SENI SILAT CAPE TOWN
  • Home
  • What Is Seni Silat?
  • Training Venues
  • Registration
  • Latest News & Articles
  • Pukulan Melaka
  • Videos
  • Silat Shop
  • SILAT JOURNEY 2012
  • Silat4Life
  • Home
  • What Is Seni Silat?
  • Training Venues
  • Registration
  • Latest News & Articles
  • Pukulan Melaka
  • Videos
  • Silat Shop
  • SILAT JOURNEY 2012
  • Silat4Life
Search

Yayan Ruhiyan: A tough guy with a smile

3/22/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
By: Dina Indrasafitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Those who have seen the action movie Merantau might remember Yayan Ruhiyan as the pragmatic, no-nonsense Eric, who bombarded a man twice his size with fatal blows, causing the latter to collapse in defeat before realizing what had hit him.

In The Raid, set to be released in March, Yayan is the sadistic, fearless Mad Dog, an even more formidable figure seemingly devoid of any goodwill.

Yayan offscreen, however, seldom speaks without a smile. Humble and soft spoken, his only intimidating trait for those meeting him for the first time might be his compact yet obviously toned figure and the fact that he caused the table to rattle significantly each time his sinewed arm brushed against it.

He was unsure why he was chosen as the antagonist in both of the films directed by Gareth Huw Evans.

“I don’t think I have a scary face. Some people say it’s cute … I am just trying to carry out the responsibility given to me the best I can,” Yayan said, laughing.

Apparently, he and the others involved in the process did a decent job. While Merantau, which was released in 2009, got favorable reviews, The Raid was listed as one of Time magazine’s 20 most awaited movies this year.

The film tells the story of a local SWAT team on a risky mission to enter a drug lord’s lair, and was screened at the “Midnight Madness” portion of the Toronto International Film Festival last year.

According to Yayan, his experience with Merantau was something entirely unexpected.

“I was only a member of the choreography team. Two weeks before the shooting began, I was told that there was one role that was still vacant for someone with the ability to do martial arts as well as say lines. I was told ‘Pak Yayan, you are requested to participate in the casting process’,” he recalled.

Yayan said he participated because he felt he had to do his best to carry out the request. A few days later, he was told he got the part.

Despite having acted in two movies and another scheduled soon, he said his background was purely athletic.

Born in Tasikmalaya, West Java, 43 years ago, the teenage Yayan followed in the footsteps of his brother, who did karate. But, Yayan preferred the Indonesian martial art of pencak silat.

“There was a new school [of pencak silat] that was experiencing quite a boom and I tried to enroll there … now it is called PTSD [Pencak Silat Tenaga Dasar] Indonesia. I finally became assistant coach and then I was summoned to Jakarta to become a professional trainer,” he said.

Unfortunately, he was unaware that his training to be a jury referee (wasit juri) in Jakarta would prevent him from participating in future tournaments. He was only told of the prohibition later when he tried to register for a tournament.

“It’s all right. If I can’t be an athlete, I’ll create athletes,” Yayan said, smiling.

His work with pencak silat since then has sent him to various places, including France, the Netherlands and Belgium, where he gave trainings for several months in 2007.

A year later he met Evans, who was doing research about pencak silat, and, later, a documentary on the subject. Yayan and several others, including Iko Uwai, who acted alongside him in Merantau and The Raid, were asked to do the choreography for the documentary. It was then that the idea to make a pencak silat film first came about.

Merantau began, and Yayan, Iko and several other pencak silat athletes arranged the choreography in four months, although, according to Yayan, they were absolute beginners in the world of moviemaking.

“[The pencak silat style] to be used to color the fighting scenes is Sile Harimau Minang … one of the difficult styles in Minang,” he said.

Yayan himself has studied a number of pencak silat styles, mostly from West Java and West Sumatra, as well as other martial arts such as aikido.

One fight scene can take several weeks to complete, and it takes a true pencak silat athlete to deliver a truly convincing performance in front of the camera, he said.

In The Raid he has fewer lines. Most of the dialogue is in the form of fight scenes.

