I started Pentjak Silat in November, 1995, after seeing a demonstration at a science fiction convention early of a Sunday morning. Normally, that time featured a tai chi class led by Steve Barnes; however, Barnes had begun to study silat, so he brought his teacher to show that, instead. I’ll always owe Barnes for that.
I watched, fascinated, as a guy in a T-shirt and a sarong tossed his students hither and yon, and when he asked if anybody in the audience wanted to join in, boy, howdy, did I.
Understand, at that point I had a black belt in one system, a brown belt in another, and almost thirty years of training and practice in half a dozen martial arts. I was forty-eight years old.
When the teacher, Maha Guru Stevan Plinck, ask me to punch him, I asked, which hand?
He said, Doesn’t matter.
That impressed me. Really? Never heard that before.
I punched, he did something I couldn’t catch, I nearly fell down, and I realized in that moment that this guy could beat me while he was drinking a cup of coffee — and not spill any while doing it. I was astounded – I thought I had game.
This was the art I had been looking for — one I had written fiction about — not knowing it existed.
It felt like coming home.
Later, I heard the saying, You don’t choose silat, silat chooses you. I believe that. Nearly every student in my classes came there from other arts.
Maha Guru was teaching classes in his garage, but those were invitation-only. He was offering public classes at the Straight Blast Gym in Portland, and I signed up there the next day.
After a few months, I was invited to the garage. Continued learning the entry-level art, Bukti Negara, and after a bit, moved into Sera. Long story, I’ll skip that. I trained in the art hands-on for twenty-six-years, and a couple more during the worst of Covid via Zoom. Still practicing it in my back yard.
Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera Plinck is Javanese in origin, and the core movements are learned via short forms called djurus, along with associated footwork platforms, langkahs. There are eighteen of these, and they take a while to master. (Some branches of the art teach these all quickly, then go back and work on them. Our branch learns one, works on it, then moves to the next one.)
Maha Guru’s notebook offered a theoretical schedule for learning the djurus:
1st year: 1 & 2
2nd year: 3 & 4
3rd year: 5 & 6
4th year: 7, 8, & 9
5th year: 10, 11, & 12
6th year: 13, 14, & 15
7th year: 16, 17, & 18
This was based on taking one or two classes a week. Learning them in the old country would go faster, a couple years, where training every day was the norm.
Such was my dexterity and ability that it took me only twelve years to get them all ...
