For The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 27, click here.

Visit to a countryside Pencat Silat (martial art) School in South Kalimantan Island in Indonesia, dig and pan in the traditional ways in Indonesia’s second largest diamond fields at Cempaka, followed by a spectacular Pencat Silat martial art festival, and then a few beautiful days at the National Pencat Silat Training Center in Jakarta called Padepokan Pencak Silat Indonesia.

Call me crazy, but I think the heart of a nation lives in the countryside.

So, to find the real Pencat Silat I figured we had to get out of hyper-busy Jakarta. Fortunately, this coincided with my partner Miao’s need to visit a real diamond mine. And so we flew to Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan Island and then took a bus to a town called Banjarbaru a mere 22 miles to the southeast. Travel was made easier in Indonesia as I learned the language (more or less) living in Malaysia some 25 years ago. Upon arrival in Banjarbaru we first met with a diamond specialist named Danial who among other things told us there was a Silat school nearby, which we visited later that day.

July 26 - It was on a school playground area in the late afternoon that I first saw real Pencat Silat in person. The teacher was Kaka Pahrain, with “Kaka” meaning older brother in Indonesian language. Before the class Kaka Pahrain told me there were about 20 Silat schools in the area and their style is called Perguruan Seni Bela Silat, which is the Green Dragon school. I also learned that forms (taolu) in Silat are called Tunggah, sparring is called Ganda and he’s been teaching for about 15 years.

The class engaged in a variety of prearranged attack and defense sequences which were executed with precision in most cases as this was a mixed level class. Silat isn’t just an artistic style; the positioning of every finger and toe has multiple functions. In general, the stances are mostly quite low. Often attacks come from the ground and they use throws equally with hand and foot strikes. This is a holistic art like I’ve never seen before. We saw a wide variety of very creative (leg) scissors throws attacking different parts of the defender’s body. In all it was beautiful to watch.

After pair-work students performed solo Tunggah (taolu) which were very well done. I videoed some of these because they were so unbelievably good. Then there was a short break and I interviewed a couple of the young Silat practitioners.

First there was 11-year-old Mohammad Bahrul. His Tunggah was very professionally done and I found out his father and grandfather were Silat teachers in another province, albeit of a different style. And what does he want to do when he grows up? “Be a Silat teacher” of course!

Then I interviewed a remarkable 18-year-old young man named Muhammad Azihia. His Tunggah was nothing less than spectacular and I’m sure he could already go on a world tour teaching Silat and be hugely popular. He started training at the age of 12 after watching a friend practice Karate. Then thought to himself: “I want to learn Silat!”

After this short intermission some groups moved from the cement playground onto the real floor for Silat, the earth, a short distance away. Here they trained in small circles and the creativity of their pair work increased a lot. I think Silat is best performed on the earth as there is such extensive use of the ground, throws that involve falling and rolling, and attacks from the ground. It was over too soon and after a few group photos, off we went to have dinner with Danial and his aunt, one of Indonesia’s foremost authorities on diamonds. We also made arrangements to visit Cempaka diamond fields the next day which is only about seven kilometers from Banjarbaru.

Danial was so kind to give us a ride and arriving in the early afternoon we first drove by some small rather rustic wooden houses where it appears some of the workers and longer-term residents live. We could see two or three “digs” from a distance, that is earthen hills with wooden framework slides down which muddy water pours exposing diamonds other precious stones or gold that may happen to be in the sludge. At the bottom of this traditional rough-hewn contraption is a hole filled with the sludge where workers up to their waist panned to find the precious stones.

That just looked like too much fun to pass up, and Miao was the first to jump in and start panning, much to the amusement of the crowd that soon joined us. Workers happily shared the right techniques with her and before long she found, yes, lots of sandy mud.

After a while of that I moved on to a rather large pile of what looked like refined semi-dry sand workers were shoveling into a truck and that’s where I had my fun, borrowing a shovel and getting right down to work.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention there were some workers with little plastic bags with gems for sale, most agates, but also small diamonds. Not being a professional they all looked so wonderful to me so heck yeah, I bought a few bags full. After a while of that I decided to wander off to the small rustic outdoor café and enjoy a cup with the lovely people there. A few field workers, and lady and her daughter working the café were stimulating company for half an hour or so while I did my best to resist buying any more agates and diamonds. The man selling them was very polite and persuasive though and I got his phone number just in case at some future date I might come back or have a sudden need for agates and diamonds. Who can know about such things? Life is full of wonder and amazing things.