“The important thing is character, how to do a movement with feeling … In conducting a movement, there is wiraga, wirasa, wirama. Wiraga is how the body displays the movement, wirama is whether one can create the rhythm in the performance, and wirasa is whether one can perform the movement with feeling,” Yayan said.

He discovered that roughly the same principle of “feeling” applies to acting as well.

“If I can quote an elder in the moviemaking world, acting is not about carrying it out seriously but carrying it out with feeling … I found out that it’s true. We often see a performance we might label good, but it’s just a performance that doesn’t get through … it has no feel to it,” Yayan said.

He is now working on more choreography for an upcoming project, again with Evans and Iko.

Yayan’s busy schedule in the moviemaking world has kept him from engaging in as much training as he used to.

However, he still finds time to train once or twice a week.

“I get up in the morning, train for two hours, and if Iko is [at the office], I will train with him,” he said.

Yayan has a number of people he looks up to in the pencak silat world. One of the most awe-inspiring for him is the late Enny Rukmini Sekarningrat, who was a teacher of the Panglipur pencak silat school.

“She was really a teacher who knew what she was doing and could be a teacher in the personal and intellectual sense,” he said.

His current dream is to make pencak silat something Indonesian youth are proud of. “Even though it seems like it will be very hard, God willing [I can do it]” he said.

Thanks to Merantau quite a few people did approach him to learn the Sile Harimau style. However, the movie also had some unexpected consequences. For six months after the release, people would recognize him in public as “Eric”.

“But I knew they were asking for Iko… ‘Why? You want me to tell him you said hello?’ [I would say],” Yayan laughed.

The problem subsided, however, when he started growing his hair long. “I am quite safe now,” he said, smiling.

0 Comments

Silat Pukulan Melaka Youth Camp 2012 - Malaysia

3/21/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Perguruan Seni Silat Pukulan Melaka (Pukulan Melaka silat school) recently held its annual youth camp at the Gelanggang Solok Gaung (training grounds) in Melaka headquarters. The camp took place between 9th-11th March, and had 160 participants.

Pukulan Melaka now operates in 9 primary and secondary schools offering self defense classes for male and female students. The purpose of this camp was to grade successful participants in the first level to achieve the Bengkung Kuning (yellow belt level).

The Ujian (grading test) was done by senior Pukulan Melaka instructors and overseen by Master Guru Hj Mokhtar Yahya, the founder of PSSPM (Persatuan Seni Silat Pukulan Melaka). The grading ceremony was also attended by the Chief Minister ( Premier of Melaka) Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam, who happens to be a good friend of Hj Mokhtar.

The Cape Town branch of Pukulan melaka is growing steadily Alhamdulillah, now having reached 100 students (adults and youth). Please check our training venues page for more information on how you or your kids could learn this Malaysian martial art. Contact pukulanmelaka.sa@gmail.com or SMS/call: 0718698240 or 0718957452

0 Comments

Mysterious Ninja attacks on Silat - funny but true

3/21/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The police are in the process of gathering information linked to the attack by an unidentified group in ninja-like attire on teenage members of the Kera Sakti Indonesia silat (traditional martial art) school in Ngawi, East Java, Indonesia on Sunday morning.

Ngawi Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Eddy Djunaedi said that police detectives were investigating the crime scene in search of evidence and questioning witnesses.

"We are investigating the motive of the attack," Eddy said as quoted by tempo.co on Sunday.

At least 10 members of the Kera Sakti School sustained injuries in the attack, four of whom were severely injured during the assaults that took place in two separate locations in the region; Kedungprahu village in Padas and Sekarputih village in Widodaren.

The pesilat were training when dozens of people wearing ninja attire assaulted them with sticks, bottles and stones.
Source: The Jakarta Post

0 Comments

    ABANG

    What's hot around the silat world!

    Archives

    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011

    Categories

    All
    Business
    Courses
    Events
    Exercize
    Exersize
    Heritage
    Inspiration
    Kids
    Movies
    Places Of Interest
    Reality
    Religion
    Silat Warriors
    Sports
    Travel
    Women In Silat

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • What Is Seni Silat?
  • Training Venues
  • Registration
  • Latest News & Articles
  • Pukulan Melaka
  • Videos
  • Silat Shop
  • SILAT JOURNEY 2012
  • Silat4Life