Guest Blog: This Martial Art That Is Not One – Jim Ingram and Amerindo Pencak Silat by Andrew Shinn

Jim Ingram at ninety years of age

An elderly man in ball cap and windbreaker walks his toy dog around the neighborhood. Beneath the visor of his cap, eyes smile from behind his glasses. He waves and nods to people as they pass. A harmless old man. But what the passers-by don’t know is that they have been assessed for potential danger. This smiling old man constantly scans the environment for threats and items that he might use as weapons: without paranoia, he catalogues them. In his own estimation, he won’t last long in a fight at his age, so this, too, he takes into account.

On June 12, 2021, Jim Ingram died at the age of ninety. Among other things, Ingram was the founder and head of the Amerindo Self-Defense System. He created this mixed system, drawing from numerous combative traditions, mostly Indonesian in origin, but also including modern military combat training, all filtered through Ingram’s real-life experiences. He considered this to be a family art, making all of his students part of that family. His students all call him Oom, meaning Uncle in his mother tongue, Dutch.

When Ingram heard of the death of one of his seniors or contemporaries, he would say: “When a teacher dies, a world of knowledge is lost.” In the following, I share a little bit  about the man who gathered, tested, and passed on this knowledge, and how his personal vision of survival intersects with other martial traditions–about this world of knowledge that has recently been lost.

James Ingram Jr.

Jim Ingram referred to himself as a survivor and a teacher of survival. He experienced street violence in colonial Indonesia, Holland, and the United States; imprisonment in Japanese occupation camps; and serving as a draftee in the KNIL (Royal Dutch East Indies Army), experiencing combat against Indonesian independence fighters post World War II. His approach to combatives came from a lifetime of learning, training, and experience. He learned from teachers of various systems, but always insisted that he wasn’t a ‘martial artist.’ He claimed not to have even heard the term ‘martial arts’ until he moved to the United States.

He was born in 1930 in a place that no longer exists, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He was an Indo: a Dutch-Indonesian, the mestizo class of that colonial time and place. Generally, the Indos started with Dutch fathers and local mothers. They were set apart in the colony, learning from both sides of their heritage, but also never completely part of either the native society or the European. This type of social strata is common in colonial settings, and the contradictions of partial inclusion and exclusion were most clearly revealed after independence, when neither side wants to admit the in-betweens into full membership. In this wise, the Indos often served in mid-level roles in the colonial administration. Ingram’s father, for example, was a member of the Netherlands Indies Police Force in Jakarta.

Ingram’s father was his first teacher in combatives: pukulan (West Javanese striking arts) and police tactics. As a lot of the police force in the Dutch East Indies was made up of Indos, this was a space in which native and European forms of combat met and mixed in a training environment (as opposed to an actual combat situation). The pukulan that James Sr. passed on to his son (Pukulan Japara) was typical of the native combat traditions that were practiced in the police forces. Police and military personnel were more likely to practice native forms of combat at this time, because they had a ‘legitimate’ reason for doing so. Otherwise, local traditions of fighting were seen as suspect and low-caste.

The Indos of West Java didn’t refer to this as silat at that time, but spel (Dutch for play) or maenpo (a Sundanese term for fighting, denoting speed and subterfuge). Generally, the Indo approach to combat traditions is eclectic and practical, reflecting, perhaps, their social position where they had to be adaptable, depending on what social milieu they were in. Traditionally in Indonesia, the martial art one learned was whatever was local, and you spent a lifetime learning just that. This can be seen in the names of the older (pre-Independence) systems, which often were simply the names of the village. For example, Cimande (one of the oldest West Java styles) is the name of a village, and Pukulan Betawi could be translated as ‘Betawi Boxing’ (Betawi being the Indonesian rendering of Batavia, the Dutch colonial name for the place now known as Jakarta). Since independence, there has been a proliferation of silat styles that reflect the vision of a founder, rather than simply the locale of their origins.

Through his father’s connections, Jim gained access to his next teacher, Willem Lorio. Lorio was a retired sergeant in the KNIL and was recognized as a jago (local strongman/champion/enforcer) in Kampong Kwitang, where Lorio and the Ingrams lived. In contrast to what one usually expects in martial arts training, Lorio did not start teaching Jim exercises, stances, or forms. He started straight off with bela diri (self-defense against various holds and attacks). This focus stayed with Jim throughout his life, and in particular, exemplified his approach to exploration of other methods. First learn the usage, and then pick up the form for solo practice.

