What is the Piper System?
What Is The Piper System?
So, what exactly is the Piper system, and what makes up the constituent parts or elements of it?
I have been asked this question numerous times, so, I shall try to elaborate as best I can on this subject.
Piper as a method developed from the knife methods and tricks employed by gang members inside the prison system of South Africa. These methods then metastasized out into the criminal world on the streets of Cape Flats.
It was in Cape Flats, that various gang members and criminals were interviewed to see, exactly what they were doing; from this point, the various tricks were organized into what we now call the Piper system.
It should be noted, that this particular method of fighting, first started out as a way to organize a way of training against criminals, and not as a full blown martial art.
The Elements That Compose The Piper System
The elements that compose the Piper system are, Indo-Malayian Silat, N'guni stick fighting, form boxing, and Zulu spear and shield.
The Indo-Malayian Silat comes from skilled slaves taken from Indonesia and Malaysia; they were brought to South Africa by the Dutch and British. This is where the understanding of using a knife in close quarters came into the mix. The Silat system that influences it might be the Kilap (lighting) system of Silat, but that is still up for debate.
Nguni stick fighting, is a regional method of stick fighting found throughout South Africa, and heavily lends its particular movement structure to the Piper system. I should mention, and is paramount, it lays most of the particular foundation.
Form boxing, which sounds very martial arts cool, is actually short for Reform school boxing. Kids in reform school, fight using both western boxing and Nguni (sans the stick) movements.
Lastly, is the Zulu spear and shield methods, which lends itself to close quarter knife movement, by giving a fearsome understanding of stabbing.
So, to recap, if we look at what the Piper System is, I would say, it is a truly African fighting system.
For Videos on the Piper Tripwire System follow this link:
