Silat

Silat is the collective term for a class of indigenous martial arts from the Nusantara and surrounding geocultural areas of Southeast Asia. It is traditionally practised in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, Southern Philippines and Southern Vietnam. There are hundreds of different styles (aliran) and schools (perguruan) which tend to focus either on strikes, joint manipulation, weaponry, or some combination thereof. The word silat is used by Malay speakers throughout Southeast Asia, but is officially called Pencak silat in Indonesia. The word Pencak silat has been adopted globally in reference to professional competitive silat for sport, similar to the Chinese word wushu. Regional dialect names include penca (West Java), dika or padik (Thailand), silek (the Minangkabau pronunciation of silat), main-po or maen po (in the lower speech of Sundanese), and gayong or gayung (used in parts of Malaysia and Sumatra). Pencak silat is one of the sports included in the Southeast Asian Games and other region-wide competitions. Pencak silat first made its debut in 1987 Southeast Asian Games and 2018 Asian Games, both of which were held in Indonesia. Training halls are overseen by separate national organisations in each of the main countries the art is practised. These organisations are Ikatan Pencak Silat Indonesia (IPSI) in Indonesia, Persekutuan Silat Kebangsaan Malaysia (PESAKA) in Malaysia, Persekutuan Silat Brunei Darussalam (PERSIB) in Brunei, and Persekutuan Silat Singapura (PERSISI) in Singapore. Practitioners are called pesilat. Both Pencak silat and Silat were recognized as a piece of Intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in December 2019. The origin of the word silat is uncertain. The Malay term silat is linked to Minangkabau Indonesia word silek, thus a Sumatran origin of the term is likely. It possibly related to silambam, the Tamil martial art which has been recorded as being practiced in Malaysia since at least the fifteenth century in Malacca.