The Life of Guru Kahir

[Short essay quoted from Gema Pencak Silat Vol 3 no. 1:18-19]

Kahir lived in a village of Cogreg, Bogor. He became a feared pendekar around the year 1760 which was when he first introduced to his students the maempo Cimande moves. His students then spread it out to other regions like Batavia, Bekasi, Karawang, Cikampek, Cianjur, Bandung, Garut, Tasikmalaya, Sumedang, Ciamis, Kuningan, and Cirebon.When he was living in Cogreg, Bogor, Kahir used to travel far, leaving his hometown for trading horses. There has been many attempts to rob him, but he was able to overcome them all because of his skills in playing maempo. In Batavia he was able to get acquainted with other silat pendekar(s) from Minangkabau and Cina - masters in the world of silat, and he traded experiences with them. His meeting with other silat pendekar gave him an idea to broaden his horizon by accepting other cultures into his own. When doing business in Cianjur, he met with the 4th city mayor of Cianjur, Raden Adipati Wiratanudatar (1776-1813).

He then decided to move to Cianjur and lived in Kamurang vilage. Raden Adipati Wiratanudatar knew that Kahir is skillful in playing maempo and he asked him to teach him and his family, all regional and security officers. In order to prove Kahir's his skills, the mayor challenged him to a fight against a Chinese master of Kuntao Macao in alun-alun (park) Cianjur. Kahir won the fight and made himself more popular among the people in Cianjur region. In 1815 Kahir came back to Bogor, he begat 5 "sons" which are Endut, Ocod, Otang, Komar and Oyot. By his 5 sons was Cimande widely spread throughout the land of Pasundan (Western Java). Meanwhile in Bogor, Cimande was successed by his student, Ace, who died in Tarik Kolot. His descendants have become the elders of pencaksilat Cimande Tarik Kolot Kebon Jeruk Hilir. The beginning of the 19th century was when Cimande reached it's glorious moments in West Java, that Kahir's typical clothing of "sontok" or "pangsi" shorts (very loose/baggy shorts) with "kampret" shirt has become the model uniform of pencak silat until present.

In 1825 Kahir died and his fighting art is continuously developing and widely accepted by people of West Java. His training methods was developed by his pupil such as Sera' and Ciwaringin style which along the way made some changes in the moves such as done by Haji Abdul Rosid. However, the changes is not too much different than the basic maempo Cimande moves. Today Cimande has developed and widely spread unto different corners around the world. The problem has been that Kahir did not put his teaching in writings, but oral tradition which is not systematic. In the village of Cimande, maempo Cimande is not in an organized form. From one family to another, the Cimande is passed down from one generation to another in an unorganized manner that it produced many students and branched many schools, legaly as well as illegally, not familiar with one another. At least Cimande has become the basic for other silat moves that later developed and branched out world widely.