Merpati Putih makes the blind 'see' clearly

Merpati Putih makes the blind 'see' clearly

By Arif Suryobuwono

JAKARTA (JP): Can a man see nothing yet he sees something?
Socrates once asked. But the reverse is also true. A man can see
something though he sees nothing.

This premise was proved at a special competition for the
blind, held by the Merpati Putih pencak silat school in Senayan's
eastern parking lot last Sunday. Pencak silat is an Indonesian
form of self defense.

The competition, which was held in conjunction with the
school's 32nd anniversary, required blind students to walk
through a maze of iron rods, without touching them.

They had to find a way through by obeying the traffic signs
they met on the way. At the end of the maze, they were required
to identify the color of a painted wooden bar, lying about two
meters in front of them.

Out of the maze, they had to walk on stilts and ride a
bicycle, again in accordance with traffic signs.

Amazingly, they did it, though, of course, not all of them
could "see" clearly. Some wandered off the maze; some other
knocked off one or two rods, or misinterpreted the signs.

Sensor

For the blind, especially for those who have been blind from
birth, identifying color can be said to be an impossible task
because color is an abstract concept. But for Merpati Putih's
blind students the task poses no big problem.

Mustofa, 25, a contestant from a blind school in Malang, East
Java, identifies colors by feeling, "I know a color must be red,
for instance, because I sense it from the wave the color emits."

Nyoman Tanggal, 20, who is Balinese and became blind after a
childhood illness, perceives colors by his fingers. "To test
whether a color is red, I direct my thumb to the color," he said.

"If it is not red, I feel something thick, like a hot current
against my thumb. If there is no resistance, I know it must be
red," he explained. He claims he can identify colors that way
from a distance of up to five meters.

Mustofa and Nyoman said they acquired the ability to identify
color after practicing Merpati Putih breathing exercises twice a
week, for about one year.

"Students with normal vision usually learn the breathing
exercises after mastering our pencak silat skills, given from
grade one to grade six," Poerwoto Hadipoernomo, one of Merpati
Putih's founding fathers, said.

"But for our blind students, we give the exercises right from
the start," the 50-year old chain-smoker added.

Hari Prasetyo, who teaches Nyoman at a blind school in
Denpasar, Bali, said that the breathing exercises, which he calls
"resonance-producing techniques," generate sensory sensitivity.

This enables the body to be sensorially aware of its
surrounding, making it easy to identify things.

"Ideally, the whole body should be able to function as a
sensor. But for practical reasons, sensory sensitivity is usually
concentrated in the palm of the hand," Hari said.

Spectrum colors

Hari teaches his students only the colors of the spectrum, by
impressing the colors' waves into their sensory sensitivity. This
implies that if the colors are wrongly imprinted, the students
will interpret the colors the wrong way.

And because the students learn only the primary colors, they
would be unable to tell color gradation. If there are many
colors, they would only be able to identify the predominant
color, Hari added.

Merpati Putih has been helping the blind since 1990, according
to Ipung Purwanto. He is one of the teachers who trained the
school's first blind students in Yogyakarta.

"They made impressive progress within the first three months
of training, that is, they were able to walk without a stick,"
Ipung said.

"But in the following six months, I found it hard to train
them. They made progress very slowly. I really needed a lot of
patience. But after one or two years of training their sensory
sensitivity has been firmly established," Ipung said.

Mustofa and Nyoman said they felt exhausted after exerting
their sensory sensitivity. "Fifteen minutes are enough to almost
tire me out," Nyoman said.

But Poerwoto said they were exhausted because they exerted all
their energy for sensing their surroundings. This might also
burden them psychologically and drain their energy.

"If they are fully familiar with the exercises, they won't
tire easily because everything will come naturally," he added.

Both Poernomo and his brother Budi Santoso, who established
the school with him in 1963, claim that no other country, besides
Indonesia, has treated the blind this way.

"Some East Asian countries might claim they have their own
techniques, which produce the same effect," Budi said.

"But I think theirs, in which meditation is central, are
different from ours. For instance, we cannot ask blind people to
meditate on a candle or a picture because they cannot see," he
added.

People with normal eyesight can also do what their blind
counterparts do, with their eyes blindfolded of course.

In a demonstration, a blindfolded Arianto, a Merpati Putih
student of grade seven, read an ID press card correctly, though
he halted sometimes and hissed (suggesting the use of a certain
breathing technique), while reading.

But for Hari, training blind people, particularly those who
were born blind, is easier because they are less demanding.

People who can see or people not blind from birth, often are
not ready to accept what he teaches because they always compare
it with their sight experiences.

"If I tell them there is a hole in front of them, they would
ask whether there is shattered glass in the hole because they are
afraid of getting hurt," Hari explained on how he arrived at the
conclusion that those who see, or have seen, often have more
worries.