It’s been a mad, mad few months. The SilatMelayu.Com (SMC) website has become a crawling baby. We currently have more than 160 members. Not much, I know, but it is a start. So far, I’ve uploaded 82 articles about silat and generally made my administrator and partner’s (Norazlan Abdul Wahid) life a living hell.

SMC has members from all over the world. Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, America, Canada, United Kingdom, Ukraine… the list just keeps growing. What’s interesting is that although the site is getting close to 900 hits a day, there’s only one website that’s linking to us.

Being an SMC member has its benefits, as they have already discovered. Early on, I felt that visitors need good reasons to register as members. So, I thought, maybe they like free stuff, just like me! So, I started sending out ebooks at the end of every month.

The first sendout at the end of 2006 was the Silat Melayu Ezine (all four issues!) and the second was the PENDEKAR Magazine Covers Issues 1-10 at the end of January 2007. And waiting in my inbox, is the SILAT TUA: THE MALAY DANCE OF LIFE preview which will be sent out to all SMC members tomorrow. So, if you haven’t registered yet, do so quickly!

Anyway, take your last looks at SMC because in a couple of months, the layout will be drastically different. The design change we’ve been promising for months is finally going to take place.

The latest issue of SENI BELADIRI magazine has hit the stands! Of interest in this issue include:

Feature
Haji Ismail, better known as Tok Sidang demonstrates the Tari Pedang (Sword Wardance) and reveals the life of his master, Haji Hamid Hamzah. Although a small man, Haji Hamid was hot-tempered and feared no one. In Tok Sidang lie many of his secrets…

Ultimate Warrior
A change of heart from the Ministry of Youth and Sports? A ring battle that culmianates in a Tomoi win.

Keris Anak Alang or the Keris Bahari
The Keris Anak Alang was once used for execution. Read an account of one such execution.

If you haven’t registered for membership at SILAT MELAYU.COM, better do so quickly and get your friends to do so too. To thank our registered members for their loyalty and patience in waiting for the improvements to the website we’ve promised, on the 18th of November 2006, all members will receive SILAT MELAYU Ezine Issues 1-4 which we published late last year for free.

Next FREE sendout to all members: A free 16-page primer to Silat in Malaysia, a good beginner’s guide to anyone wanting to know about Malaysian Melayu martial arts.

I’ve always wondered who reads my blog entries. I know TuanWujian is a mutual supporter. We often comment on each others’ blogs just to keep out esteem up I also know quite a few of the Bukit Mas group drop in once in awhile. But other than that and the comments sections, I don’t really know who likes the torture of reading Silat Melayu: The Blog [SMB] (I’m considering a name change after Aidilfitri. Rest assured, there will be a competition and I’m wondering what to offer as the sole prize).

To quench my curiousity, I installed a statistics tracker and got a nice map detailing where you guys are. Today, I even got a visit from Norway, I think.

To all SMB fans and visitors, Ramadhan al-Mubarak and Eid al-Mubarak. I implore your forgiveness for any wrongdoing or if my writings have hurt any of your feelings. I’m going to balik kampung and aim to drop by a few silat masters’ homes in the process. Maybe I’ll have some new stuff to share with you when I get back.

Wassalam!

Many of my conversations with pesilat overseas center around the lack of reading material on Silat Melayu and the Melayu culture. Well, to address that, we have planned a product section for the Silat Melayu.Com (SMC) website. However, it will take awhile to set up since we’re still waiting for our various products to be confirmed.

In the meantime, we’ve set up a temporary site at Silat Products. For now, it only contains referrals to other sites that sell the items in question, but soon, SMC will have its own shop and its own products for Silat Melayu fans.

Visit Silat Products here.

I was browsing through the Silat Lincah blog at silatlincah. blogspot.com and the latest update included a thumbnail of a poster for the documentary film One Step Into The Beyond or its Bahasa Melayu title Selangkah Ke Alam Batin (which sounds way cooler than its English counterpart) produced by Pertubuhan Seni Silat Lincah Malaysia.

I was wondering, who has a copy of this film, either on VHS or VCD? And I am NOT talking about the Chinese narrated one, where narrator pokes fun at each and every one of the stunts the Silat Lincah people perform, turning it into a C-grade version of a Shocking Asia rip-off (yes, it WAS the light of our generation).

I would love to get a look at the original and maybe find a way to purchase a copy for the Silat Melayu Archives. If you have it, please contact me at silatmelayu@gmail.com

The latest issue of SENI BELADIRI magazine has hit the stands! Of interest in this issue include:

Feature
Guru Amran’s passion for silat drove him to study style after style. Then, an old man who appeared to him in a dream changed it all prompting the founding of a new style based on the old man’s cryptic words.

Secrets of the Ancient Warriors
The Melayu warriors of old knew their omens well. Calculations and spiritual measurements based on maxims that foretold of dangers or opportunities, whether it was to sit down to a meal, or in meeting a King or persons in power.

If Looks Could Kill
Pak Teh defines the movements that answer the question, just what should silat look like?

Available at newsstands throughout Malaysia at RM5.90.

For more information, go to SENI BELADIRI

Do you have any copies of PENDEKAR magazine that was published in Malaysia in the late 1980s and early 1990s? I would like to source them from you if you do. I am also willing to buy them for a reasonable price. But, if you are willing to donate them, I will include your name into the Silat Archives list of donors.

The Silat Archives or Pustaka Silat, is a collection of silat-related documents which include books, ebooks, magazines, photos, videos and other printed or recorded materials. We hop to gather and preserve as many of these possible as a comprehensive record of silat in Malaysia and the world.

For more information and to quote a price, please email me at silatmelayu@gmail.com

This is probably the most embarrassing entry I’m going to post on this blog. A good friend of mine, someone I have never met before but have had the pleasure of having inspired silat discussions with, has posted an entry about me on his blog.

Jeff Davidson, who writes at his blog Balisong Journal is a teacher of Silat Kuntau Tekpi in Michigan, America and has a long history in South East Asian martial arts and the sufi traditions. Known online as JD Tekpi and also likes to be called Jaafar ibn Daud, Jeff has shown great interest and admiration for silat. I have found him to be a careful proponent of the Melayu arts, and has tried to keep as true to the traditions they were founded upon. You can read his article on Silat Kuntau Tekpi at silatmelayu.com.

Jeff has, on several occasions, admitted himself to being a land displaced or a closet Melayu, due to his taste for our arts, our food and our women (just kidding). Here’s hoping he’ll actually make it to Malaysia to complete the transformation.

I have never ceased to learn something new from Jeff everytime we have our discussions and our lives have paralleled each other’s within the last one year. To Jeff, thanks for the compliment. Here’s mine in return, deficient as it may be.

See his post http://balisongplayer.blogspot.com/2006/09/silat-melayu-on-move.html