Again, as always on these adventures time passed so quickly and we had to say goodbye. Walking away the little girl was shouting: “Bye, bye...” which I couldn’t resist echoing with heartfelt loss at saying goodbye to my newfound friends. I would love to have stayed in that land of water, sand, hopes and dreams.

Before leaving we visited another much larger sand/earth hill, mud slide and pit where rather more serious workers toiled in the late afternoon sun. It was really something awesome. Enough wealth to buy a condo in Jakarta, a fleet of Jaguars and a dozen businesses is only a second away for the fortunate worker, though most found, like Miao, lots of sandy mud.

We stayed in Banjarbaru another couple of days exploring the gem market called CBS, meeting gem dealers and so on. Also, our hotel, “Favehotel” a large franchise was really excellent which helps persuade one to stay on a while. The manager became a friend and we felt at home there.

Our last day in Banjarbaru there was a large Pencat Silat festival with several hundred participants and that was a show I’ll never forget. Time stopped while I watched and took photos and videos. Their consummate skill, good natured joy of life and love of their arts captivated everyone there. There were serious dramas, humorous combats, playful tricks, elaborate martial role-plays and so on. Each school was identified by their uniform and belt color; thus, belt colors signify not rank but adherence to a style. I was asked to take photos with a lot of the youngsters and some teachers and felt like a real movie star. They were all so kind it was really touching.

But time marched on and I had to get back to Jakarta to pick up my passport with the new visa for China, and with no small reluctance we had to leave very early the next morning.

Back in Jakarta Miao wanted to revisit the large gem market while I was set like an arrow in flight to find the large Pencat Silat headquarters school I’d found on the Internet. There was very little information about it in English, but I was certain it was there.

We both got our wishes as I found the headquarters “Padepokan Pencak Silat Indonesia” had a large hotel on the grounds and we divided the rest of our time in Jakarta between the huge really beautiful school and the gem market.

One interesting thing about the gem market is its also the best place in town to buy a Kris, the legendary traditional wavy knife of Pendat Silat, which of course I did, as well as an Akar Bahar root bracelet made from Bahar root taken from the depths of the Laut Sea. These bracelets are said to absorb toxins and enhance power. Besides that they are extremely cool looking I have to say. It seems every Indonesian knows these legendary tools for health and strength. I got a lot of thumbs up from random people everywhere when I wear one and feel quite good! Where is the Laut Sea? It’s the sea located between Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia inhabited by nomadic sea gypsies, the true masters of the sea. The incredible Bajau Laut ‘Sea Nomads’ have no nationality, homes or money and live on boats known as lepa-lepa. Some of the most interesting experiences in life are its absolutely fascinating tangents.

Padepokan Pencak Silat Indonesia (PnPSI) is a national and international training center which was officially opened by President Suharto on April 20, 1997.

We arrived at the headquarters school just as the Vietnamese Pencat Silat team was leaving but were lucky enough to meet with the Filipino team at the end of their last day of training. They’re all getting ready for the 2019 Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) to be held in the Philippines November 30th to December 11th 2019 with some preparing for the 2019 World Police and Fire Games held August 08, 2019 in Chengdu, China. I did have a chance to chat with the Filipino Silat Coach and International Referee Christopher Yabut, and found out he too started his martial arts career with Karate and Taekwondo, and was a real Silat champion in his day, winning Gold medals in the World Championships in 2004, 2005 SEA Games and the Paris Open in 2005. I also chatted for a while with Alex Patano, Head Coach of the Filipino National Silat Team, and again, he is an engaging, highly intelligent and interesting martial art brother.

7 Miao training with Kaka Cun Cun.

 

Later on, Miao and I were walking along in the administrative building of the huge Pencat Silat school and saw a sophisticated looking older gentleman coming along the other way. 'Who do we have here?' I wondered to myself, and naturally immediately introduced myself as this gentleman had an undefinable “gravitas” that couldn’t be missed.

