Is silat all about fighting ? Or maybe it has something more to offer you, something more sublime. Something which somehow in the mad rush for technology, we forgot something which, thou wasn't money it contain
great wealth, that we as a society maybe took for granted ? I believe we have and that is the "Art of the Community"
I come from a small town in the North of Ireland call Kilrea, and one of my earliest childhood memories is at night walking with my father a short distance out of town, to where my Father Aunts live, a place call Moneygran . In this small house a few of my relations lived. and 2 -3 times a week it became a céilidh house ( for those of you who live outside of Ireland a céilidh is a traditional Gaelic social gathering) a place where the men and women folk would get together to spend a evening in each others company, talking about the day, telling jokes, playing live music and having a laugh. The children like myself would be outside playing football and other games or childish mischief, even on winter nights with frost on the roads, men would still gather and share tales and interesting notes of their day, sharing problems, all this done in a subtle way very unlike the brass media grabbing way we deal with our problems today like the Jerry Springer / Dr. Phil. This old traditional gathering of yesterday created a bond of community and made people feel less alone.
Skipping forward 10 years and I remember nights where me and other teenagers would hang out at the fairy tree (famous land spot in the town) on church street, with our bicycles, and again like before having fun, meeting each other, building friendship, good skills that later help us to build relationship in life and work and be able to communicate with others. Sharing the banter is a skill and great way of dealing with stress.
Now if I skip almost 30 years forward, I now live in a large city, and like many many other cites, small towns and villages across Ireland and I'm sure in many another country, the sense of community is gone or disappearing. We are now tapped into hi- tec world of I phones, I pads, on demand T.V /Music in our living room, social media etc... we now have access to an entire World in our room, we have simply no need to leave it. We can express everything we want from the simple use of our fingers tapping a key board. We have given up living life experiences to simply watching it and by enjoying this we have now paid the price for this by sacrificing our ability to communicate face to face and so we have lost the "Art of the community" We feel alone, isolated and with this world wide recession effecting all of us, it also brings additionally so much more stress in on top of us, money, family, work relationships, frustration, depression and we have no one to turn to. Many have turn to drink or drugs as a support structure, only to realise an empty bottle ain't a friend. We realise very little remains in place for us to really share. But bit by bit maybe we now need to realise that community is important and maybe its time to share time with others instead of competing with each other.
So what has Silat got to do with all this, well Silat is a life style and one of the things I do is try to give students the opportunity to share time outside of martial arts training. If you come to any of my classes you will see something very unique after class, people hang around and chat, they talk, crack jokes and have fun. The only thing that's off topic is recession talk (we had enough of that) and since one of our policy is that all members are equal no matter the age, ability, skin colour, religion (very King Arthur i hear you say except there no round table lol, not yet anyway). We as human being need company, and this opportunity can make a great evening for some people. For less than €10 students get a chance to train hard, learn a new skill, have fun, make new friends, talk and get to feel a part of something more than just themselves on their own.No matter what is happening during the daytime or at home or work, for a couple of hours some week night they have an oasis where they can go and feel welcome and have fun, and what's even better, no hangover the next morning in fact you are prone to after training a night in silat, feel actually very good the next morning!
Hard to beat isn't it.
