Serak and His Secret Teaching
Today we will discuss the famous SERAK and his SECRET teaching.
As you may know from following this page, Bukti Negara is a curriculum created from Serak in 1985 by Pendekar Paul de Thouars (Pendekar = Founder) and developed over four decades with various modifications and additions like preparatory exercises, or Jurus (solo forms) and Sambut (partner exercises).
For more details, refer to this Comprehensive Article.
Serak and Bukti Negara are two styles of Pencak Silat, Serak is part of the martial arts from the western region of Java and Bukti Negara is an art derived from Serak.
Serak specifically is intricately connected with numerology and animism derived from Kejawèn, a Javanese spiritual tradition encompassing Hinduism, Buddhism, and Animism, which has often given rise to legends and customs that are sometimes misunderstood or exploited.
In this blog, we will delve into these topics according to the teachings passed down from previous Teachers and the research and documents held by the Naga Kuning Institute, aiming to honor these exceptional martial arts rich in culture and knowledge without distorting the ancient practices.
Table of Contents
The Promise of Not Disclosing the "Secret" Serak
Anyone who has practiced Serak or mingled in Southeast Asian martial arts circles would have heard that Serak can only be taught to family and friends, meaning people of utmost trust and respect.
This is absolutely true and is the reason why at the Naga Kuning Institute, we publicly teach and promote Bukti Negara, while Serak is taught and practiced only by the most senior and/or trusted members.
We know that various other groups and schools teach it publicly, and this article is not intended to be polemical. Instead, it aims to explain our perspective and clarify a matter that seems secretive and mysterious but is not.
The promise to teach Serak only to trusted family and friends is a commitment passed down from teacher to student for at least three generations (as far as our records show).
It’s straightforward:
you are asked to respect this rule, a promise you make to your teacher, who made it to their teacher, and so on.
But why is this promise made?
The truth is, there is no significant reason!
or rather, the reason IS NOT IMPORTANT.
You don’t need a real reason; if your teacher asks you to do something, you can choose to respect it and train or find another place to train.
Today, we are used to questioning everything, making such a request seem strange and exotic.
We tend to analyze, evaluate, and question everything, often before truly understanding it and before being really capable of deciding if a request is right or wrong.
Respecting a teacher’s request without questioning why is difficult for a twenty-first century Western mind.
Despite its seemingly insignificant importance, I, as a Westerner, could not help but form various hypotheses while studying the history of the arts I practice and talking with different teachers.
Why this secrecy in Serak?
There could have been several reasons for this request:
- In the past, it might have been due to initiatory reasons tied to the more animistic components of Kejawèn.
- Or due to rivalries between different schools in various parts of Java.
- During the independence war, it might have had a protective meaning against Japanese invaders or enemies in general (Indonesians or Dutch depending on the faction), preserving warrior traditions that had to be suppressed by the regime.
- In all traditional schools, the transition from student to teacher or assistant teacher involved a test and a rite of passage; those who had not undergone this could not publicly teach what they had learned from their master.
Legends and Truths about Serak
The promise of not publicly disclosing Serak in the last 40 years has given rise to legends and stories mystifying Serak as a secret martial art too harsh or effective to be taught publicly. As often happens in traditional martial arts, reality has been mixed with too much fantasy. It is true that the arts we practice are rich in meanings tied to Kejawèn and numerology, but knowing these things will not necessarily make you a better fighter.
Unfortunately, I must break many dreams: there are no terrible secret techniques passed down from father to son, not even in Serak.
I know, for many, this will be a hard blow!
At most, there are explanations, exercises, and curriculums passed down to fewer people because they require one-on-one interaction with the teacher, which is difficult to achieve in the era of “everything now,” but we will cover this in a future article.
On the other hand, the teachers who preceded us were surely exceptional practitioners; many of them spent a good part, if not almost all, of their lives studying their art and dedicated themselves to teaching and keeping it alive during their time.
Imagine that oom Maurice de Thouars, when oom Harry James de Vries was indicated as the successor in the de Vries family for Serak, took a train for several hours every day, EVERY DAY, just to go and teach him his stream of Serak. This is an example of love and dedication to the Art.
This is an example of love and dedication to the Art
For example, training has always been held in both public and private places. Pak Flohr and the de Vries in the 80s held courses in regular gyms or dedicated rooms open to anyone who wanted to learn. And obviously, with the courses, there were also grades (or belts), exams, and programs (even very detailed ones).
Oom Dolf de Vries, for example, kept a register where, for each training session, he noted the date and day, who was present, which exercises were practiced in that session, and if there were any particular notes or gaps to be reviewed.
Thus, teachers before us have always taught both publicly and privately, asking not to show certain things in events or seminars and instead promoting other aspects.
Old Customs for a Modern Man
We have seen how normal it was to alternate between the private and public spheres and how, over the past 100 years, teachers from the western region of Java who emigrated to Europe and America have gone through extremely complex and varied social, political, and economic conditions.
The concept of family has changed, the concept of a teacher has changed, and a martial arts course is increasingly seen as a hobby, a fitness tool, or for socializing.
As a result, rituals, promises, and requests from a distant past are often misunderstood and misinterpreted by people unfamiliar with the history of these styles.
We as Naga Kuning Institute uphold our teachers last wishes by safeguarding the to us known Serak curricula’s in the same way they have been passed to us.
Stefano Chiappella
NKI Technical Board Member
