New Vids

If you are a student of Maha Guru Plinck, you have access to the Resonant Video vids produced by Guy Bowring. These are unavailable generally, without permission from Guru.  


There's a new set out, from this past spring, three of them, from the Colorado seminar in April, 2012.


These are going to be something of a revelation for students who haven't had a chance to see the new material Guru has been incorporating into the system, the stance, the change in djurus, some other tweaks. 


(NOTE: There will be a public video on the updated version of the djurus, but that won't be out for a while, it's in the can, and will probably become available sometime this fall; these are not that video, these are nuts-and-bolts in applications using the new djuru focus, and if you haven't trained with Guru in the last year or two, you'll see some stuff you haven't seen before. Guru did some reconstruction on material going back at least to Oom John and Pak Ventje, and picked up some things that have been lost for a while.)


I've been giving you heads-up on this, and here is your chance to see it if you haven't. Of course, it's not hands-on training with Guru, which is the best way to learn, but it something not everybody can get.


The video teaser above, done in the Coming Attractions! style, hokey, but fun, is taken from the seminar. 


Guy's link is over there in the sidebar; however, you can get there here, too. You have to jump through some hoops to get to view the new stuff for students only, but if you've been there before, you can manage it. If not, you can send guy an email, and he'll walk you through it. 


Good stuff. My copies are on the way ...

Teaser

Those of you following this blog know I've mentioned that Maha Guru has been doing some revamping on the eighteen basic djurus of Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera Plinck. An evolution, not revolution, calling upon his experience and expertise, to refocus the moments in an improved way. 

If you know the old versions, you won't have any problem recognizing the newer versions; however, the purposes of the changes might take some work to learn and internalize. 

This summer, he will be committing these to video. 

I don't have the details yet, save that it is in the offing, and while they may become available only to his own students worldwide, I don't know that, either. Mostly, his students are the ones who drop by here, so this is news you might find interesting. (I certainly did, and I'll reserve my copy of the video as soon as I can.)

I'll keep you posted as I learn more about the project. Stay tuned ...


Update: The video has just been recorded, but won't been produced for distribution for a while, probably sometime this fall. Mostly, it's just Guru doing the djurus; there is some other material in it, but the djurus are the focus.


Guru has indicated he will allow distribution to students outside our branch of silat.


As I have said, if you know the forms now, you won't be lost looking at the new versions; none of the principles are violated; however, there are differences in stance; position; and, angles on various parts of the hand- and foot-work have been adjusted. The goal was to add in material that Guru felt needed to be part of the complete package. Nothing you learned before is wrong; this just gives you more bang for your buck ...

Reality Check: Compensation

On a given day, even walking down not-so-mean streets, you are apt to pass people who are either bigger, stronger, faster, more agile, better-trained, better-armed, smarter, meaner, and sneakier than you, just to name a few. 


Should you get into a set-to with somebody who is all of these? The smart money isn't going to bet on you to win.


You understand why, don't you?


Chances are you aren't going to run into too many people who are all of these, not if you are serious in your training, and you have learned how to compensate. 


Pump a lot of heavy iron, you can get bigger and considerably stronger, but not appreciably taller; if you are five-foot high, even if you can bench a Volvo, you won't ever get to six feet, with the reach of somebody that height. The amount of muscle you can pack on will be limited by your frame and testosterone, and a middleweight using strength alone can't outmuscle the heavyweights.


You probably can't get much smarter than you are. However bright you were on your ninth birthday, chances are you'll stay close to that, at least in terms of IQ. You can gain knowledge, but the wetware's processing speed doesn't get a lot quicker.


You might could get meaner, and by this, I mean develop an attitude that you are the person who gets to walk away, whatever it takes. It's what they teach the Marines and the SEALs and the Rangers–get it done and go home. 


You can increase your agility. You can, to an extent, increase your useful speed. But where you can really improve is in your skill. You can be better-trained and better-armed. 


You can surely be sneakier. That's my preferred route. I'm old, slow, weak, a pushover. So I have to come up with something else.


When you compensate for those things that are less amenable to change by fixing the ones you can fix, you could give yourself a useful advantage, should push come to shove. And if you can't run away and you have to defend yourself or your loved ones, then you want to play your game, using your strengths, and not those of your attacker.


There's an old saw: Don't get into a fight with an old man–he'll just kill you. It speaks to the point eloquently: You can be old, slow and weak, but if you have a gun  or a knife or a lightsaber and the wherewithal to use it, that MMA champ's physical advantages count for a lot less. Assuming, of course, you can get to your weapon before he takes your head off. 


All of this is to say that you need something that you can reach for when you need it. You need to figure out what that is, and develop it.

Size Matters

I probably shouldn't have to say this, but in martial arts, one size does not fit all. What a man who is six-foot-four and two hundred and twenty pounds can make happen is different than what a five-foot-tall hundred pound woman can do.

Whatever techniques you use have to be adjusted to your physiology. The origin story for Silat Sera has it that the founder was gimpy–one good arm and a clubfoot–and that meant he had to devise ways that allowed him to get past his handicaps.

