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From a Student of Willem Reeders

In a letter on Victor De Thaours web page, he claims lineage from several individuals and I was wondering if any of your contacts in Indonesia even heard of these individuals (regardless of any connection to Mas Jud or Embah Kahir): the individuals are Mas Roen (claimed to be a student of Pak Sera along with Mas Djoet), Teo Shrijn (I think claimed to be another student of Mas Djoet), Pak Tisari Mardjoeki (claimed to be a student of Mas Roen), and Dhaka Mardjoeki (claimed to be the son of Pak Tisari Mardjoeki). I guess in the long run, I am simply curious if any of these individuals even exist/existed in Indonesia (Victor De Thaours claims that Willem Reeders trained with Mas Roen and Teo Shrijn so I am curious as to whether that is even a possibility).

For information sake, I talked some with Mr. J.B. concerning Willem Reeders. Now, just to set the relationship between Mr. Reeders and Mr. J.B., he was a live-in student of Mr. Reeders and maintained close contact with Mr. Reeders up until his death in the early nineties; I have seen letters from Mr. Reeders to J.B. - mostly they were just friendly letters letting J.B. know some hunting he had done and so forth. Another piece of information concerning J.B. and Mr. Reeders is that Mr. Reeders couldn't speak very good English so much of the terminology used in training is in Japanese because it was easier for him to translate from Chinese to Japanese; so the terminology attached to specific technique is often/mostly in Japanese (although the system J.B. was taught was definitely Chinese); as well, J.B. had little interest/concern learning the history of Mr. Reeders' training so some of what is apart of what he teaches he is unsure (unconcerned) with where it came from. Anyway, all of the above is simply to make it understood that although J.B. and Mr. Reeders do appear to have been close as student and teacher, because of the language barrier some of the information concerning Mr. Reeders can be confusing to put together.

With all that being stated (again, I apologize for the wordiness), I wanted to know if the information concerning the individuals that Mr. De Thaours mentions was even possibly accurate or not. There is some question as to what Mr. De Thaours claims concerning Mr. Reeders training (I asked him these questions previously); Mr. De Thaours maintains that Mr. Reeders could not have trained with Mas Jud (or Mas Djoet using Mr. De Thaours wording) but instead trained with his Uncle Ernest De Vries and the Mas Roen mentioned above.

However, J.B. recalls a story Mr. Reeders recited concerning going to a scheduled fight between two Silat practitioners at Mas Jud's camp; much to his surprise (again according to J.B. as told to him by Mr. Reeders), Mr. Reeders was one of the individuals scheduled to fight (I believe the other individual was armed with sickles). According to Mr. Reeders (as recalled by J.B.), he struck his opponent with a side-thrust kick and killed the individual (after sending him about 30 feet); Mas Jud, however (again as recalled by J.B.), simply said that Mr. Reeders pushed him and that was all Mas Jud had to say. Now, I don't know (and I don't know if J.B. knows) if Mr. Reeders was actually a student of Mas Jud or if he was invited in order to be tested to see if he was any good. I guess after all that being stated, I am wondering if you or any contacts in Indonesia know if Mr. Reeders could have been in the camp at some point (not necessarily as a regular student)?

Also, I learned from J.B. that the Chinese individual in the picture on the net of Mr. Reeders and John De Vries was Mr. Reeders' great Uncle who was a blind Shaolin priest (who was blinded by glass that was thrown in his eyes by some attackers in China whom Liu Seong killed but not before having been permanently blinded) by the name of Liu Seong that moved to Indonesia to "retire" and avoid being challenged back in China (which, because of his blindness and age, he would eventually loose/die in a challenge) who was in charge of Mr. Reeders' training because he was the eldest son in the royal Liu family line (through Mr. Reeders' mother I believe). Apparently, Mr. Reeders also went by Liu Seong in honor of his great Uncle (I am unsure if it was an official Chinese name or simply a nickname).

In a follow-up email

First and foremost, I would like to thank you for your time and efforts in responding. It is interesting concerning the new teachers "popping out of the woodwork" so to speak in Mr. Dethouars' lineage; I had read somewhere that he had a falling out with his brother and then suddenly he was trained by Mas Roen who's Pencak Silat was more true to the mysterious Sera then Mas Jud (or Mas Djoet according to Dethouars). It all seemed a little too convenient.

As well, V. Dethouars was adamant that Mr. Reeders didn't train with Mas Jud; however, now I think that perhaps that is because Mr. Reeders is passed away (sadly)and can't defend any inaccurate information concerning his training. Plus, the story he gave conveniently left all "true" sera silat knowledge in the custody of his family (as opposed to finding out the actual events that took place). It is a sad commentary in today's world that one cannot trust the sincerity of what a so-called respected member of society has to say concerning historical information.