Nice to have your knowledge here

[NubreedKaliSilat]

Tuhon, I was happy to see that you have a way of sharing your knowledge with us all. I was a member in Pekiti Tirsia International back in the early 90's and enjoyed all of your newletters that covered many great topics within Pekiti Tirsia. I know this is a Pekiti Tirsia forum, but it would be awesome if you would cover some of the knowledge you gained from Pendekar Suriadi Jaffri as well. There is not much out there on research material on his art. Pendekar Jaffri was one of the first Indonesians that taught in the USA. I know that Guro Inosanto & Tuhon Gaje was linked to Mr. Jaffri in New York, and I believe that Tuhon Gaje was room mates with him at one time??


I was also told that Tuhon Gaje was friends with a Mr. Jaffri. "Lucky" Eddie as he was called, also had his share of excitement in the subways. He would put some money in his shirt pocket just sticking out a little and then pretend to be asleep. Several times, thugs would come by and tried to take it and he reacted innocently. When they attacked, he had his excuse to practice his silat on them.

Suryadi "Eddie" Jafri went to the USA and for a long while stayed in New York city, with Tuhon Leo Gaje as his training partner in Silat. At the time, Grand Tuhon was researching the pre-Spanish or true indigenous elements of the FMA and so welcomed Eddy Jafri to his home wholeheartedly. They would cross-train; with Tuhon learning Silat and Eddie Jafri discovering the links and similarities of Kali (arnis) techniques and movements with those of Pentjak Silat (especially as to footwork and knife fighting).

Both guys were rather eccentric "characters". Another story has it that when Grand Tuhon Gaje moved to Texas in 1981 or 1982 he and Eddy Jaffri would go to those notorious bikers' bars in the South USA. Somebody would pick a fight with the bikers, and thus have an excuse to practice their knife fighting or empty hands skills.

It would be great if you could share his training history and the way he taught and how his rep. for fighting influenced his arts? I was told he studied and taught Pangyang (4 stepping) Cimandi, Sendeng, Harimau. Thanks for your imput.....

[Karl]

Greg Alland was also a student of Mr. Jaffri.......he has a lot to tell about him maybe...

[TuhonBill]

Hi Ben,

Well first off we knew him as "Crazy Eddie" because of his exploits.
He did troll the subway for muggers, as you described, but he used to tell us that he was disappointed that he had no takers. One of his students (who was a cop) told him he probably set off too many alarm bells with the bad guys.

I trained with Eddie for around five years, from the 1979 until 1983 when he moved back to Indonesia and then a bit when Leo and I spent a few weeks in Jakarta in 85. I did receive instructors rank under him, but really don’t teach much Silat save for the occasional technique at my Pekiti seminars when I want to show the relationship between the two arts.

Some of the stories you've heard have grown a bit down through the years (I moved to TX with Leo and spent three years with him and can tell you that he was too smart to go into biker bars looking for trouble. I, on the other hand, was a dumb as a stump when young and did do something pretty stupid in a biker bar when I was twenty. But that is a story for another day). Eddie was in Texas just for Leo’s training camps and Leo managed to keep him from getting into trouble while down there. However, the things Eddie actually did do were more than sufficient to earn him his nickname. Here's a few things that come to mind.

