The concept of Martial Dance is ancient, and found in many cultures around the 
world. KunTao Silat has embraced the Indonesian version of this training method. Various dialects of Indonesia refer to this practice as Kembaggan, Kembangan and other versions of similar sounding words. Many Indonesian styles incorporate kembaggan training, some ignore it completely.
Constant Training is the key to progression in KunTao Silat. MartialDance is one way to get in many hours a day of basic practice.
Here are a few examples of MartialDance from the KunTao Silat Testing Group. A couple are from testing and a couple are from Peer Review offerings where the KTS Testing Group members submit videos of work-in-progress for evaluation and comment by other members. Most of the videos there are only seen by the group members, but this video of excerpts will be available to everyone.
Please visit the discussion on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1819318191730540&id=100009571307324&comment_id=1819331061729253&reply_comment_id=1820950398233986
Kembaggan DVD: https://kuntaosilat.com/product/kembaggan/
Training Kembaggan to traditional Indonesian music is vital. Those are the beats of that culture and thus of Silat in its original form!
Good idea Jonathan!!! I never thought about that. Gamelan music would be great as well to train Kembangan because of its rhythm and sudden changes.
I personally consider Kembangan as a key training tool. Sometimes forms are “too codified” to teach us everything even if they are extremely important. Kembangan is a way to “free yoursel” and at the same time it helps us to make the movemets we learned in the forms more natural, more spontaneous. The use of music helps our brain and body to learn the movements and following its rhythm gives us different timings. In my humble opinion James Brown is perfect for a Kembangan but i use Hindustani classical music and Qawwali as well.