Technically, Lorio taught from three systems: Kwitang, Silat Kemayoran and Spel Si Pecut. Following the Indo perspective discussed above, he did not stress tradition, forms, or history. Initially, Ingram was not interested in the history—he just wanted to learn to fight. Once, when he asked Lorio where this stuff actually came from, his inclinations were confirmed by his teacher’s dismissive response: “From Shaolin.”

Ingram’s early training served him well both in the Japanese occupation camp that, he says, stole his childhood, then later fighting for the Dutch queen’s rule over the Indonesian archipelago, and again in Korea, where he served as part of the Netherlands Detachment United Nations. Ingram’s military training consisted of “O.Z.” (ongewapend zelfvededeging – unarmed self-defense), in addition to training with firearms, knife, and stick. The Amerindo curriculum retains some of the lessons from this training, as well as from Ingram’s combat experience. During this period of military training, Ingram also learned some Pakistani wrestling that is incorporated into the Amerindo ground-fighting.

Ingram serving as a soldier in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army

After Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch, the Ingrams moved to Holland. Unhappy with the reception given to Indos in the Netherlands at that time (KNIL soldiers were referred to as murderers; Indos could not gather in groups on the streets; fights and everyday harassment were common), Jim moved his family to the United States.

In the United States, Ingram got a maintenance job with Delta Airlines with which he was able to provide for his family. This job moved him up to the Pacific Northwest, where he would live out the rest of his life. Ingram’s first student in the United States (other than his children) was a coworker at Delta, Noel Shaver. Ingram and Shaver discovered a mutual interest in fighting disciplines, and spent a period visiting martial arts schools in the area, looking for an art to study. Not finding anything that he wanted to learn, Ingram began teaching the material he already had.

Ingram always said he never planned on being a teacher. He learned combatives for survival: to defend himself, his family, his country. He says that a teacher needs to learn and practice everything in a system or style so he can pass it on. The fighter just needs to practice what he finds useful. The difference is that what works for one may not work as well for another, so the teacher needs to pass on the whole corpus and let the students figure out what works best for them.

The Amerindo Self-Defense System

The Ingrams’ experience in the United States was much different than in Holland. At first, when curious Americans would ask about his ethnic background, he would explain hesitantly. He found he would often receive responses listing his interlocutor’s ethnic background down to the 16ths. Then he’d say, “America is great – you’re all mixed up Indos like me!”

Wholeheartedly adopting his new home, while never denying his origins, Jim Ingram called his system of combatives Amerindo. It is a campur (mixed) system drawing from numerous sources. At the same time, its base remains West Javanese maenpo. The ‘mother’ of West Javanese arts is Cimande. Other prominent West Java styles that inform Amerindo include: Pukulan Japara, Pukulan Betawi, Sila Kemayoran, Spel Si Pecut, Petoco Pecut, Bandung Cimande Tarik Kolot, Kampong Makassar Depok, and Pukulan Pak Serak.

While drawing from these various sources (and more), Ingram’s system is heavily centered around pukulan (lit. striking; what Jim would call ‘dirty boxing’). Never losing the grounding in applied survival movements that Ingram received from Lorio and his father, the Amerindo mindset makes striking primary, destroying any threats presented, while at the same time, always having blade-awareness.

Blade-awareness is key. The common saying is, “Without the blade there is no silat.” This does not mean that if you’re unarmed, you cannot do silat, nor that silat only trains with blades. It means that the fundamental patterns and mental and physical approaches are those of knife engagements. Even when one is empty-handed against an empty-handed opponent, Amerindo stresses that you need to be constantly aware of the possibility that the opponent might have a hidden weapon – the blade is assumed, even when you can’t see it. Therefore, the Amerindo movements tend to be highly mobile, not being rooted on the spot (which would make one a better target for a knife attack), and with hand movements never blocking attacks, but either parrying them or destroying them. Given the blade-awareness paradigm, Jim Ingram would teach: “There are only two jurus [forms]: avoiding the force, and going into the force.”

Everything in Amerindo follows from one of these two approaches. Facilitating this is a unique understanding of body mechanics: the upper body and lower body movements are considered separate arts that work to support each other. For example, the upper art might avoid the force of an incoming punch by slipping to the side, while the lower art might go into the force by kneeing the attacking lead leg. Amerindo flows between striking, trapping, off-balancing, throwing, ground fighting, and weapons usage—all following from the “two jurus.”

