Serak Interview

[Tant01]

A PAGE OUT OF INDONESIAN MARTIAL ARTS HISTORY; PENCAK SILAT SERAK.

Maha Guru Victor de Thouars, interviewed by reporter Steve Gartin, for Fighting Knives/Street Fighter magazine.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/8847/victorfc.html

Required reading...It's a small silat world.

[HtTKar]

Finally an Indonesian section

I actually have this artical printed and in a folder. There's a lot of good stuff in here. There are also some things that I find very hard to believe. So read this and take it with a grain of salt.

Just remember that
A) its one guys opinion (Victor de Thouars).
And B) that William de Thouars himself has disowned the de Thouars brothers (Maurice, Paul, and Victor)

http://www.willemdethouars.com/images/WillemLetter1.pdf

[BoarSpear]

Finally an Indonesian section
I actually have this artical printed and in a folder. There's a lot of good stuff in here. There are also some things that I find very hard to believe. So read this and take it with a grain of salt.

Just remember that
A) its one guys opinion (Victor de Thouars).
And B) that William de Thouars himself has disowned the de Thouars brothers (Maurice, Paul, and Victor)
http://www.willemdethouars.com/images/WillemLetter1.pdf

ITS DEAD #@%* ....

Maybe you'll take pity on us and cut and paste it?

[HtTKar]

Only problem is that the letter is 8 pages long and in pdf format.

Another way to find it is to go to William de Thouars homepage.

http://www.willemdethouars.com/

Right below his picture are his letters
Read the one titled The de Thouars brothers

or the one titled de Thouars HighHorse

Actually both should be read. I dont know when these were first put on the website. I dont remember them being there last year. But you can see now that their relationship is very very bitter.

We all have to agree that especially in Indonesian arts there is alot of politics involved. So any information I read I try to remember, but not fully believe.


Another example of politics and why this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. In the article on Victor there is a letter in there supposedly from Master Reeders stating that he never heard of Willie Wetzel. Victor stated that he translated this from Dutch to English to be read.

Now here in America, I know of well over a hundred pentjakkers that claim to have Pak Serak style, learned from a certain Willy Wetsel, who claimed that he was from Mas Djut. I know him from Malang (East Java) as a little boy, and know that he never was in Bandoeng, so that he never could have learned Pak Serak system. His style is some what Bantam with a little Karate kicks. But all his students (a couple of hundred) have now schools here in Pennsylvania and I do not know were the Pak Serak instruction came in, and really have to do at all with Pak Serak. I do not know how to stop it.

I do not know if I know you personally Victor, my descendent branch is from Nes de Vries, Leo Sjel, Lion de Riearere, Theo Schrijn, Puk Soverbier and Mancho Soverbier, Madrais, Tji Petjut, Abu Saman, Suro Djawan.

This letter was included in this artical to discredit Wetzel...but Reeders didnt know Victor either. Just because Reeders didnt know everyone, doesnt mean they made their art up out of thin air.
Now if you know who Grand Master Sikes is...he learned Karate from Master Reeders...but actually learned his Indonesian art from Willie Wetzel. http://www.nasda.net/gmhistory.htm

What I'm trying to say is that there are probably hundreds of thousands of variations on Silat. Just because everyone didnt learn their art from the same master and grow up in the same village doesnt mean their art holds no value. It doesnt make them frauds.

[HtTKar]

http://www.combat-silat.net/silatnow/articles.asp?menu=article&record=2

The western kuntao or silat student rarely, if ever, has a comparable template from which to work. Their guru (assuming the guru is a first-generation ŽmigrŽ) will very often be the only example of the tradition they have ever seen. They will rarely see the guru's colleagues or contemporaries from cognate arts, and almost certainly not the guru's own master(s). As a result, the western student has no way to discern the following:

What is unique to their guru -- his or her personal idiosyncrasies and personality as it were;
What is particular to the system -- i.e. a feature or consequence of the mechanics, theory or methods that define that art as distinct from other, cognate systems;
What is endemic to the tradition -- of which the art is only one example, and the teacher one exponent?

This I feel is part of the problem. These arts are very isolated. Its not uncommon for teachers to constantly be on the move and even students under the same teacher may never meet eachother. Martial arts are alot about personal expression. the artical by victor makes it seem like if you do not emulate his teacher, or him to the "T" then you have learned a fake art. Everyones different, and everyone fights differently.

[BoarSpear]

http://www.combat-silat.net/silatnow...ticle&record=2



This I feel is part of the problem. These arts are very isolated. Its not uncommon for teachers to constantly be on the move and even students under the same teacher may never meet eachother. Martial arts are alot about personal expression. the artical by victor makes it seem like if you do not emulate his teacher, or him to the "T" then you have learned a fake art. Everyones different, and everyone fights differently.

I dont think thats what he was trying to say. I think he was saying that only through studying as many people who teach a a style as possible can you understand its true essance...everyone expresses these arts differently, if you see enough people teaching the same concept, eventually one of them will "click" with your own build and personality...its about grasping more than just the hair of the beast.

[jeff5]

The letters are fairly recent. My advice, ignore the politics and focus on the arts. What Willem (Kuntao Silat), Victor (Serak), and Paul (Bukti Negara but essentially Serak), teach are all excellent.

[Kungfoolery]

Silat gets way too ridiculously political at times.