Poerwoto is one with Merpati Putih

Poerwoto is one with Merpati Putih

JAKARTA (JP): Cigarettes are never far from him. His short stature, thin body, simple clothes, wrinkled face and gray hair tell nothing but a nobody.

But appearance sometimes deceives. This 50-year-old Javanese commoner, Poerwoto Hadipoernomo, is regarded as the founding father of the Merpati Putih pencak silat school, one of the largest traditional martial art school in Indonesia.

His only brother, Budi Santoso, is regarded as co-founder.

At present, Merpati Putih has around 480,000 members throughout Indonesia, including powerful members of the Armed Forces, Army Special Force, the National Police and the presidential security guards.

Merpati Putih's incumbent chairman is Solihin GP, former Army Chief of West Java Command, who is now member of the Supreme Advisory Council.

Poerwoto, affectionally called "Mas Pung" by his students, said he inherited the self defense art from his father, Saring Hadipoernomo.

"I was 18 when my father asked me to establish the school on April 2, 1963," Poerwoto said. Saring named it Mersudi Patitising Tindak Pusakane Titising Hening or Merpati Putih for short. The name means "seek till you find the right action in the tranquility."

The hand-to-hand fighting skills, according to Poerwoto, originated from Amangkurat II, a sultan of the Javanese Mataram kingdom in the 16th century. "I am his 12th descendant," he claimed.

Following his father's instruction, Poerwoto, who seriously learned the fighting skills when he was 14, collected 24 friends and set up the school.

"My father found it necessary to build the school in order to introduce the indigenous self-defense style to Indonesian youths and prevent them from being influenced by foreign martial arts which began to win their favor," Poerwoto said.

"Each martial art contains with it the characters and philosophy of the nation to which it belongs and we want our youths to stay faithful to our own identity," he puffed away as he talked.

Merpati Putih offers 12 grades of skills. But when Saring died in 1969, he had not yet taught all his skills to Poerwoto.

"But I received from him the manual on the advanced stages of our family fighting style," Poerwoto, who became chain-smoker at 19, said.

The manual consists solely of pictorial descriptions which only Merpati Putih's students can understand. He acknowledged that it was very difficult, even for him, to learn the advanced stages without his father's help. "I have not yet practiced all the techniques described in the manual," he regretted.

Merpati Putih combines breathing exercises with combat and self defense skills. Its exponents claimed that their skills are based on the manipulation of waves found in the nature.

At its best, all these skills would theoretically enable people to perform things which seem like magic such as walking on the water or making oneself invisible.

"This can be achieved by eliminating body gravitation or manipulating light waves to deceive the eyes," Poerwoto explained. Actually he was reluctant to mention this because people tend to term as magic or witchy any natural phenomena that they cannot yet understand or scientifically explain.

The father of three sons said that he did not finish his law study at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada university. "As the school's members grew and grew, I did not think about study again. I believe my occupation as teacher and founder of the school is my life," he looked contemplating.

He paused for a while. "My father would have been happy had he seen how the school has developed now. I am happy, too. I have done what my father entrusted me to do."