Within the above framework, the basic Amerindo curriculum can be outlined as follows:

Level One

1. Bela Diri (simple self-defense)
2. Langkahs (stepping patterns)
3. Entries (parries and deflections on the inside and outside)
4. Kwitang Movements (from the Kwitang system taught by Oom Lorio, all entries are from the outside)
5. Pukulan Movements (mixed system Pukulan, with movements entering from the inside)
6. Introduction to Blade Usage (knife)
7. Kembangan (a solo form stringing together the movements that level one draws from)

Level Two

Levels Two and Three are reserved for members of the Amerindo family. There are no grades in Amerindo. One is always a student. But there are two levels of instructor: Guru Muda (lit. ‘Little Teacher,’  Assistant Instructor) and Guru Pelatih (lit. ‘Teacher Trainer,’ Instructor). Ingram would say that the first level is granted solely based on technique, while the second level is also dependent on loyalty to the Amerindo family. Ingram kept the original instructor certifications for all those he recognized as Guru Muda and Guru Pelatih, giving the students color photocopies. These certificates are held by the Ingram family as documentation.

A vast amount of material is contained in the second level, from synthesized Amerindo ‘packages’ to the c’omponent system packages,’ that preserve some of the source material that Ingram learned as he put his system together. Ingram’s presentation of his system evolved over the years. At times he concentrated on the ‘packages’ that synthesized his various sources of information, grouped around specific technical tasks or situations. I find that this is a very Indo approach that is in contrast to the ever-greater specialization that has given birth to the explosion of styles seen in post-independence Indonesia. This does not value one approach over the other, but is merely an observation. At one point, the Silat Union in Holland, for example, discussed removing style names in favor of referring to the arts in larger geographical terms, such as West Java Silat, Central Java Silat, East Java Silat, Sumatra Silat, etc.

At other times, Ingram felt that his Level Two students should know something about the component systems, the source material of Amerindo. Therefore, he taught representative movements and principles from these styles. In addition to the West Java styles mentioned above, some of the other sources of the Amerindo system include: Setia Hati, Manyag, Pamur Badai, Gelut Gang Siolan, Fitimaen and Cakalele.

Level Three

This level primarily adds small joint manipulation and targeted attacks to vulnerable points on the body (joints, nerve clusters, muscles) to the movements in levels One and Two. For someone only interested in basic survival skills, Amerindo Level One is the bread and butter of the system, and contains more than enough information to train up a beginner to meet various attacks.

Beyond Technique—the Personality of Amerindo

I could write volumes on the techniques that Jim Ingram imparted. As his student, I cringe slightly when I say that, because one of his idiosyncrasies was to disparage the word ‘technique.’ He called it a “fancy word,” preferring to refer to the physical aspects of what he taught as “survival movements.” But beyond the physical motions, lessons from Jim Ingram always contained a wealth of perspective drawn from his life experiences and study. Some might call it the philosophy of his combative approach, or the worldview of Amerindo, but I think of it more as the personality of the system. This personality infects the student at least as much as the physical movements do.

The Amerindo personality could be described as merciless pragmatism. It’s a defensive perspective, but when a threat is presented, the resolution of that threat should be carried out decisively, using the minimal amount of effort for the required effect—an approach that Ingram’s students would hear him refer to as economisch, in his Dutch terminology. Ingram’s pragmatic approach stemmed from his earliest teachers, his father and Lorio. Rather than obscure philosophy, there is an old-timey, homespun quality to the admonitions that Ingram passed down. Consider these Notes on Training from Willem Lorio, Excerpted from Jim Ingram’s book Spit, Hit, Run: Self-Defense Lessons from Java:

• Commit to training
• Strength comes from health
• Speed comes from effort
• Technique comes from experience
• Willpower comes from faith
• Serenity comes from old knowledge
• Progress comes new knowledge

Coming from an academic background (a graduate-school hangover, as I think of it now), it was easy to think critically about some of these formulations. But the more open the student is to them, the richer they become. I find that they ripple through my perspective on combatives and life in unsuspected ways, without purposefully concentrating on them.

