Pencak Silat in Java…

Yesterday, when I was making a powerpoint using slides from my summer research in Indonesia, I came across photos of my pencak silat class in Indonesia. Pencak silat is a Javanese martial art composed of movements derived from Javanese dance and philosophical principles infused with Javanese spirituality. It was also used by Indonesians against the Dutch in the colonial period. Remembering how much fun I had studying pencak silat this summer on a Fulbright in Java, I reached out to the Indonesian Embassy in Beirut to ask if pencak silat counts as one of the many arts that graduating seniors from the American University of Beirut can study while on scholarship in Indonesia–and they said yes. Training in this beautiful martial art in paradise for a year after graduation sounds like an amazing way to make the transition from university life to the “real world.”