The one-armed martial artist who learns how to do circular blocks, or stop-punches, or other techniques that don't need the second arm or hand is a staple in origin stories. I've studied half a dozen arts over the years, and two of them feature a one-armed creator.

If you can take care of business with one arm, then having a spare is lagniappe. So the next teacher to come along can add that in, and give you more choices of tools to use.

Most recent class, I found myself working out with another student who was fifty pounds lighter and six or seven inches shorter. My reach was much longer than his. I could tag him outside his range, so in order to tag me, he had to get in. A fighter who is smaller has to make that adjustment. An in-fighting art can allow a shorter player to negate a bigger fighter's long-range tools, but you have to know how to get there.

The first serious arts I fooled with were out-fighting ones. If I could stand back and use long kicks, why wouldn't I do that? I liked the staff over the knife, the spear over the sword. Farther away was safer.

At least that's what I thought back then. Sometimes, closer is safer. It depends on what you know. And when I ran into in-fighters who could get past my long-range stuff, I was in trouble.

Um. Anyway, working with the shorter student, we had to keep adjusting his tools. If you can't reach me with that elbow or knee, then you need to use a different weapon. The punch is longer than the elbow, the kick reaches farther than the knee. Don't try to force a short technique to stretch past its limit.

A good teacher will tell you to adjust the techniques to yourself. If you can't safely reach the attacker's nose with your punch because he's too tall, then hit him someplace you can reach. But if the teacher is a big guy and you are small, you need to be responsible for making those changes. You have to learn your own range, and if it's not the teacher's range, use yours and not his.

Mindset

Once upon a time, I entered a weapons competition at a martial arts tourney. This was in Louisiana, 1974, so long ago that they were still called "karate tournaments." Not the gathering in New Orleans at which I saw a "kung fu master" screw up a double machete demo that resulted in his student visiting an ER for sutures in his belly above his iliac crest, but not long before or after it. Those were the last days I spent any time attending such events.


I did a chan-gen staff form, and the level of competition back then was not anything like what it is today; no wushu gymnastics; nobody did somersaults and flying drops to full-splits while waving skeletonized aluminum weapons–it was all stand-up stuff and "real" weapons, such that they were. As I recall it, most of the competitors did Okinawan forms.


The guy to beat, apparently, was a fellow who was going to do a double nunchaku form while blindfolded. On the one hand, these were the standard tapered-octagonal ash sticks that used to be all you could buy–heavy, and if you whacked yourself, dangerous. On the other hand, waving them around is more a thing of feel than of sight.


I did my form and stepped off the floor. The guy-to-beat–let's call him "Chuck," for his choice of implements–came over to me, held up his nunchaku, and said, "I could take you."


I smiled. Didn't believe him for a second. I was, back in those days, very comfortable with a long stick, and the staff, handmade and capped with brass on both ends, was solid. To get close enough to whack me with his numbchucks, he'd have to get past my weapon, and I didn't think he could do it. 


Chuck stepped up to do his form, and it was pretty impressive. He had good control of the weapons, he danced around, moved his feet as he battled imaginary opponents, stepped this way, turned, spun, he was skilled, moving fast and hard. And blindfolded.


Thing was, Chuck got lost during the turns and spins, and when he was finished, he, did a deep bow to the judges, only, they weren't in front of him, they were ninety degrees to his left. When he came up and removed his blindfold, I could see it in his face–he knew he had goofed. Hadn't stuck the landing.


Probably that's why I beat him. And I  must confess that after his brag, that felt pretty good.


Of course, we were both outscored by a tai chi guy doing a sword form, which was really uncommon in those days and locale. Still, I got a trophy and it was bigger than Chuck's.


Um. Anyway, the point of all this is that while mindset matters–attitude will carry you through sometimes when skill alone won't, both will serve you better. Being a bad ass is good. Being a well-trained bad ass is better ...

Cut Along the Dotted Line

Ever cut somebody? I mean, on purpose? Apply a sharp to human flesh–not counting all those times you accidentally cut yourself? Me, I've had more than a few stitches to fix places where I zigged when I should have zagged and managed to slice my ownself: Dropped a sword on one foot once; dropped a sharp kitchen knife on a foot, too. Dangerous, being my feet. Play with sharps, probably you'll cut yourself. Chefs with twenty years in a restaurant kitchen still slice themselves. (Although surgeons mostly don't. Probably because opening up a patient gets more attention than chopping carrots.)


I've never been in a knife fight, don't want to be. I'm not one of those lives-for-danger, volunteers-for-the-probably-won't-come-back missions. If something goes bump in the night at my house or in the yard, I'll arm myself and go see what it is, but I'm not the guy who signs up to go to distant lands and kill folks who live there. It takes a different mind set to be a deliberate warrior, and I don't have it.


Warriors are folks to go to war. They might not always do it voluntarily, but because I've studied a lot of marital arts, that does not a warrior make.


