Pencak Silat Makes Debut at Asian Games, Hoping for Olympics

Indonesia’s pencak silat athlete Amri Rusdana, right, facing Uzbekistan’s Nurulla Saidov at an Asian Games’s event in Jakarta on Thursday. (Antara Photo/Inasgoc/Dewi Nurcahyani via Jakarta Globe)

Jakarta. Pencak silat, a martial-art discipline rooted from Southeast Asia, is hoping to gain more popularity in the minds of international people as it made a debut at Asian Games on Thursday featuring 40 pesilat, or fighters.

On its first day staged at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, East Jakarta, all Indonesia’s representatives which were four male fighters won all the bouts against respective opponents from Thailand, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Timor Leste in the combat events.

Pencak silat doesn’t allow participant to attack faces, while score depends on five juries who sit beside the stage to assess points in the three-round bout. If a score shows 5-0 to a fighter, it means the five juries, in absolute, favor that fighter to win.

“The fight was very fast and I just kept attacking to finish it,” said Indonesia’s Komang Adi Putra who easily beat Timor Leste’s David No-ano Ximenes by 5-0.

“No fight is easy. In a competition as big as Asian Games, they will come with prevalent capabilities,” the 23-year-old athlete added.

Indonesia has been mastering the sport with Vietnam and Malaysia close to break its dominance.

In the 2015 Southeast Asian Games, Indonesia led in pencak silat with 11 total medals earned, followed by Vietnam who got 10 medals.

Furthermore in the 2017 SEA Games, Malaysia was the major winner with 16 medals –10 of it are golds–, while Indonesia only got two gold medals amid some controversial protests.

In this on-going Asian Games, Indonesia is expected to win at least three gold medals from the sport.

Hoping for Olympics

Pencak silat is believed coming from Indonesia with its inherited influence also derived from the Malay ethnic groups which are spread in other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand, where the sport according to several sources was first practiced in the seventh century.

According to the Indonesian government, pencak silat is still on process to be recognized by UNESCO as the country’s cultural heritage, with the decision expected to be out in near future.

Term ‘Pencak Silat’ consists of two different words with pencak often used to describe a dance or movement harmonized with certain rhythm or music, while silat has a clearer meaning as a self-defense practice.

With that, many has seen pencak silat as a traditional dance combined with self-defense as it is supported by a fact that it always features both elements in multi-event championship like the SEA Games and this year’s debut in Asian Games, where 16 gold medals from 10 combating and six motion-art events are at stake.

“We are so happy that pencak silat finally debuted in Asian Games, this is a long-awaited moment,” said Iskandar, secretary general of East Jakarta’s branch of the Indonesian Pencak Silat Association (IPSI).

As the 2018 Asian Games’ host, Indonesia has a privilege to propose its own sport to be included in the medal tally.

“The OCA [Olympic Council of Asia] approved pencak silat to be featured in this year’s Asian Games, but it’s only for now. It’s still a long way to go to make it competed for the Olympics,” Sports Ministry’s secretary general Gatot Dewa Broto told Jakarta Globe.

“To be competed in the Olympics, there must be at least 80 members of the IOC [International Olympic Committee] vote for the sport.

“And what we’ve been doing so far is negotiating with the IOC about it, while obviously promoting the sport regionally.”

Islamic Martial Art

At this year’s Asian Games, there are 167 athletes from 16 countries competing in pencak silat including those who are not from Southeast Asia, such as India, Iran, Nepal and Uzbekistan.

Speaking on the sideline at the Thursday’s event, representatives from Iran said that silat has been long associated with Islam.

That opinion is also supported by Ian Wilson, a PhD scholar at Murdoch University who researched pencak silat’s development in Indonesia. Wilson wrote in his thesis that the martial art has been associated with spiritual and supernatural powers, which partially follow guideline of Islam, the most practiced religion of the Malay people.

“Beside its beauty, pencak silat is an Islamic martial-art and Iran is an Islamic republic, so it’s important that we love this sport,” Homayoun Khorram, president of Iran Pencak Silat Association, told Jakarta Globe.

“It also has a good organization,” he added.

Khorram is currently chairing the Iran’s sport governing body with branches in more than 20 provinces.

“All Muslim countries must turn into pencak silat,” said another Iran official Esfidvajani Amini.

The International Pencak Silat Federation, or Persilat, is currently headquartered in Jakarta with 44 member countries and chaired by Prabowo Subianto, also the chairman of IPSI and leader of the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra.

Reporting and writing by Amal Ganesha for Jakarta Globe