One time he was mugged was pretty funny. He came out of a small grocery store, two bags of groceries in his arms and felt a hard shove from behind. He dropped his bags and spun to face his attacker, only to find three men armed with knives facing him, each with the knife at Eddie's throat. What could he do? When he had turned, Eddie had put his back against a parked car, so that route of escape was out. Well, the guy in the middle told Eddie to give them his money. As he did so he held out his left hand, moving his right (with the knife back), so that was one knife off the neck. Eddie thought fast and told them that his money was in his jacket and that he would give them that. As he took off the jacket the two guys on either side took their knives off his neck. Once the jacket was off, Eddie threw it in one guy's face and hit each of the others before striking the first guy in the gut. All three then took off running. Since he couldn't chase all three, Eddie decided to chase the guy who was still holding Eddie's jacket as he ran. The guy turned back on Eddie, brandishing the knife and threw the jacket back at him. Eddie being Eddie threw the jacket back and replied with something like, "Come on, you are only one guy now, let's go," and started for the guy, but the guy turned tails and ran again. Eddie was just about to catch the guy when a police car turned the corner. The cops saw a big guy with a knife in one hand, a jacket in the other and being chased by this little unarmed Asian guy, put tow and two together and arrested the mugger. So a short time later, Eddie is at the precinct house giving his statement to the cops. As luck would have it Eddie was featured in Inside Kung Fu magazine that month and he noticed a copy on a cop's desk.
"Officer, please turn to page 123," he said. The cop did so and found an article about Eddie and Penchak Silat. So now Eddie is the star of the show, demonstrating all his moves and teaching the cops some techniques. One of the cops then brings him to the holding pen and shows Eddie where the mugger was held. He points to a pair of soiled underwear on the floor and explained that Eddie had hit the guy so hard that he had crapped in his pants.

When I was still in high school (soon after Eddie met Leo) I remember talking with some of the other guys about jobs we would get during the summer. Eddie came walking over and we asked him what kind of jobs he had in Indonesia during the summer school break. "Oh, I was a pirate," he replied, matter of factly.
"Oh come on Eddie," I said, "there aren't pirates any more. What were you really?"
"Well," said Eddie, "we used to take a motor boat and our machine guns and go rob the boats that brought sugar and coffee to the small islands and then go sell that stuff on the black market."
"Eddie, you really were a pirate!" I said. He just shrugged his shoulders and if it were no big deal.

Here's another story he told us. When he was 13 or so he had a water pistol fight with his best friend. No big deal, right? Well it isn't where most of us live, but then we put water in our water pistols. Eddie and the other kids in his village would take some of their mom's home made vinegar (which was so strong that if poured on the skin, it would raise a welt) and use that.
But wait, there's more...
Not satisfied with the potency of plain, undiluted vinegar, they would take hot chilies, crush them and put them in the vinegar.
But wait, there's still more...
They would let the chilies sit in the vinegar for three days, strain out the chilies and THEN put this concoction in their water pistols.
So there they are, these two 13 year old kids going at it with their home-made sulfuric acid stoked super soakers, hitting each other in various body parts, leaving smoking red trails on their skin and having a grand old time. Eddie's friend (he described him as his best friend) ran around his house. Eddie doubles back and catches the kid just as he turns the corner and hits the kids full blast in the eyes with a stream of stuff no police agency in any civilized country can use on criminals.
The kid fell to the ground screaming. Eddie said the kid's eyes swelled up like he had hard boiled eggs for eyes. It took several days for the kid to be able to open his eyes, let alone see clearly.
All good clean fun in Indonesia.

Another time, young Eddie is sent on an errand from one village to another. As he goes through a clearing, he sees one guy chasing another. The guy doing the chasing is armed with a mandau (kind of the Indonesian version of a kampilan). He catches up with the guy and cuts him from the neck diagonally down to the opposite hip, severing the whole top quarter of the guy. Eddie turned around and ran home.

You should know that these stories are fairly mild compared to some from Indonesia (talk to one of Herman Suwanda or Bill DeThour's people if you want to hear some really hairy stories).

Regards,
Tuhon Bill McGrath
PS. I am now on Facebook. You'll find a link on the Pekiti.com home page.

[Carol]

....and he still makes the news today! Or at least....last week ;)

Eddie Jafri received a cursory mention last week in an Indonesian newspaper article talking about Silat. Unfortunately I do not know how to find an English-language copy.

The article talks (I think....) about how "gerak gulung" was originally something never taught outside the family, and how its effectiveness as a way of fighting helped the concepts grow to a point where even people from abroad (including Eddie Jafri, Greg Alland, etc) were coming in to study it.


http://kontan.realviewusa.com/default.aspx?iid=7822&startpage=page0000019

[Buwaya]

Wow.

If I ever get in a water pistol fight in Indonesia remind me to bring some kinilaw and lumpia. Oh yea, and Goggles.

Great stories, thank you very much for sharing.