Traditionally, in Indonesian martial art training, jurus are confined primarily to upper body movements, teaching, among other things, principles like centerline theory, angles, leverage, proper hand and elbow placement, etc.  However, by themselves, jurus are incomplete for they only teach part of the art -- the upper art.  For combat application you  must  incorporate langkahs (legwork) -- the lower art.  Any good silat system teaches both -- they just teach them separately.  In Willem de Thouars' Kuntao-Silat, jurus and langkahs are taught together within forms.  This allows a flow and continuity that is often lacking when individual movements are taught separately.  Both training methods (those teaching upper and lower separately, and those teaching them together within forms) have their good and bad points.  Nevertheless, both will serve the student well. To all who see me as a non-traditionalist (something I strongly deny), let me say that we definitely study forms.  Pretty traditional, huh.  You can read an in-depth analysis of the value of forms training (a training method, by the way, that has taken me years to fully appreciate) online  from Chapter 7 of my book Martial Arts America, but for now let me share with you just a brief description of the forms we study and their order of placement in our system. This description of our forms is intended primarily for the experienced practitioner.  If you are a beginner, you very likely have little or no idea what forms are.  For you, let me say simply that forms are choreographed shadow-boxing and leave it at that.  If you are an experienced player you may have an opinion of forms training that leaves you, shall we say, less than enthusiastic at the prospect of studying and practicing forms.  For those seeking rank in our system, forms are a required part of our curriculum.  Knowing something about the forms we teach, then, will likely help you in your study. Advancement from white belt to black takes approximately seven years (depending on the individual's dedication and talent).  One of the requirements for advancement is the learning of seven forms (one per belt in the underbelt ranks and two for black belt).  What follows is a list of the forms for each belt and level.  (The M and T in the Basis column stand for Movement- and Technique-based, respectively.)

Belt	Level	Form Required	Art / Type	Basis
White	Beginner	None
Orange	Beginner	Chow Kuen	Kenpo Kata	T
Purple	Intermediate	Elbow Exercise 1	Kuntao-Silat (strong Silat focus)	M
Blue	Intermediate	O Tsung I Chuan	Kenpo Kata	T
Green	Intermediate	Leg Maneuvers	Kuntao-Silat	M
Brown	Advanced	Enam Matjan 1	Kuntao-Silat	M
Black	Advanced	1. Wah Kua 2. Fung Ling	1. Kuntao Kuen 2. Nunchaku	1. M     2. T