Another illustration of the Amerindo personality is exemplified in the title of Ingram’s book: Spit, Hit, Run. This was literally his first lesson in combatives from his father. I’ll let the reader consider this in the contemporary context, but that lesson was a response to a young Jim asking his father how to deal with schoolyard bullies …

Amerindo Self-Defense in Comparative Perspective

I came to the Amerindo system as an instructor of Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, with additional background in Chen style taijiquan. One of my seniors in Amerindo was the late Bob MacDougal. It was Bob who got me interested in Japanese martial arts for the first time. Bob was a student of Ellis Amdur in Tenshin Bukō-ryū. Thanks to that connection, I now train with Amdur in Taikyoku Araki-ryū.

Even before Ingram’s death, Amdur invited me to write a guest post for this blog on Amerindo and how it compares with what we train in Taikyoku Araki-ryū. The present post has shifted in focus a bit, in light of Ingram’s recent passing. So while the above has sketched out the content and personality of the Amerindo system, I’ll just add a few observations here about how Ingram’s system compares and contrasts with the martial arts in which I have some background.

Chinese Martial Arts

Coming from Chinese martial arts, the biggest differences I found as a novice in Amerindo were how the styles conceptualized body movement, weighting in stance, and attitudes towards working with a training partner.

Conceptualizing Body Movement: Two arts versus a connected body

As previously described, Amerindo teaches that one fights with “Two Arts,” the upper art and the lower art. One’s upper body (from the waist up, including the arms and head) moves independently from the lower body (the legs and hips). I found this a little confusing at first. One of my seniors in Amerindo observed me practicing a simple movement in the air, and said that I was definitely a kung fu guy—I was putting too much body into the movement. This was truly frustrating, since I’d spent years trying to put my whole body into my movements. A couple of decades later, I’ve come to the understanding that:

• In terms of tactics, it makes absolute sense to think of the body as expressing different arts. This variation in expression does not necessarily contradict whole body power, but frees up the body to work in different directions at the same time, still powered by a solid connection. The upper art and the lower art may have different tactical missions, independent, but supporting each other. The legs, for example, may need to move in one direction (or stay put, applying pressure) while the upper body and arms may be moving in a different direction.
• Sometimes less is more, and not every movement needs to be delivered with obvious power.
• The interesting thing is that reconciling these two perspectives does not change either art: the mantis is still mantis, and the silat is still silat – but my understanding of both is enriched.

Weighting

Amerindo operates from a strong forward orientation in body structure, while there is a tendency in the Chinese arts I’ve studied and observed to load the rear leg. The forward orientation in Amerindo is a means to put pressure on the opponent, especially when one maneuvers behind the attacker. What must be remembered is that Amerindo is a bladed art. It tries to protect the practitioner’s vitals, keeping them away from an opponent’s blade. To achieve that, it keeps a forward pressure on the opponent, rather than drawing or pulling him in. In addition, Amerindo tries not to ‘fight’ an opponent. Fighting, from Ingram’s perspective, means squaring up with someone and trading blows (think of boxing). Amerindo aims to get behind and/or crush an opponent, trying always to put the practitioner in a position from which he can put the opponent down from the safest position possible.

Training with others

Let’s just say that in Amerindo training we tend to hit our practice partners harder than most training in Chinese martial arts I’ve experienced. Amerindo also isn’t shy about things like grabbing ears, hooking eye sockets, hooking inside the mouth, biting, scratching, or grabbing testicles. Moving past the politeness barrier is important for training the body to expect, guard against, and execute these types of attacks.

Jim Ingram training with his great-grandson

Araki-ryū

My point of reference here is a little different in that I am a relative beginner in Taikyoku Araki-ryū, while I’m an instructor of both praying mantis kung fu and Amerindo. That said, Araki-ryū is much closer to Amerindo in terms of movement and personality than either praying mantis kung fu or taijiquan. Araki-ryū is grounded in grappling with weapons. Like Amerindo, the unarmed portions of Araki-ryū assume that a weapon can or will be deployed. Even when Araki-ryū uses a long weapon such as spear or naginata, it maintains a grappler’s body and approach. While there are definite differences between the systems, I immediately felt a kinship. The combat is up close, personal, and not polite.

One of the things I am particularly drawn to is Amdur’s “laboratory” approach to koryū, as formalized in his creation of Taikyoku Araki-ryū. In Ingram’s system, he makes a distinction between what is traditional, and what he has verified through experience and experimentation. Amdur defines Taikyoku Araki-ryū as an “innovative training modality … a combination of rigorous traditionalism and innovative methods  to keep the ryūha congruent with the needs of the society it finds itself [in].” These two approaches are completely congruent.

