Welcome to THE APPROACH
I am very excited to introduce THE APPROACH.
What is THE APPROACH? Is it a new system ? What it is, is a distillation of Pencak Silat Fitrah, with influences of Thai, Filipino and Indonesian martial arts all of which I have practiced over the years, what it provides is a very practical, easy to learn and efficient way of defending oneself and your loved ones.
Remember an APPROACH with a structure is different to a style with a syllabus.
I would like to say that I have the permission of my teacher, Guru Tua Chris Parker and the blessing of his teacher Bapak HJ Idris B Alimuda in sharing THE APPROACH with the martial arts world. I have had the privilege of being the private student of Guru Tua Chris Parker since 1993, I hold the grade of Guru Muda and I am lineage holder to Silat Fitrah. This year after being involved in Muay Thai for nearly 20 years I was awarded the title of Arjarn. I still continue my training in these arts, see my teachers on a regular basis, I make regular trips to Thailand to update my training and knowledge of the Thai arts, I train alongside Muay Thai fighters who are more than half my age, who look at me in disbelief why a middle aged Farang puts themselves through the training that they have to do.
Throughout my years training in Silat I have read comments both in martial arts magazines and the ever popular internet keyboard warrior forums about how unrealistic, flowery, posey Silat is, I scratch my head in disbelief how people can hide behind the keyboard and say such things, have they been practicing the life art that has totally enhanced my life for the past 15 years. I can honestly say that I have never found an art as devastating as Pencak Silat. When you consider that I am a Muay Thai coach this is a bold statement, Every concept from ground fighting, weapon and empty hand fighting is undoubtedly in my opinion very practical even in todays Reality based world.
My mission is to dispel the belief held by some, that Silat is just a flowery dance, with no combative use, my opinion is that these people are totally unaware of the combative and practical art that is so devastating.
We all have a natural way of moving, we may practice the same martial art, but you will look completely different to me and the next person and the next. That is what is unique about the Human race, it would be very sad if we all looked the same, imagine everybody the same like carbon copies, we all model our teachers but we have our own distinct natural way of movement, The common denominator in THE APPROACH is what it teaches us, is to attack the threat, presupposing we cannot avoid the threat in the first place.
If you have a background in the Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian arts the concept of attacking the threat, ‘defanging the snake’ is nothing knew to you, however lets take a closer look at the meaning of the word APPROACH in the English dictionary,
- Ideas or actions intended to deal with a problem or situation.
- An attack… the act of drawing spatially closer to something.
- We were approaching our destination.
- The enemy came nearer and nearer.
- Approach a task
Any form of self defence has to be able to fill space, the way THE APPROACH does this is basically in a primal, heavy hitting way, it reminds me of a cross between getting hit by a combination of a pick axe handle then getting thrown into the propellers of an aircraft, it hits and destroys everything that falls into its path.