Recently we had a visit from our friend and fellow group leader Tom. He came up from Watsonville for a long training weekend. When we weren’t training Bukti Negara – The Unified Art, we were showing him some of the delicious food and beer the Seattle and Everett area has to offer.
Online Training with Walter
The technical director of the Naga Kuning Institute, Walter van den Broeke, was kind enough to add the three of us – Jon, Mike, and Adam – to Tom’s online class when he was up here. That meant we all got to train with Walter at the gym. He was on the projector, watching us through the webcam, and guiding us through our training session.
Our lesson focused mainly on breaking apart basic drills and creating applications from the individual parts. He showed us how to create numerous applications out of the Sepak 2 – setenga – drill. We found creating our own drills pretty challenging, but Walter came up with eight or more in less than an hour. It was impressive. But that’s why he’s our teacher.
It felt so good to have four of us there running through applications with Walter’s help. Having a more knowledgeable person there to identify problem areas and help you find solutions is invaluable. It’s definitely something we will do again when Tom returns.
A Weekend of Training
After our Friday session with Walter, we continued to train through the weekend. We had days to train, so we worked on all sorts of things, including:
- Langkah for Calon entries
- Moving the opponent in specific directions with Calon entries
- Sambuts
- Jurus
- Pukul drills
Work Hard, Play Hard
Most of the time when you hear about martial arts, it’s all about the training. But the truth is, nobody can train non-stop. Everybody needs a break and that’s especially true when you are doing something so intense. That’s why every martial arts group we’ve been with plays just as hard as it works. We are no exception.
When we weren’t training with Tom, we were still having plenty of fun. Jon made some amazing food. We went out to several great restaurants, including one of the best dim sum restaurants in Seattle. And we drank plenty of beer and maybe even more whiskey.
Making it a Tradition
The U.S. is a big country. It’s almost a thousand miles from Everett to Watsonville. For our European group leaders, it is often a shorter distance to meet with another group leader. Here in the States – at least right now – it’s quite a distance. That makes Tom’s trip up here even more significant for us. He came a long, long way to see us and to train. We appreciate it. And we hope to make meeting up a few times a year something we do regularly.
Interested in Learning Pukulan Pencak Silat Bukti Negara – The Unified Art?
If you would like to learn more about our art, please contact us. We would love to have you in one of our classes – in person, online, or both!