Silat Melayu (Malay Silat)
سيلت ملايوThe Malay branch of silat, at home in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Its central element is the bunga, a flowing base from which application unfolds.
Quick Facts
MalaysiaCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Silat Melayu (Malay Silat)
Silat Melayu is the collective name for the Malay branch of silat. It is not a single school, and this page therefore leaves both founder and year empty. It is current in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and further in regions of Malay cultural influence — Sumatra, southern Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. The tradition's flowering falls in the era of the Malacca Sultanate in the fifteenth century, from which it spread across maritime Southeast Asia. Its best-known figure is the legendary warrior Hang Tuah, whose story is told in the Hikayat Hang Tuah; his duel with his companion Hang Jebat is arguably the most cited duel in silat literature. It is, however, a literary work and not a chronicle, and this page says so. Training has a structure of its own that differs from Chinese or Japanese conceptions. Its base is the bunga, literally the flower — a flowing, dance-like foundation from which application is only then developed. On it rest the langkah, the steps and placement of the feet, the jurus as movement sequences, the tari as the dance form, and the buah, where all of it becomes concrete application. That application is derived from an aesthetic base rather than the other way round is what defines Malay silat. The central weapon is the kris, a dagger often given a wavy blade by folding different metals together; alongside it the parang and the lembing, the spear, are trained. Silat was inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in 2019. The national bodies are PESAKA in Malaysia, PERSISI in Singapore and PERSIB in Brunei, which together with the Indonesian side stood at the birth of the international federation PERSILAT.
Styles & Branches
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.