Pencak Silat Book Volume 2

I haven't been writing much lately... at least not on the blog. I've been really working hard to try and finish the second volume of pencak silat pertempuran books. Well, it's done!!! I'm frickin' thrilled because this book is huge and has lots and lots of good quality photos. The book is almost 500 pages long and I don't know how many photos it has, but it has a lot.

The book will have photos and explanations of pencak silat pertempuran jurus-jurus Tangan, Monyet-Harimau, and Pisau. As well, it will have more Masukan, more Tangkapan, more Timbilan, more Penjebakan, Latihan Berpasangan, and Pembasmian, etc.

The book is broken up into three sections: Tinggi, Monyet-Harimau, and Senjata.

Section 1: Gives the rest of the tinggi portion of psp is also included, like the jurus-jurus and the eradication methods, neck breaks, bone breaking, strangles, etc. I don't detail everything because who knows who is reading it, but I do give enough for someone who is actually studying to figure the things out and for those with some knowledge of silat already.

Section 2: covers the entire Monyet and Harimau curriculum of pencak silat pertempuran from a basic level, which includes Ales, Masukan Tangan, Masukan Kaki, Masukan Siku, Tangkapan, Timbilan, Totokan, and Latihan Berpasangan.

Section 3: covers some of the Senjata material. It shows all of the pisau material for training, and re-publishes an article I wrote for silatnow! of the kerambit (yes, Hugo you are finally in one of my books). Additionally, I cover some ideas about gun Defense. I really like this section of the book. Hopefully it will spur people on to seriously consider the best methods for gun defense. I know from my own experience, that sometimes the thing that seems the obvious does not always work the best. In addition, I also start to touch on the subject of Golok, Clurit, and Pedang, showing basic Masukan Golok. There's also a brief section on the use of two weapons and various other things.

Of course, I have a small Glossary in the back of about 6 or 8 pages of key terms for this book. There could be some that are missing but I tried to give the readers a break on the heavy terminology by using it in conjunction with English explanations whenever I felt it was necessary.

I've ordered my proofing/editing copies already and I'll get to that soon....

To be honest, there were other things I wanted to put into the book that I've shot photos for and intended to use, but the book was just getting too big. I even thought about breaking this one up into to but decided to just run with it as is and when I do volume 3 I'll put in the rest hopefully.... It would be nice to say that I'm done and not do any more books, but I really want to create a good resource for those interested in pencak silat within the U.S., and I suppose internationally as well but that's less of a concern because there are others already doing that elsewhere.

When you start a project like this you have high hopes. As the project evolves, you realize the difficulty of putting an art that is so simple and yet so complex in words. Even the use of photos does not really capture the essence of pencak silat, since that essence is really about movement. Just getting the basic elements on paper or on DVD is a challenge. Those who study with me aside, you can only hope that one in 100 people who read and watch are able to put it together and see the potential of the material using both sources. In fact, you can have times of serious reflection about your own input and output too...

For those who have already purchased the first volume, you can expect to see a new version of that on shelves sometime after the first of the year. There will be nothing new in it. It's basically just a new cover but I'm going to republish it because of some changes with the company I work with. It will give me greater control over my book for the future. So, you don't need to buy it UNLESS you just want to collect the new cover for it :-) because they are going to be different looking. The title of the book will be officially changed but that's about it.

I'm Out,
Sean