On Meeting Cikgu Sani and Missing the Tsunami… Part I

My story begins on the afternoon of Friday December 24th in Kuala Lumpur. I was meeting with Dato Omar Din, the Mahaguru of the Silat Lincah Malaysia Association. Omar Din is a big deal in Malaysia, since Silat Lincah is recognized as the largest association – of any kind - in Malaysia, with a peak membership count of 700,000 members and a total of over one million members since 1962. Omar Din and I discussed a movie that he made in 1982 depicting some of the Tenaga Dalam (Inner Power) training effects of Silat Lincah. It’s a documentary that’s over 90 minutes long that the famous Shaw Brothers of Hong Kong made. To call this movie amazing is an understatement. The film shows among other things Silat practitioners diving out of a third storey window – right through the glass (!) - onto an open field and then just getting up and walking away. No wires, no pads, no gimmicks – this is the real McCoy.

I contacted Omar Din because I’m planning on launching a website called “Silat.TV” that features DVDs and merchandise from what I hope will eventually be dozens of unique Silat systems. I wanted to license the Lincah movie – called “One Step into the Beyond” for sale on my website. He has agreed in principle and we are now working out the details.

After our meeting, I met with my three traveling companions (two Silat Kuntau Tekpi instructors and one senior student) for my trip to Kedah. We ended up leaving Kuala Lumpur around 6:30 pm to begin our 6 hour journey to Baling, Kedah where Cikgu Sani lives (here’s a map: http://www.emmes.net/malaysia/regions/kedah/map.asp , and here’s some background info: http://www.myfareast.org/Malaysia/kedah/ ). Baling is about 40 km from the coast, and what appears to be walking distance from the border with Thailand ( http://allmalaysia.info/news/story.asp?file=/2003/9/6/state/6218349&sec=mi_kedah ). This will become an important fact shortly…

Our six-hour journey ended up taking about eight hours once we factored in Christmas Eve traffic, meal and bathroom breaks. We arrived at Cikgu Sani’s home at about 2:30 am. We knocked on his front door for about 15 minutes with no answer. This was surprising, since he was aware that we were coming and that we’d be arriving very late.

We decide to go find a hotel room in Baling. Well, there’s only one hotel in Baling, and it was packed with people who were traveling for the Christmas holiday.

One interesting sideline about Malaysia – since they are a multicultural society, they officially honor and recognize all of the major religious and cultural holidays of their Malay (Muslim), Indian (Hindu, Muslim) and Chinese (Buddhist, Muslim and Christian) citizens. This means that the Malaysians may have more official holidays than any other country on Earth! So when it’s Christmas, everyone is off work and celebrating, even though only about 2% or 3% of the population is Christian!

Anyway, it’s Christmas Eve and there’s no room at the Baling Inn. We were directed to a small bed & breakfast, but they were also full. By now it’s 3:30 am and there’s nowhere to go. My traveling companions then suggested that we go sleep in one of the many mosques in Baling. The mosques in Baling have no walls and are not locked, since it’s a tropical environment year-round. When were arrived at one of the larger mosques, I was surprised to see no less than 20 or 30 people who were already there, spread out and sleeping on the floor. My mates and I picked one corner and we prepared ourselves for sleep, using clothes from our luggage as pillows and our sarongs as blankets.

My friends promptly fell asleep. I – on the other hand – had a problem. Mosquitoes. They didn’t seem to be bothering anyone else, but I was being eaten alive. I tossed and turned on the floor for about 30 minutes before I finally gave up. I got up and started to walk the streets of downtown Baling. This is a tiny town and I was able to cover a large part of it in just half an hour. It was now about 5 am, and the early morning roadside coffee shops were beginning to open. I went to one and enjoyed a nice cup of Teh Tarik (http://202.186.86.35/special/online/usjweb/usjteh.htm ) while seated in front of a small fan that served to keep my many new small friends at bay.

I then saw a fascinating sight – a Padi (rice) farmer drove up to the coffee shop on his scooter to drop off some fresh rice pastries for sale. This guy was a monster! He had the build of an Olympic light-heavyweight wrestler. The guy was huge and shredded. You could see every muscle in his forearms as he unloaded the pastries. I had to chuckle, since he resembled a cross between the Warner Brothers Tasmanian Devil and a bullet (since he kept his helmet on his head and he was wearing a sarong that hid his legs and gave him a cylindrical look). I found out later that many of these Kedah Padi farmers look like that. They still use manually powered mills and plows and other equipment on their farms. Apparently, they are well known for being incredibly strong and fit. If the guy I saw is a Silat practitioner – and the odds are very good that he is – then the Silat in Kedah is even more formidable than I thought!

I went back to the mosque at about 6 am to meet my friends (who were just waking) and to do our morning prayers. We then stopped for breakfast at another roadside café before heading over to Cikgu Sani’s house.