KUCING / KUCIN (Cat) PINTAR BERMAIN KUCING (Playful Cat)
MATJAN, CHI-MATJAN, MACAN, PAMACAN (Upright Tigers and other large cats, including Topcat, Tom, Felix and Bagpuss! ;)
(Please note I'll be using the word "Kucin" to refere to the cat as there are so many spellings I've been given so chose this for ease)
Kucin although a very old system is sadly now only found in its entirety and by name in Sumatra Bawa (West Sumatra) and the boarder region of northern Malayu and southern Thailand.
Its origins are lost to history. In the west, to my knowledge only East West Studios and its affiliated schools continue to train kucin style in its entirety.
Kucin can be found in varying degrees in many schools of Harimau in Sumatra, and it as influenced much of the ground fighting arts in the region, many teachers of Harimau will just call these movements harimau but historically they owe their conception to the upright kucin systems;
in fact I've heard said from good sources that styles like Harimau and Buaya originally came out of the kucin systems as practiced in Sumatra today.
In our system we also do not use techniques and concepts of the kucin by name, but in the movements of Matjan and Chi-matjan we find the same concept of movement attack and defence there’s tons of overlap as they all operate with the same MO.
In fact in my personal training I have studied a lot of kucin and advise all my students to put in some time outside of the standard curriculum prior to training harimau to cross train in this important range and plane of combat it helps with body movement at the lower line and acts as an excellent transition into harimau or out into Kera, Mawas and Monyet.
If one was to toss a cat into the air (Be careful if trying this at home) and watch it land we see its ability to hit the ground safely, with the option always there to either flee or fight always turning and twisting to land on its feet effectively and boom of it goes
Kucin makes a great recovery system should we be thrown, slip or fall to go to ground safely and to quickly recover and get back up to a standing position and if we're caught in the kneeling position in transition from the ground we can move like lightning and defend and more importantly attack from several different kneeling postures.
If we where to be fighting multiple attackers and please lets be realistic here, every encounter in the REAL WORLD (ie outside of the dojo) as the potential of developing VERY quickly into multiple combat with antagonists appearing from nowhere some not even originally connected to the scenario and just want to join in just for shits and giggles, or where in the bog or at the bar or maybe just not seen by you when it "kicked off"
Harimau as its place and is a very powerful system but anyone who as worked it and I mean REALLY worked it hard, pressure testing it against more than just another Silat player of the matts and outside of the "compliancy game" will testify its just to slow and lacks mobility and adaptability, its all or nothing.
When a tiger leaps on its prey its fully committed to smashing into it over powering it dragging it to the ground and tearing it to pieces it cant stop its leap half way through, should three people appear back from the bar, once your committed and supine on the floor its VERY hard to get back up
in one piece without getting your head caved in!
Its power and advantage comes in powerful Offensive shooting and takedowns its not meant to be so static its designed to take prey down ASAP and doesn’t fair to well in a multiple arena on a crowed street or bar or sidewalk, full of cars, people broken bottles dog turds syringes etc etc.
These aren’t the fields of Sumatra ! If we are attacked and forced to hit the ground in Raja Harimau in middle of Piccadilly Circus in rush hour your likely to end up dead and that’s just from pass’s by!
Harimau was described to me best, by a very famous exponent like this" If I was across the street and I saw my wife and kid being pulled into a back of a car and someone was blocking my path to them, thats when I'd use Harimau"
Life or death to destroy the opponent as quickly and surely as possible"
As we can see it’s NOT a purely defensive system by any means and using it as such is like using a cannonball as a paper weight! Sure it makes a great paperweight but it’s not what it was meant for used correctly it blows things to bits!
Like the falling cat we need to land safely and quickly into an agile position with the ability formost, for mobility! Try chasing a cat and you'll see there VERY hard to catch
when we hit the floor and need to get out of the situation and move with speed and agility at the low line kuchin and matjan are what we should be pressure testing and working.
Harimau as its place and its a wonderful system when used properly, but like any other system needs to be used and tested correctly.
Kucin and matjan use a lot of what the Indonesians call "Gelek" which means to twist or turn and using the example of the falling cat we see it as the ability to almost turn 360 around its own spine it lands and spins a lot, twisting and turning to avoid contact
I advise that this, is where we should be working, with this ability to twist and turn spin and kick while turning using galek once grounded instead of adopting a static harimau posture and waiting for the inevitable
so lets look at some examples of kuchin and matjan.
In our curriculum there are several matjan techniques and many include attacking the enemies knees and groin obvious setup targets when in a kneeling posture, from there we can use elbow knee takedowns, using galek we can apply leg and ankle brakes or wraps and takedowns to harimau proper
but with kucin we can use kicks at various levels offensively as well as defensively to help twist us and make us of the momentum to regain a standing posture (some pictured below)
Kucin also uses a lot of trapping and crushing with the kneeling leg either pinning with the knee to an opponents head or limb or more cleverly between the fold of the thigh and calf to crush a limb or head controlling so as to meet other threats from other opponents.
The kneeling leg pin idea is also wonderfully effective as a base to roll from, cats roll a lot, when we use that knee as a base which, lets say is kneeling on someones testicles as a base to forward roll from then for the split second our entire bodyweight, plus gravity and momentum of our roll completely crushes what’s beneath it; easily rupturing the testicles! one person less to worry about as we roll into the next.
Obviously the kucin calls for a LOT of conditioning! Our power to weight ratio must be very good! As we make great use of the supporting hand to hold us, while applying kicks takedowns and rolls.
As well as wrist and shoulder strength, we need good cardiovascular fitness to apply the twisting and turning, learning to break fall rolling and springing up and conditioning the legs and "core" are all paramount to successful kucin play.
Those of us who are heavyset really have to work on conditioning for this animal as extra weight limits maneuverability and stamina, so missing a few meals and odd pint now and again wont hurt! As well as working hard on press-ups and core abdominal work are a must.
If you cant hold a "Plank" position or support your entire bodyweight repeatedly on one hand you ARE going to have to put in the hours and sweat.
In the wild there are very few "Fat" cats because they get eaten by the Tigers ;)
Play hard train safe brothers.
