Greetings, I just wanted to take this chance to reach out to the KunTao Silat community to thank you for your participation and support this past year. From the implementation on our regular online classes to Pak Steve’s life events to the (unexpected) passing of the lineage on to me for the next generation, it […]
Archive | Teachers
Engines of Destruction: The Difference Between Silat, Shaolin, and Taoist Mechanics
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on December 9, 2022 in Applications, Forms, Informational, Teachers, Training, Uncategorized
The following will also be found in some variation in the upcoming book: GuruMuda James Kern coined the phrase, “Destruction Theory,” to refer to how a martial art school develops and applies force (Fa Jin in Chinese) for combat. It’s a cute term, easily appropriated by any number of “internet tough guys,” but it gets […]
The Six Zones of Attack
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on December 2, 2022 in Applications, Health, Informational, Teachers, Training
As Ibu Rose mentioned in her recent guest post, Pak Steve and I are working on the definitive KunTao Silat book. Here is an early excerpt, subject to much change: One of the biggest victims of cultural misunderstanding and outright misrepresentation as the martial and medical arts of Asia have spread to the West is […]
That Doesn’t Work, Except When It Does
Recently I was re-watching an old Filipino martial arts instructional video from the 1990s. The instructor was highly qualified and clearly knowledgeable and skilled. He made a number of salient points about how many martial arts deal with knives using unrealistic methods. But then he made a statement to the effect of: “no one stabs […]
A Message From Ibu Rose
Today I am honored to share this letter to the KTS community on behalf of Ibu Rose: “In regards to Kun Tao Silat, and what it has meant and will mean to me: Frankly without KTS I most likely would not be breathing today, as the spiritual and health side of this art has enabled […]
Soft =/= Easy!
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on October 21, 2022 in Applications, Forms, Informational, Teachers, Training
It is not uncommon in the world of martial arts to encounter a practitioner (sometimes even at instructor level) who, upon getting into one of the “Soft” or “Internal” martial arts, is ready to talk your head off about how much better they are than the “Hard” styles. “You see,” such a person can say, […]
Scaling Force: Effective vs Appropriate
If I seem to harp a lot on the important of “context” in my posts, it is because so much misunderstanding in the world of martial arts and its various subsections of focus are due to people equating whichever part interests them with the whole pie. When we are discussing the effectiveness of techniques, this […]
Internal/External Horse Stance: The Root of KunTao Silat
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on September 2, 2022 in Applications, Forms, General, Health, Informational, Inner Circle, Teachers, Training, Uncategorized, Video
Depending on long you have been in martial arts, or how wide your experience has been with the innumerable traditions available to us now in the 21st Century, you may or may not have noticed that some version of Horse Stance (aka Tiger Stance in Malabar) is found in virtually every system. Even “modern” combat […]
KunTao Silat: The Healing Art (?)
Greetings to all in KTS, Recently I found myself undergoing an emergency appendectomy, or the removal of my appendix due to inflammation. While the entire experience is an educational story all its own on many levels (which I may share at some point for those of you who are interested in the healing arts), for […]
Message from Ibu Rose
By Dr. Jonathan Pyndus on July 6, 2022 in General, Health, Informational, Inner Circle, Interview, Letters, News, Teachers, Uncategorized
Hello, Dr. Jon here. The following is a message from Ibu Rose which she asked me to share with the KunTao Silat community on her behalf: “I speak from with-in my heart a moral outrage, lost words changed meanings,Freedom, pride, patriot, all criminal words in this day and time. My life, country, home have […]