A bit of History Lesson

I feel that it is time for me to clarify the origins of certain tournaments that I have organised before that were different from or never have been thought of before.

First off... the silat league that was held in April of 2006. This was the first time ever an athlete can still compete even after he/she lost a match. Some people in the perguruan unashamedly claimed that it was his idea but to tell you the truth it was not even my idea let alone his idea... It was actually suggested by Sumarleki's Father-in-law when we did a performance for Abah's grandson's berkhatam ceremony in 2005. He told me that it would create a lot of interest among practitioner of silat and now I even dare say to the practitioner of all martial arts.

What I did was to expend on the idea and worked on the settings. To get support I managed to convince 2 other perguruans namely Warisan headed by Mr Ramlan and Kembang Wali headed by Mr Razali. We carried out the tournament over 4 sessions and complete every match planned.

Then came the invitation from Mr Razali of GRASIO who invited us to compete in a very new concept that they called Best of the Best. This was really exciting as the athlete compete thru teams of 5 and the winner is determined by the no. of athlete winnings in a single round over the opposing team.

Hence by combining both this concept we managed to create the Martial Art Tanding tournament this year 2009. Incorporating the Tanding rule is not totally my idea ... I bounced the idea with Razali (Jaliboi) who is residing in Australia now. He called me ever so often to discuss , iron out details and I have been the conservative one in the discussion table. However, any ideas I would think through its feasibility... the idea to bring in people from all walks of life whether they have any trainings at all in Martial Art is both exciting and risky at the same time. We may be at the losing end and this can mean the end of our dreams but this is a test that I want to see in my lifetime. I hope this will put an end to all those haters who thought that silat is some fantasy style dreamt out by lazy Malay Kampung people... but after seeing the tournament ... what do you think ?

My Personal Goal organising the Martial Art Tanding Tournament is to showcase our fight techniques that may not be the most effective one but still stand just as tall as any other Martial Arts in the world. I feel by tweaking the Tanding Rule, this objective can be achieved. Of course I got to thank Mr Azni and his group of referees, Mr Sharif, Hj Rahman and Mr Kadir who had came to lend support in which without their support my dream will never ever be realised...

Now the floodgates has open... Come one.... Come All... Lets Rise... A NEW ERA HAS BEGUN !!!