But What If I Did This!? (-)

But What if I Did This!?

Musings on Martial Arts by a Long-Time Student of things mano a mano ...

Writer’s Forward
Two score and four years ago, as I write this, I donned my first pair of angry white
pajamas and walked onto a floor in a martial arts class. That was the first step on a long
and winding road that was to become the core of my being -- I can’t recall a month since
when I wasn’t engaged either in study or practice of some form of martial art. Even
when I was a hippie, the dances were there. The practice has informed the way that I
look at the world, and has, at least once, allowed me to keep breathing the communal air
when it might have gone otherwise. Martial arts are a big part of what I do, and as long
as I can physically continue the practice, will keep doing.
Over the decades, I trained in seven or eight different systems. Some I became passing
adept at, some not so much -- arts from Okinawa, Japan, China, and combinations
thereof, finally arriving at my current art, which is Indonesian.
I claim no expertise in any of these; nor is this a how-to book from which you will learn
how to clean out the local biker bar without mussing your hair. However, after more
than forty years dancing martial dances, I have some experiences and opinions, and I
hereby offer them up. What I do, how I think and feel about it, and why.
Most of these musings came from my blog. A few from elsewhere. Most of the essays
concern the current art, Pukulan Pentjak Silat Sera Plinck. There are some hits on other
things.
Maybe you’ll learn something you didn’t know. Maybe you’ll be able to relate some of
what I picked up along the way to the art that you do. Maybe not. Almost certainly if you
read this book, you will have some martial context into which you can place it -- the
market for such things is exceedingly small outside players of various forms of mayhem.
I hope it will be entertaining.

Steve Perry
Beaverton, Oregon
March, 2009