years old déjà vu. Determined not to be deterred by old time trauma, I came to Pak Bambang for private session. He observed me for a while and then said, “It won’t be that hard for you. Come, give me a posture.” I stood in the jurus form. “Good, now we are going to do the process slowly. Like learning the alphabet, you are going to learn to spell (mengeja) the letter,” he put his arms forward, lightly touching my own arms. “Now, we start with movement sensitivity”. Pak Bambang moved his arms a bit, and I intuitively adjust my position accordingly. I learned Musubi in my aikido days, Kakei in my Karate days, and had a friend partnered me to practice Taichi’s pushing-hand. I knew what was expected from this kind of exercise, and I considered myself kinaestethically able. “Excellent,” Pak Bambang exclaimed. “You do have the sensitivity. Now to the next step.” He moved his arms away a bit so our arms were no longer in contact but still close enough that I can sense the heat emanated from his skin. He made the move again and I adjusted myself. “Apparently we can skip this part too.” Pak Bambang made a single step backward. “This time, it is still the same. You just feel and follow.” Now it got difficult. I felt nothing since Pak Bambang was a step away and he made no movement. “Tense yourself a bit, like when doing jurus.” I did as he said and suddenly I feel a light push on certain part of my body. I corrected my stance. “Don’t fight it. Feel and follow, just like you did just now.” I allowed myself to fall following the push, doing Ukemi as it went. With that, I had better understanding why it was called ukemi, “the art of receiving”. “Let’s do it again, only this time I won’t tell you when and to which direction. This is to assure you that the sensation is real and not just product of your imagination.” ... and that how it went. I allowed myself to be pushed. Sometime directly backward, sometime to the side, sometime downward that I felt my body get heavy, and there were time that I felt my body got locked, I could not move. “Good,” Pak Bambang laughed in apparent satisfaction. “You already have all we need to play banbanan. Now do it on me. Just like in jurus, except now you project the tense in your muscle to me.” I did and Pak Bambang fell to the direction I intended. No guessing game. “You are already good at it, just never had the correct instruction,” Pak Bambang wiped his face with his t-shirt. A gesture I now recognized as his trademark. “Now find a partner and play around. You don’t need any more lessons.” Such a revelation. ... but on with my analytical self. Reviewing the lesson I had just now, it was conclusive that banbanan is not a game of projecting force to throw your opponent from distance, at least not in combative sense. One need a partner with certain sensitivity to be able to project the ‘invisible’ force, otherwise it won’t work. If I were to make an analogy, it is like bringing a rifle that only work against certain type of opponents, but you don’t know which. I surely would not trust my life with such weapon. So even if the energy was real (which at this point I tend to believe it was) why bother practicing banbanan? It has little combat value. Another question... how on earth did it work on me this time? Few glasses of Javanese tea, bruises, and small accidents (people thrown against wall or pillars) later, the class was again called for a break. Enough with banbanan, now is time for kereteg. My Javanese is a shame and my Sundanese is worse, to my knowledge kereteg is a bridge in Javanese, I don’t know if it had the same meaning in Sundanese. My mind wandered to a place called “Titi Bobrok” in Medan, where Titi means bridge in classic Malay. The Mie Aceh served nearby was grandeur. I know I need to work on my focus. So how is kereteg done? The concept is, Pak Bambang explained, to be able to detect your opponent intention, even before he actually made a move. Pak Bambang paired himself with one of the participants. Both opened stances wide and arms stretched forward, the instruction was to simply feel, like in banbanan. Nothing happened on few first trials. I didn’t even realize if there was any trial at all. To my eyes, they were simply involved in starring contest. Suddenly strikes were exchanged. Pak Bambang had a fist stopped closed to his chin. “Good”, Pak Bambang almost clapped his hand. “That’s how it is done”. People were nodding in unison. God help me. I had no clue to what was happening. Everybody seemed to know what to expect but me. So they had brief exchange, so what? It was no time to be timid. I stepped over, ready for direct lesson. “Like in banbanan, feel,” Pak Bambang said after we were on our stances. I did as told. I felt nothing and from Pak Bambang’s expression, I can tell that I missed something. “Ok,” he said. “Try again. Let’s do the spelling again.” He made sudden jerk, as if he was going to hit me. I intuitively reacted with anticipation. “Good. Keep that feeling and let’s try again.” This time I felt a jerk around my stomach and it sent a pulse to move. I did, I found myself in blocking posture. “Aish,” Pak Bambang dismissed my movement. “Why block? You have the opportunity to react before I make my move, blocking is wasting the opportunity. Hit!” So I prepared my mind for a hit should the feeling come again. It did, and this time a thrust my fist to Pak Bambang’s face, almost unconsciously. Luckily I managed to stop it in time. “There,” Pak Bambang’s laugh was deafening to my ears. He was happy as a child. “Try again.” We did few more rounds until Pak Bambang was satisfied. So that what kereteg was. It is another game, like banbanan, where one uses one’s sensitivity to detect incoming attack and react before it was launched. The attacker must project an attack in his mind, and the player should be able to ‘sense’ the attack and react to it. A strike is preferred than a block or evasion, as it utilizes the pre-emptive knowledge to the fullest. Still, those who believe in ‘Ni Sente Nashi’ (no first attack) doesn’t need to feel guilty as the attack was already done, only not been executed yet. Well, I know the sentence is confusing... basically the intention to attack was there. Those who are practicing Japanese striking art should be able to relate to “Deai”, attack before an attack, or many people also called it “Sen No Sen”. That was end of day one. Pak Bambang demonstrated few things related to sensitivity, e.g. he put a cigarette box in his back pocket and ask me to pick it at anytime from his back. He was always able to tell and caught me anytime I made a move. “With trained sensitivity,” he explained. “You don’t need to fight at all. You’ll be able to detect bad intention from distance and move away.” It won’t be good for ego, but I agree with him. Too bad that I had to miss the second day as I need to attend for my daughter’s illness. Afterthought... First, The game of throwing people is not a show of Dragon Ball’s Kamehame fireball strike. It is a game designed to hone student’s sensitivity. If it was to show off one’s skill, it is for the throwee, as he has the ability to sense ‘unseen’ energy and receive it with his body. A promise of ability to throw people from distance is a twist to the concept. Second, Banbanan comes with kereteg as the later give combat value to it. Kereteg utilizes the sensitivity gained from doing jurus and banbanan for detecting opponent’s intention. The better the sensitivity, the earlier it can detect and the larger the distance. Third, I cannot conclude yet, what is the energy involved in the two games. I don’t want to make any decision yet, as I only experienced it in the workshop, nor I would propose any hypothesis like placebo, imagination, NLP, hypnotic, bio-energy or whatever. For time being I would decide that I did feel the energy so it was probably there. More observation needed before I can make further explanation. Fourth, The sensitivity failed me twenty years a go, but it worked now, just in a day of workshop. I don’t know whether with correct instruction anybody would be able to attain the sensitivity in a single day, or I have been accumulating it with my other practices and Pak Bambang simply put me into realization? If it was the earlier case, then any method would bring about the same result, only the matter of realization. If it was the later, then sensitivity wasn’t really a difficult concept to master, it can be obtained in a single day. Conclusion? It is still too early for me to decide. I need to observe more of this intriguing art. With that being said, I decided to dedicate next three months to exclusively practice the first jurus (as advised by Pak Bambang). If there is anything to it, I should be able to at least see it leading into something. (sumber: sahabatsilat/…/t…/workshop-sabandar-8-9-november/ )
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 08:07:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015