I know guys who get bored if somebody isn't shooting at them or waving knives in their direction. I don't get bored, way too much interesting in life and it's short at best. I literally cannot remember the last time I was bored.


But: Back to cutting. I've never been in a knife fight, but I have used a scalpel. I know what it feels like to lay one on somebody and open up a part of them. What the suddenly welling-blood looks like, feels like on a latex-gloved hand, even how it smells. Of course, the intent  in those cases was the healing edge–to make a patient better by excising something causing him or her illness and discomfort. Lance this, cut that out, resect that down there. My skill is minimal, lumps and bumps, and I've sewed shut more than I've opened up. I've stood next to those who did way more. I watched an autopsy back in the day, I've seen people who went from alive to dead as I watched.


This doesn't make me special. But it does mean that I have a certain familiarity with what happens when steel meets flesh, and as a result, if push comes to shove, a belief that I can do that if my life or that of a loved one rests on my ability to do it.


If the choice is cut or die, I'm comfortable with which way I'd go.


Not that it would be fun. And not to say that in the moment, my personal narrative will go as I believe it will. But I'm of the mind that if I have done something once, it will be easier to consider the notion of doing it a second time, come the necessity. I don't revere all life equally. Some folks are way more important to me than others.


If you can't look at the image above without feeling queasy, or if the notion of cutting somebody, makes you quail so that you aren't sure you could do it? Don't carry a knife for protection. If you aren't willing to use the tool, it just takes up space, and it might get you killed if somebody who will use it takes it away from you. 

Pusaka - New Djuru

Pusaka is a Sanskrit word; it means, "heirloom," or "treasure." In silat, you sometimes see this term applied to mean that the art is thus immutable–the moves are treasures, and supposed to be passed down without any changes. 


In this view, if the founder of the art did it a certain way a hundred and fifty years ago, then you are supposed to do it exactly the same way today. Exactly.


This is pretty much impossible no matter how hard you might try. Each student, each teacher, will internalize a move and adjust it to suit his or her physiology and psychology. If you don't think so, watch a group class practicing the djurus. No two of them will look exactly alike.


Nor should they. Martial art forms are not synchronized swimming, nor ice dancing. Adjusting an art to suit your physical characteristics is necessary to keep it alive. A five-foot tall hundred woman won't move the same way as a six-and-a-half foot tall, two-hundred-and-fifty pound man will, and it would be unrealistic to expect that they would.  


One size does not fit all.


So there is going to be a certain amount of drift over time, even if your intent is to keep it the same.


Ever ask a senior student to show you a move, then later have the teacher correct it? Every martial artist I have ever talked to about this has had this experience. We aren't cutting cookies here, we are not clones. We don't all look alike, nor do we move alike. The essence can be the same, but the fine details will sometimes differ. 


Then there are going to be those changes that are deliberate. 


I've spoken to this before. In our Djuru One (as taught by Maha Guru Plinck), his teacher's teacher began it with a lowline move, because in the old country, attacks to the body were more common. (Hit somebody in the face or head, you risk a tooth ripping open your knuckles or maybe breaking your hand, neither of which are good things in a place where the nearest medical help might be a long way off. The human mouth is full of germs; the human skull is harder than a finger bone. It is harder to support your family if you are dying from blood poisoning or your hand is busted.)


Guru's teacher moved to America where, he realized, that American fighters were headhunters, so he adjusted the first move to cover that line instead.


Guru Plinck looked at the form and decided that both moves were valid, so he does them both–you cover highline, and then lowline. That's how our branch of the art does it.


He explained how he came to this choice, and who did it which way before, and that has always been part of the teaching as long as I have been involved, coming sixteen years next month. 


(As a watermark, you can tell which branch of Sera a student is from by watching the first move of the first djuru–we do it this way; they do it that way.)


So. All if this is to say that if you are a student of Maha Guru Plinck, you will, if you haven't already, be seeing some changes in the way we do djurus. 


Don't panic. We aren't throwing anything away. The basic motions will be mostly the same. Punches, elbows, wipes, all like that; however, there will be adjustments in the stances and angles and the focus. 


Guru has studied this for a long time, and he's come to the conclusion that there is a better, more effective way, and next time you see him to train, you'll likely be exposed to it.


This is in line with the immediately previous post, talking about a teacher's personal evolution. If you see a better path, why wouldn't you consider taking it?


This isn't the first adjustment. Several years back, Guru incorporated more of a pukulan aspect to the djurus, smoothing out the wipes and highlighting the hip-driven whip-action to add power to the moves. The new focus will augment that even more, incorporating what he sees as beneficial tweaks. The old way isn't wrong, it's that the new way adds something to it. 


If, as I have, you've been doing the djurus for a long time, this refocus is going to require some getting used to. Motions with a deep groove need a conscious, mindful intent to alter. If you have done it one way for ten thousand times, then doing it a different way won't come easy. 


I can already feel the differences in the delivery, but it will take a while to be comfortable doing the new version. 


Just a heads-up for those of you who are in our branch. Stay tuned.