Suprises, Amazement and very little sleep for a week
Caring, Gentle, Supportive, Generous and extremely Humble are the best words to describe EVERY Merpati Putih member we have ever met.
We have gotten used to American Martial Artists, many of whom have overinflated egos once achieving Black Belt status. Needless to say we were quite shocked at how our friends carried themselves, especially considering their amazing abilities. The true shockers for us were the demonstrations they did, which left Mike and I with brain cramps for several weeks afterwards. Even though we are both very open-minded about true human potential, when you see things like we saw in person, the mind still has a bit of trouble assimilating it. Luckily we had some help...
Demonstrasi
(demonstrations)
Over the course of the week we saw:
-Mas Moestafa and Mas Sardi do their own dishes, shower without spilling a drop on the floor, identify animals 30 feet away, identify colors, avoid any obstacles, draw, describe what was on TV (TV muted), ride bicycles, comment on beautiful women :), play ping pong, play basketball, read printed text, perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (blindfolded, without touching the paper, using latin numbers not braille), help people at our local blind school (here in Utah) get around as well as many other things.
The kicker is that they are totally blind, and they did all of these things not only being blind but I also blindfolded them myself for many of these things and they never once reached out to search for something, no clicking noises, no cane, no dog and they were doing it as well as I can, maybe even a bit better.
That's when I knew that this was a cause that was worth pursuing. There are millions of people worldwide that are visually impaired and can't be helped to see by current Medical practices. Here we have an all-natural alternative that develops awareness of surrounding things, greater health, and indescribable happiness for the blind.
Mas Hariyadi and Mas Aris drove my car, identified colors, shot balloons out of our hands with a BB gun from 40 feet away, broke bricks with their head, broke carbon steel files with their pinky, identified people in a crowd by 'reading' their drivers license, read text out of a book they'd never seen as well as other things that are proprietary to MP and can't be discussed publicly. (All this after I taped their eyes close and applied 3 thick blindfolds on top) Many times they did these things facing the opposite way.
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Now the fun begins
The demonstrations were received fairly well by the media and many people were amazed at what they saw, and of course the skeptics lingered, which is fine as well.
When we had some free time, Mike and I were to go walking with our friends. We took a short stroll down to Pineview Reservoir, near our house and then we were told to do some very strange, and tiring exercises. We had no idea what was going on, until after what seemed like hours we were each handed a uniform and told to change into them immediately.
There we were changing our clothes on a public beach, not even caring that were modelling our birthday suit for whomever was watching. An honor like this arrives once in a lifetime, if you're very lucky.
Once changed, we were given permission to begin learning the art of PPS Betako Merpati Putih (Merpati Putih Empty Handed Self Defense) and we learned that Dr. Heru would be our Instructor or Pelatih.
After a 3 day trip to the Indonesian Embassy in Washington D.C., we began our training under Dr. Heru Hendarto M.D.,DS-SLP while he was pursuing his Post-Doctoral Fellowship and Masters Degree in Speech Pathology at the University of Utah.
Currently there are only 2 Merpati Putih Instructors permitted to teach within the U.S. One in Washington D.C. at the Embassy (only for Indonesians), and then Dr. Heru in Salt Lake City (only for us).
Dr. Heru is a former Merpati Putih trainer who also used to train the Kopashanda (Indonesian Commando Paratroopers) as well as starting one of the largest MP schools at Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta.
Under his direction we began to explore and learn more about who we truly are, what we are capable of as well as how to pursue an honorable life path with courage.
Training in the Patented Merpati Putih breathing techniques used to build one's Inner Power, or Tenaga Dalam, we were put through the Special Forces training, not the standard MP training. The reason is that as the first and only Americans they had ever allowed to learn this, we needed to set an example showing that Americans might be worthy of this knowledge. If we could undergo the training, then we deserved the rank. The story continues on the Training page... |
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