Silat or Penchak Silat means "fighting with self-defense tactics" and refers to martial arts from Southeast Asia with cultural roots from the Malay World. Although most popular in Indonesia, this art can also be found in various degrees through Cambodia and Thailand’s Malay-affiliated communities. In fact, is has even already reached Europe and has become very well-known Netherlands; here, it is as popular as America and karate. An estimation of hundreds of styles (aliran) and schools exist for Silat, which observe wild animals for their ways of combat, like tigers (harimau) ...

Taekwondo refers to a combat sport and martial art from Korea. It happens to be South Korea’s national sport, while kyeorugi (sparring) is an event of Olympic sports. In Korean, “tae” means “to destroy with feet”, kwon means “to smash or strike with hands”, and “do” means “way”, “method” or “path”. Therefore, taekwondo can be loosely translated to “the way of the fists and feet”. ...

Tai chi chuan refers to an internal martial art of China, which is oftentimes put to practice with the goal of longevity and health promotion. The training forms of tai chi chuan are famous for their slow routines, which groups of people do together each morning in the park worldwide, mostly in China. Several medical studies fully support its overall effectiveness as alternative exercises and forms of therapy in martial arts. ...

Just like Thailand, its neighbor Burma has developed unarmed fighting systems that have been around for centuries. Since China and India are its neighbors, it should not come as a surprise that the overall evolution of these unarmed fighting tactics owe a lot to those countries. ...

Vovinam refers to a kind of martial arts from Vietnamese, which can be practiced either with or completely without weapons. Vovinam is based on principles of both soft and hard harmony and includes full mind and body training with help of the opponent’s reaction and force. “Vo” means “martial arts”, whle “vinam” means "Vietnam". Both tactics of defense and attack are trained along with foot tactics, forms, combats and classic wrestling. ...