Training in Kampung Ubi Community Center

Posted on: 24th September 2001

Sometime around July, I was asked to stand in as a replacement for another silat instructor who teaches in Kampung Ubi CC (KUCC). The instructor, Rahim Khamis, has started a new job which requires him to work on shifts. Because of this he had trouble attending the silat class that he's supposed to conduct.

The signboard outside KUCC

After a while, my teacher (Hj. Hussain Kaslan) asked me to take over the silat class in Kampung Ubi CC permanently. This I did, and I have been teaching there ever since.

Before this I was responsible for the silat class in NUS (National University of Singapore) for a while, so I guess I'm not new to conducting silat classes. Being an instructor allows me to see silat training from a different perspective. It requires a different set of skills. Knowledge in my art is of course very important, but I find myself always thinking about how best to communicate my ideas and thoughts to my students. Communication is vital during any silat training session, for if your students preceive your words wrongly they'll end up doing something totally different from what you want them to do.

Another important skill is the ability to motivate my students. Some silat movements are difficult, such as the acrobatic movements. But a student must learn them for they will be tested on it during their annual grading.

Kampung Ubi Community Center (KUCC)	The guy to meet to register for any course in KUCC

Over at NUS, I concentrated more on self-defence. At KUCC, I concentrate more on sparring. This is because I was also elected as my silat school's team manager for the National Silat Championships 2001. This is from July to August. I'll talk about it more in another page. This happened at about the same time that I was asked to replace Abang Rahim Khamis at Kampung Ubi CC. Thus I use KUCC as the training ground for competition sparring. After the National Championships is over, I started shifting my training towards 'kesenian' (set forms or kata) which forms the bulk of our training syllabus. I sometimes slip in some ideas on self-defence, but mostly we concentrated on 'kesenian' and sparring.

The training session is as follows:
Wednesdays:	8:00pm-10:00pm
Fridays:	8:00pm-10:00pm
For Enquiries:	7427281

A simple map of Kampung Ubi CC
(not drawn to scale)