We have tried to make silat a part of the whole community lives here in Ireland, so we have classes from the very young, to teenagers, to adults and the senior citizens, we have took the art into schools, and offices, to youth clubs and even to churches. People learn silat maybe to be able to defend themselves, or to find a new exercise program, or as a way to use the internal aspects so they can de- stress or travel a journey for inner development. Over the 30 years from when this art was introduce to Ireland to today silat has reach out, and help students who have come across it. I get a taste of this by the emails and letters I received from students over the years. For this reason I will always be grateful to my teachers who brought silat into my life, and I hope in some small way if it can maybe help even a few people to deal with today's modern lifestyle, than its being a journey and path well taken. Silat is special and the best way I can describe it is "It's a Gift"
I hope you enjoy this article, and please support our club page by clicking the "Like" button on www.facebook.com/urbansilat or sharing this article on your page. If you like more info on Silat please feel free to ask e mail guruliam@hotmail.com
I come from a small town in the North of Ireland call Kilrea, and one of my earliest childhood memories is at night walking with my father a short distance out of town, to where my Father Aunts live, a place call Moneygran . In this small house a few of my relations lived. and 2 -3 times a week it became a céilidh house ( for those of you who live outside of Ireland a céilidh is a traditional Gaelic social gathering) a place where the men and women folk would get together to spend a evening in each others company, talking about the day, telling jokes, playing live music and having a laugh. The children like myself would be outside playing football and other games or childish mischief, even on winter nights with frost on the roads, men would still gather and share tales and interesting notes of their day, sharing problems, all this done in a subtle way very unlike the brass media grabbing way we deal with our problems today like the Jerry Springer / Dr. Phil. This old traditional gathering of yesterday created a bond of community and made people feel less alone.
Skipping forward 10 years and I remember nights where me and other teenagers would hang out at the fairy tree (famous land spot in the town) on church street, with our bicycles, and again like before having fun, meeting each other, building friendship, good skills that later help us to build relationship in life and work and be able to communicate with others. Sharing the banter is a skill and great way of dealing with stress.
Now if I skip almost 30 years forward, I now live in a large city, and like many many other cites, small towns and villages across Ireland and I'm sure in many another country, the sense of community is gone or disappearing. We are now tapped into hi- tec world of I phones, I pads, on demand T.V /Music in our living room, social media etc... we now have access to an entire World in our room, we have simply no need to leave it. We can express everything we want from the simple use of our fingers tapping a key board. We have given up living life experiences to simply watching it and by enjoying this we have now paid the price for this by sacrificing our ability to communicate face to face and so we have lost the "Art of the community" We feel alone, isolated and with this world wide recession effecting all of us, it also brings additionally so much more stress in on top of us, money, family, work relationships, frustration, depression and we have no one to turn to. Many have turn to drink or drugs as a support structure, only to realise an empty bottle ain't a friend. We realise very little remains in place for us to really share. But bit by bit maybe we now need to realise that community is important and maybe its time to share time with others instead of competing with each other.
So what has Silat got to do with all this, well Silat is a life style and one of the things I do is try to give students the opportunity to share time outside of martial arts training. If you come to any of my classes you will see something very unique after class, people hang around and chat, they talk, crack jokes and have fun. The only thing that's off topic is recession talk (we had enough of that) and since one of our policy is that all members are equal no matter the age, ability, skin colour, religion (very King Arthur i hear you say except there no round table lol, not yet anyway). We as human being need company, and this opportunity can make a great evening for some people. For less than €10 students get a chance to train hard, learn a new skill, have fun, make new friends, talk and get to feel a part of something more than just themselves on their own.No matter what is happening during the daytime or at home or work, for a couple of hours some week night they have an oasis where they can go and feel welcome and have fun, and what's even better, no hangover the next morning in fact you are prone to after training a night in silat, feel actually very good the next morning!
Hard to beat isn't it.
We have tried to make silat a part of the whole community lives here in Ireland, so we have classes from the very young, to teenagers, to adults and the senior citizens, we have took the art into schools, and offices, to youth clubs and even to churches. People learn silat maybe to be able to defend themselves, or to find a new exercise program, or as a way to use the internal aspects so they can de- stress or travel a journey for inner development. Over the 30 years from when this art was introduce to Ireland to today silat has reach out, and help students who have come across it. I get a taste of this by the emails and letters I received from students over the years. For this reason I will always be grateful to my teachers who brought silat into my life, and I hope in some small way if it can maybe help even a few people to deal with today's modern lifestyle, than its being a journey and path well taken. Silat is special and the best way I can describe it is "It's a Gift"
I hope you enjoy this article, and please support our club page by clicking the "Like" button on www.facebook.com/urbansilat or sharing this article on your page. If you like more info on Silat please feel free to ask e mail guruliam@hotmail.com
