Customer Reviews

Pencak Silat: Through My Eyes

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed reading the book.

It gives a glimpse of background on Mande Muda and Pak Herman Suwanda.

The book shows the Silat styles that make up Mande Muda.

I wish the book had more in depth coverage of the Silat styles of Mande Muda.

As a matter of fact, that is one of the reasons I didn't give it a 5 star.

The other reason is that the book had about 2 chapters covering the Indonesian History. I would've prefered less coverage of the Indonesian History and more coverage on the Indonesian Silat.

The Indonesian history chapters are outlines. I fell asleep most of the time in history class during grade and elementary school in Indonesia. So I guess this was a good way for me to catch up *haha*

Nonetheless a good book on Mande Muda history. I wouldn't recommend this book if you're looking at technique or jurus illustrations. There are other Silat books that cover techniques and jurus better.

I really like the way this book is organized. Admitedly, I would like some of the chapters shorter (history of Indonesia, without relevance to silat) and some others longer (technical portion, eg. jurus and their buah), but than again, there is no such thing as a perfect book.

This time, though, I think than Mr. Somera did a great job as an editor (well, maybe some linguistic details could have been more correct...but than again, maybe that would not give us closer image of Herman Suwanda). The material is well presented and I especially like the order of chapters. In my view, the reflections of some more prominent students of the late Pak Herman included after the technical portion, are beautifullt done and really make those reders (myself included) who never had the chance to meet the man, start understanding the impact he had on people around him.

I would wholehartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in martial arts, and for those into silat, I'd say it's a must read.

By now you might be wondering why not 5 start then? Because I feel that this book does not meet the expectations, i.e. the potential it had. If it had mor in depth presentation ofthe technical material (like in book on Leo Giron for example) to make it a little bit better rounded, I would not hesitate giving it 5/5 rating.

Here again, my complain about the shipping conditions stand once more. I held Amazon in very high regard as a company, so they should not allow for mistakes like changing the shipping method without customer's consent.