[4] Cecep Arif Rahman won the first place trophy in an international pencak silat championship in Thailand in the mid 1990s.
He regularly attended the Bercy martial arts festival in Paris and was often invited to conduct silat workshops in France, Italy, England, the Netherlands, and the USA.
[2][3] Cecep Arif Rahman became acquainted with Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian at the Bercy festival in 2006.
In 2008, Cecep Arif Rahman was contacted by the two of them to assist in the making of his first film Merantau but at that time he had just been appointed a civil servant and turned it down.
[3][5] His role as "The Assassin" in The Raid 2 led him to star in other films, such as the Indonesian movie 3: Alif Lam Mim, as a martial arts teacher and also a fight choregraph.