Before introducing him, a little background on Pencat Silat: According to the silatindonesia.com site:

Pencak Silat is a compound word. Pencak and Silat have the same meanings and are parts of the culture of people of Malay race, that is, the ethnic group who are the native inhabitants in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.

The word Pencak is commonly used by people in Java, whereas the word Silat is commonly used by the people who live in the other regions of Indonesia as well as in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.

The combination of the words Pencak and Silat into a compound word was made for the first time when an organization of the unity of Pencak schools and Silat schools in Indonesia was founded in Surakarta in 1948, which called Ikatan Pencak Silat Indonesia (The Indonesian Pencak Silat Association), abbreviated as IPSI. Since then, Pencak Silat has become the official term in Indonesia. This term is also used by the schools in many different countries which teach Pencak and Silat derived from Indonesia.

In the international communities, Pencak Silat has become the official term since the international federation organization was founded in Jakarta in 1980, which was called Persekutuan Pencak Silat Antarabangsa, abbreviated as PERSILAT, (The International Pencak Silat Federation). Nevertheless, people use the words Pencak and Silat separately as a single word due to the dialectic habit.

So who was this gentleman? No less than Grandmaster Bambang Anggono, Vice Chairman of The Executive Board of Indonesian Pencak Silat Association who was so thoughtful as to invite Miao and I to his office for tea. We chatted for about an hour and his wife joined us as well. It was certainly an illuminating conversation wherein I learned quite a lot about his background and dreams for the future of Silat.

Among other things I learned that he lived in Yokahama for six years earning a Master’s Degree in Market Finance and earned a 1st Dan in Karate before embarking on his Silat career. His father was in the military police and brother is a retired Chief of Police of all Indonesia. In all he came across as a polite gentleman with a passion for developing Indonesian martial arts throughout the world. He envisions Pencat Silat as a future Olympic sport, and passionately believes that the spirit of peace inculcated in Indonesian culture and especially Pencat Silat can be shared with the entire world. Miao and I were deeply moved by his sincerity.

August 6, 2019 The next morning Miao and I were out wandering the large training center and happened upon a private class led by an extraordinary teacher named Cun Cun Wahyudi who was teaching Cimande Style to his Saturday student Ardi Sunardi. He ever so kindly allowed us to join and soon we were learning new sweep/block or grab followed by instantaneous counterattack sequences. They were precise, powerful and smooth though we soon felt the demands of working out of lower stances in our legs. Also, excellent! After half an hour of training we relaxed a bit and had a chance to chat. I learned that Cun Cun grew up in a Silat family and usually trained at night, after 9 pm with no lights. They often trained in mud to promote greater stability. He has five brothers yet he’s the only one to go on to become a Silat teacher. They don’t use the word “master,” but clearly he is one as was demonstrated by his well-honed precise skills and super-speed harmonized with incredible power and fluidity.

I asked about stances and found Cun Cun doesn’t focus so much on stances per se, but rather on what he called “base control,” a fluid series of stances capable of withstanding attacks without sacrificing attack and countering capability.

Center Left Cimande Grandmaster Cingkrik Goningis Center is writer Center Right is Cun Cun Wahyudi.

 

While we were training an older very highly respected Cimande guru (teacher) named Cingkrik Goning came along as he had a small class too that morning in an adjacent area and after our classes we all sat around on the earth in a growing circle and chatted for a while. It was a very pleasant and highly informative session, rich in the fabric of the legends and history of Silat.

Soon it was lunch time and we parted – with Miao and I wishing we could stay a few more days at least, but time marches on.

Padepokan Pencak Silat Indonesia is an incredible training center and at any one time of the day or night there were three or four classes running simultaneously in one area or another. The hotel was huge, and the food in the restaurant was great. The “Taman Mini Mall” is only a 10-minute walk away for those desiring some more diverse cultural experiences. Right next door to the National Training Center is the architecturally splendid Agung At-Tin Mosque from which the melodic calls to prayer can be heard five times a day. It’s really very beautiful all around.

The next day we had to fly back to Beijing but will always carry the wholesome friendliness, cheerfulness, health and beautiful mind/spirit of Indonesia with us.

So many thanks to so many people for making this stop on the Maritime Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour especially meaningful and fun for the both of us. God Willing - we will return.

For The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 29, click here.