All our forms either strengthen and condition, teach effective self-defense technique, or ingrain principles of motion and movement suitable for self-defense.  (Movement involves stances and how to move from position to position smoothly -- left, right, off-center, spinning, and so on.  Motion, on the other hand, is how we strike with our elbows in, say, a half-dozen different ways.)  These are essential requirements, and no form is taught in this school that does not satisfy them.  Forms practice without these essentials is simply folk dancing. As you can see, we teach a mixture of Chinese and Indonesian forms.  The kenpo forms taught are generally technique-based.  By this I mean that they teach primarily through specific techniques.  Movement-based forms, on the other hand, are not so clearly defined.  When we teach movement-based forms, we make up techniques to fit the movements shown so that you can see a movement's potential application.  However, the technique is only one of many possible applications or examples of what the given movement can be. Forms contain a wealth of information, and we are wise to study them seriously.  However, contrary to the way most forms are taught, memorizing and preserving every detail is discouraged.  We prefer to return to each form, again and again, with expectation -- drawing from what we already know, but with our eyes wide open, looking for what we may discover anew -- or rediscover something we forgot or simply did not previously understand.  This way forms practice remains fresh and its knowledge potential inexhaustible.  But enough about forms training in general.  Here are some specifics about each form we study and why it is taught at its particular level. Chow Kuen Kenpo kata: Required for advancement from white to orange In my tournament years, I competed with this form only once.  That day I donned a white karate gi and stepped barefoot onto the competition floor in black belt division.  I placed fourth among a dozen or so black belt competitors with this beginner form!  I really cannot brag about my performance because, in fact, I am only an average forms player.  The reason I was able to place at all is because the form itself is superior.  Compared to others' beginning forms, this one is very sophisticated, but compared to the rest of our forms, it is very basic. Essentially, it is a eight-man attack form.  Being technique-based it is relatively easy for beginners to learn and follow.  The beginning student interested in competition should find this a winning form all the way through brown belt. Elbow Exercise Kuntao-Silat: Required for advancement from orange to purple This short kuntao-silat form with a very strong pentjak silat focus, developed by George Morin, a fellow student of Willem de Thouars, introduces the student to movement-based training and study.  Much like learning the alphabet and grammar, the movements and motion in the form are much more important than the techniques we use to exemplify them.  Techniques are necessary to teach this form, but only as tools to help the student understand the underlying principles of movement. The form's focus, as you might guess, is elbows, and although it is only half as long as our first form, in terms of the student's learning, it is much more sophisticated. For the student interested in competition this form is best performed as a two-man set.  With each player facing off and fighting his or her own imaginary opponents, this outwardly simple form takes on a degree of difficulty that allows it to compete in intermediate to advanced divisions, and without compromising it with the addition of such showy (but useless) things as moon-walks, hand stands, and back flips.  (This form, as well as its two-man training method, is shown in detail in our  Fighting Forms of Kuntao-Silat  video.) O Tsung I Chuan Chinese kenpo: Required for advancement from purple to blue With this form, we return to a technique-based Chinese kenpo pattern.  Our focus here is on moving quickly from opponent to opponent with practically no pauses in the action and little blocking, per se.  What might be interpreted as blocks are actually setups for strikes.  "No pauses in the action" means this form is devoid of places where the defender stops, assumes a ready posture, and waits for the next attack -- all action sequences move directly from attacker to attacker.  This is an excellent form that is both technically potent and aesthetically pleasing. Leg Maneuvers Kuntao-Silat: Required for advancement from blue to green This form, also developed by George Morin, is exclusively movement-based and incorporates movements from both Chinese kuntao and Dutch-Indonesian pukulan pentjak silat.  It is called Leg Maneuvers because although there are numerous hand combinations in it, its focus is primarily legwork (it really is tough to train one without the other anyway). This is a very sophisticated pattern whose introduction is timed to reinforce the lessons learned from the previous movement-based form before moving into the higher level forms that follow.  It is ill-suited for competition because very few judges are able to recognize the action that is taking place (unless you've had some of this stuff done to you -- or taught to you -- you really have no idea what is going on). Enam Matjan Kuntao-silat: Required for advancement from green to brown This kuntao-silat form is one of our favorites.  It was developed as a collaborative effort taking the first form/jurus I received from Willem de Thouars, Juru Satu, and combining that with careful analysis and the knowledge received from other respected Indonesian players.  The end result is a form that is both combatively potent and esthetically pleasing. Enam Matjan is well-suited for competition at even the highest levels.  However, since few judges recognize the action taking place, it is best performed as a two-man set.  With each player facing off and fighting their imaginary opponents as a team, the form is dynamite (and, again, without compromising its effectiveness for entertainment and public consumption).  (This form, like Elbow Exercise above, is shown in detail and as a two-man set in our  Fighting Forms of Kuntao-Silat  video.) Wah Kua Kuen Chinese kuntao: Required for advancement from brown to black This kuntao form was taught by de Thouars to only myself and one other gentleman, Stewart Lauper in 1989-1990.  In our school we practice it in combination with another form, Small Hokkien Tiger (also privately taught to myself and Mr. Lauper by de Thouars).  The two are combined for two reasons: first, because they were received from the same teacher and have a similar flavor, and second, because they share many common and highly complementary movements.  As such, they are well suited to this kind of marriage. The form begins with the first half of Small Hokkien Tiger, proceeds with Wah Kua proper, and concludes with the last half of Small Tiger. This gives the student a competition-worthy form without compromising the effectiveness of either of the original forms. Admittedly, we still seek to fully understand Wah Kua.  It was taught with scant interpretation, however, as diamond miners, we at least recognize that what we have is indeed a rare gem, and we'll not be satisfied until we learn all of its facets and how bring out its unseen beauty and combat potential. Fung Ling Chinese kenpo/kung fu: Also required for advancement from brown to black We teach weapons (primarily baton and knife), but this is our only weapon form.  This technique-based nunchaku (flail) pattern draws from its Chinese kenpo and kung fu origins.  In words of high praise, a respected Okinawa te player said of it, "Hmmm, Chinese feet, Okinawan hands." Using a real weapon (not one made of lightweight rattan or hollow plastic), the student is taught to use the weapon practically and realistically (for example, holding the weapon near the end of the baton rather than nearer the cord).  Despite this "no compromise" approach, the form is still a worthy competition form.  It demonstrates dexterity with the weapon, versatility in its variety of striking methods, and exceptionally smooth flow from opponent to opponent.   During my first three decades of training, I was taught some 27 different forms.  Recognizing that there are only so many ways the body moves effectively (meaning many moves  are  seen again and again when looking over a large number of forms), it seemed reasonable to reduce the number of forms we studied to the handful that we felt would offer the most bang for the buck.  The seven described above were selected for our curriculum because they best meet our demanding requirements: they strengthen and condition, teach effective self-defense technique, or ingrain principles of motion and movement suitable for self-defense.  Studying them in cyclical fashion (usually for 4-12 months at a time, depending on the form) provides sufficient distance between each of them to cause us to return to each with fresh eyes.  Seeing them as old friends with whom we've had little recent contact, we always discover new gems and insights on meeting them again.

Footnotes: Both Enam Matjan and Elbow Exercise are available on video from Paladin Press (see Fighting Forms of Kuntao-Silat)  [Return to reference point]

Our emphasis is on the practical.

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http://www.OrlandoKuntao.com E-mail: Bob@OrlandoKuntao.com

Last update:  Jan. 22, 2010 by Bob Orlando

Web Site of Bob Orlando: Instructor in Kuntao-Silat (Chinese kuntao and Dutch-Indonesian pukulan pentjak silat) and author of "Indonesian Fighting Fundamentals"; "Fighting Arts of Indonesia," "Reflex Action," "Fighting Footwork of Kuntao and Silat," "The Fighting Forms of Kuntao-Silat"videos; and "Martial Arts America: A Western Approach to Eastern Arts."