Tiga Pukul wrote:I know what you try to say but still saying Silat (and Kuntao) (thousands of styles) is very similar to Southern Shaolin Kungfu (one or a few styles) is still a stretch. Sometimes when i look at other silat styles and i compare them with what i train i feel it's like a different world (different strategy, tactics, way of generating power, way of moving, use of words). In the end you still need to be lucky to find a solid and deep system with a teacher who has a lot of knowledge, skill and a solid lineage tree and, most importantly, is willing to share. But then again everyone thinks he found a teacher like that
True. I suppose I should have phrased it better and said that "some of the Silat styles I've seen contain techniques that are almost identical to the Southern Shaolin kungfu I've either come across or practiced."
I read somewhere years ago that the founder of Cimande used to cross hands and compare notes with Chinese Kungfu masters who'd immigrated to Indonesia in the late 1700s. Wonder if you can provide any more info related to that?
Also, on an interesting side note, "Kuntao" actually means "fist" in southern Fukien dialect, and is the old-fashioned way of referring to martial arts/kung fu in general. Due to the large number of people of Fukienese descent in Taiwan, the term was also widely used back in the days -- especially prior to 1949 before Chiang Kaishek's Nationalist army came and caused a large influx of CMA styles from other regions of China. While nowadays the younger generations and practitioners of Northern styles and IMAs usually use words like "Kuoshu," "Wushu," and "Gongfu" to refer to CMA, elderly Taiwanese people above the age of 70 still often call it "Kuntao."
So Kuntao is basically an umbrella term that encompasses all of the various Southern CMA styles that originated in the southern and coastal regions of Fukien, where seafaring locals have traveled and immigrated to what are now Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, since the 15th century, and brought their fighting arts to those foreign lands.
Am I saying that ALL Kuntao and Silat styles originally came from China? Of course not. But I don't think it'd be unfair to say that Chinese Kuntao had influenced the development of many systems practiced in the Malay Archipelago, especially ones that still bear the same name.