Greetings to Everyone in KunTao Silat

Hello KTS Community,

As I’m sure most of you have seen, last month Pak Steve Gartin made the surprise announcement that he wants me to carry on his KunTao Silat legacy as Keeper of the Lineage.  This means that I will be carrying the banner for Pak Steve’s Malabar and American KunTao Silat disciplines, as well as managing KunTao Silat’s online learning program.

Believe me when I tell you I was as surprised as anyone.

It is very thrilling to be honored by your Teacher with such distinction, but it is also a great responsibility.  One that I take very seriously.

So the first step I would like to take is to tell you all a little bit more about me.

I am a lifelong martial artist.  I started in the martial arts on September the 10th, 2001.  At 13 years old, I was just big enough that I was put in class alongside the adults.  By sheer luck, my first teacher Luis Garcia was the World Men’s Super Heavyweight Continuous Fighting Champion in the Open Karate circuit, and would go on to fight in amateur kickboxing, amateur MMA, and to become a 4x NAGA grappling champion.  As such, from day one I was subject to vigorous, “old school” workouts and heavy sparring.  I spent the first couple of years getting beaten up multiple nights a week by highly athletic, grown men.  By the time I was big enough to hold my own, I had experienced plenty of opportunity to become acquainted with pain, fear, and anxiety and the mental discipline required to face them.  I had also learned the value of technique over brute force, as I had no chance otherwise due to the size difference, and of the importance of daily practice.  The people who excelled in Garcia Sensei’s school were those who were willing to do that extra round on the heavy bag or that extra set of push ups.

This was probably the best experience anyone could hope for.  No karate fantasies or kung fu death touches that were too dangerous to apply in sparring: just hard, honest martial arts. My teacher encouraged me to try competition, and while I was never a great world champion like he was, I have a cool box of medals and trophies in my closet that remind me of the “good old days.” I definitely think martial arts competitions are extremely valuable experiences for those of us with the opportunity to try them.  However, my personal interest lay in self defense, and I recognized during my brief competition career that many of the techniques that earned me a point in the ring were opposite what I was taught to do when Sensei worked on “real world” self defense.

As my teacher himself cross trained extensively, I was encouraged to study other arts.  I enjoyed Jūdō (still do), Aikidō, Jiu Jitsu, and various Chinese arts (still do), but most of the schools I enrolled in were focused on tournament prep or preserving cultural tradition. I just wanted to be able to defend myself, keep fit, and maybe have a bit of fun while I learned how to!

This search eventually led me tothe Dōjō of my mentor Dr. Joseph Adriance. Adriance Sensei was the one who sent me in search of KunTao Silat.

On his own martial arts journey, Dr. Adriance had the opportunity to attend some of the first public KunTao Silat seminars in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  I have had the pleasure of listening when he and Pak Steve spoke together about those rough early days.  Life circumstances led to Joseph Sensei losing touch with KunTao Silat in the world before the internet, but he maintained his own practice for decades alongside his extensive training in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Filipino systems.  In the back room of my late grandmother’s house, Sensei introduced me rather painfully to KunTao Silat as he had learned it at those early trainings.  From there, he told me to seek out KunTao Silat as it was entirely too effective for real combat to not study it deeply.

An internet search led to my finding Pak Steve’s website.  By chance, the Guru Certification Course DVDs (am I dating myself here?) were on sale for half off, so even a grad student on a budget could afford them.  I had no idea at first that I’d also enrolled in the Distance Learning Program and the Guru Certification Course until I received an email!

When I popped in the “intro” DVD to begin learning the basics I was hooked.  Here was a system with no artistic flourishes or wasted movements that focused on building functional self defense ability alongside a holistic, practical exercise method.  The deeper I got into study, the more I fell in love with KunTao Silat.  It built on the experience I had and then gave me amazing new tools, much as a college course takes your fundamental education to the next level.  Here were the awesome techniques of the Shaolin and Taoist arts taught practically and not artistically alongside the devastating blade work and incredible footwork of the Indonesian arts.

Having grown up in an “old school” type of training (which I naively did not realize was a dying environment until I was in my mid 20s), I was quite skeptical at first of learning and promoting via video.  Yet, an amazing thing happened:  as I trained my stances, my Djurus, and then started the Internal Practices Pak Steve shared, I began to improve not only as a martial artist, but an all around person too.  Not only that, but I was able to validate the techniques, principles, and strategies I was learning on video by “testing” them out in the various kinds of sparring, sticky hands, or randori that the other styles I studied practiced.  This is how I became a believer in the DLP and the GCC.

I also came to realize that Pak Steve was also one of my life’s Great Teachers.  For the first several years we communicated via email and phone conversations, and would often find ourselves pontificating on the finer points of martial arts, spirituality, and philosophy for hours on end.  As a grad student, my travel capacity was limited for several years, which ironically made the GCC course ideal for me.  When I finally was able to travel to ThunderRock to train with Pak Steve, it felt like coming home in an odd sense; although meeting in person for the first time, everything felt very familiar.  He also validated my skill and gave me corrections and deeper insights into my practice.

KunTao Silat has become the cornerstone of my daily practice; it infuses and enhances the other styles I grew up with and has helped me improve my physical health and fitness.

As I was falling backwards by dumb luck into this amazing martial arts world, I was also pursuing a career as an acupuncturist by sheer fortune.  I had suffered a serious back injury in my early twenties, and the issue remained chronic for several years until an acupuncturist healed me.  I have since been committed to paying that good fortune forward to others.

I am a Doctor of Acupuncture and I run my own clinic here in Houston, Texas.  I consider martial arts and Qigong to be as vital a part of the medicine I offer as acupuncture.  I am not a “professional” martial arts teacher; my classes (outside of Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong) are not advertised and I am happy to keep a small group of students who train together in a family atmosphere where we can push each other hard and then hug afterwards.

I want to bring this same attitude of “paying it forward” into my new responsibility to KunTao Silat.  I have benefitted from it immensely and so I feel strongly obligated to help those who choose to pursue the KunTao Silat Martial Lifestyle get as much from it as possible. In particular, those of you who have been enrolled in the GCC or DLP for a long time and have found yourselves “stuck” at a certain level, I want to hear from you!  Let me know how I can help.

I can be available for seminars and classes as my family and career schedules allow, and I hope that we can organize a Family Gathering before too terribly long (with Pak Steve joining us!).

I also intend to maintain the “backyard” atmosphere set forth by Pak Steve for our KunTao Silat community.  Growing up involved in the martial arts, I have had the chance to see a lot of ugly politics that have very little to do with physical self protection, much less the higher ethical and philosophical concepts the martial arts are supposed to impart.  I have no time or patience for such things and do not tolerate them.

The “village” and “family” approach to teaching and training together that Pak Steve created has been very refreshing for me and I ask all of you to carry this wonderful training atmosphere forward into your own practice groups.  Martial arts training is a chance for us to develop to our full potential as human beings and carry that positivity into the rest of our lives so that our families and communities can benefit alongside us.

I am looking forward to getting to know you all as we walk on the path of KunTao Silat together.  I encourage everyone to be active on our forums and in your personal Daily Constant Training.  I also ask for your patience as I learn the ends and outs of managing this website.

I may take KunTao Silat seriously, but not myself; so please don’t be afraid to drop me a line so we can chat.

Regards,

Dr. Jonathan Pyndus
Guru, Keeper of the Lineage