Jim Ingram was never satisfied with the state of his practice. Even in his 90th year, he experimented, reflected, researched, refined, and was working on new ways to present his knowledge. Ingram, though, stressed that he was never a creator, but merely someone passing along knowledge. Amdur works with peers and even students, drawing on the richness of the Araki-ryū tradition, to answer different questions of combat, or to allow for a focus on a particular aspect.

As for technical comparison, in my opinion the differences are primarily cultural, secondarily due to assumptions about ground fighting, and thirdly due to the weapons employed. A small example of cultural difference would be the silat tendency to place the hands on the ground in low postures. For example, think of the Japanese method of knee walking, shikko. Now leave aside the mannerisms, and claw the ground with the hand as each knee comes down—that’s silat knee walking (harimau). There are tactical reasons why silat moves this way, but I’ve been assured that the Japanese simply would not claw the ground with their hands in this manner, at least in training. Likewise, Amerindo does not sit in seiza, nor work techniques from iidori (on knees and the balls of one’s feet), and Araki-ryū does not sit or work from a cross-legged or ‘S’ position.

In Amerindo, there is a readiness for ground fighting, but it’s always a contingency. Araki-ryū has this more in the forefront, which contributes strongly to the grappler’s body and mindset which permeate the ryūha. Amerindo has not so much a knife fighter’s mindset, but a shanker’s mindset — stab and move, move and stab, stab, stab — whether with a knife or empty handed (pukulan).

Finally the weapons used are different – different morphologies and traditions of usage, wearing, and availability. There are simply no silat methods of using the tachi (or anything like it), for example. Japanese kodachi might be similar in terms of a medium-length, single-edged blade meant to be used in one hand, but the role of the kodachi and the relationship to kenjutsu mean that it is used very differently than the Indonesian golok (a jungle tool and weapon—basically a machete). Generally speaking, Ingram would refer to things like the golok and siku-siku (like an Okinawan sai) as outdated weapons. He taught them, but downplayed them at the same time, stressing knives, sticks, and improvised weapons as being more relevant to today’s environment.

These are absolutely different arts, that look different, feel different, use different weapons, and have different technical considerations. That’s what one would expect from systems that come from such different cultural and historical backgrounds. Despite this, it is fascinating to find so many similarities in terms of techniques, assumptions about combat, training modalities, and personality. Because of these similarities, these two systems sometimes come up with surprisingly similar answers to the same problems. One time I was describing a certain Amerindo movement with the knife to Amdur, and he was somewhat surprised to note that it was an Araki-ryū inner teaching too.

This Martial Art Which is Not One

Jim Ingram’s approach to combatives is basically martial arts turned inside out. Rather than starting with form, the first lessons are always function. Form comes much later, and is meant to reinforce the body lessons that are learned by applying the movements against ever greater amounts of resistance and counters. I personally find it fascinating that there are so many congruences in approach and even technique between a Japanese koryū and an eclectic West Java silat system. It is as if there is a conversation going on within me between these two systems, and between my two teachers. The personalities of the two systems and the personalities of the two different instructors talk my ear off. As much as Ingram rejected the popular notion of ‘martial arts,’ the fact that Amerindo and Araki-ryū can converse so readily points to commonalities that place them in the same general sphere of activity that we recognize as martial arts.

In Memoriam

Jim Ingram was my teacher. He was brilliant and tireless in the development and teaching of his approach to combatives. But he was so much more than that. He has had a fundamental impact on my life, both in terms of how I practice all martial activities, and in terms of how I look at humanity. He was a superlative husband of 70 years, a father, grandfather, and great grandfather. The last time I was with him we were shooting photographs of him demonstrating movements on one of his great grandsons. He always said that Amerindo was a family system. Once you were in the system, you were part of his already large family, I began this post with one of Ingram’s frequent quotes: “When a teacher dies, a world of knowledge is lost.” I’ll end with his own answer to that: “This is why I have no secrets. For as long as my students live and teach, I will live.”

About the Author

Andrew Shinn is a Master Level Instructor of praying mantis kung fu under Paul Sun, a Guru Pelatih in Amerindo Self-Defense under Jim Ingram, and a beginning student of Taikyoku Araki-ryū under Ellis Amdur.