Joshua

Gian,
Yu’ve been looking at the Bill Chang stuff for a decade. You just did not pause to listen. 😉

@ Joshua.

Base, angle, leverage.

This is simply the realization that all 3 of these must be in place for a clean Serak ‘technique.’ And at least two must in place to make something happen.Your base is having your legs under you, you angle is your dominant position that separates their upper art from the lower art, leverage is the thing that…[Read more]

Just to clarify: My point is that Serak and KTS are fundamentally different, despite sharing common ancestors. What makes Serak good, is not a few Djurus – this is a deeply overrated idea in the USA.

While elements of Sera djurus-djurus, positioning and Langkah are present in KTS (For those that do not know me, I am very familiar with both arts,…[Read more]

Joshua,
Welcome to he circle! And please give my regards to Guru Brandt.

I’ll pass your invitation to help to the GCC team, help is always welcome!

Just so you know, it looks like there will be a seminar / gathering in the SF Bay area in September. That’s not exactly next door, but it’s close enough that it might be possible for you to join us.…[Read more]

This line of conversation rarely, if ever bears fruit. My senior students routinely test their art against others. WE always have the respect and admiration of combat sport players. The simple fact is KunTao Silat is fundamentally different. It fulfills the promise of martial arts better than virtually any art I have ever seen (I’ve been training…[Read more]

There’s a friend of one of my Practice Group students in San Antonio who is moving to Colorado Springs later this year. As soon as I have his information, I’ll figure out how to PM it to you.

Way back in the 80’s, it was George Morin who made me kiss the floor on the gravel parking lot outside of a kenpo studio in Westmont Illinois. Years of Judo and bare knuckle karate and kung fu and I was dispatched without effort. It certainly built a yearning to learn Kuntao Silat!

If you poke around on Facebook, you can find him. He’s certainly…[Read more]

Hi Jim,
Like anything, it comes down to what you are looking to achieve. There are many videos on the market by people who I am sure are fine martial artists. But KTS is something distinct from most of the FMA practiced out there, and the difference is in it’s very DNA. Kuntao Silat is a syncretic art that teaches many things as one – instead…[Read more]

Jim,
I might recommend this to you:

https://www.kuntaosilat.com/product/karambit/

There is a decent sized practice group in San Antonio, TX. But that might be a bit far. And by now (hopefully) you have found some people to train with.

Just a side note – our lineage in KTS comes through Steve Gartin (although like other long-timers we also trained under and certified under Willem in the past as well). So any all players in the various streams of his teaching are welcome to join us. If you are a DLP student, we will work with you to help you get through the program.

Back in the day, my training partner and all around training genius Vince Brown introduced me to kettlebells and eventually clubbells. With Pak Steve’s blessing we integrated these *safer* tools over the big monkey wrenches/tool boxes/heavy found objects Pak Gartin was trained with.

Even if you closely follow just the training (and safety)…[Read more]