TRAINERS

PGB-North America Chief Trainer Sutrisno Samudra oversees the development of White Crane Silat trainers and bringing PGB branches in the United States and Canada into alignment with the standards of the PGB Center in Indonesia. Trisno began studying WCS when he was 15 years old and trained full-time with grandmaster Suhu Gunawan Rahardja for 11 years. Three years after receiving his first black belt, he opened a branch in Germany. He moved to Hawai‘i in 2001, where he continued training students for a decade. Shortly after moving to California in 2011 he was awarded the 4th degree black belt. Trisno then became PGB’s delegate to the United States and Chief Trainer for North America. He currently leads a class in El Cerrito Saturday afternoons and provides advanced training seminars at other locations several times a year.

Dr. Jaida Kim Samudra is an anthropologist whose doctoral research was conducted in the Persatuan Gerak Badan (PGB) school of White Crane Silat (WCS) in 2000. She began studying the WCS self-defense art with trainers Peter and Gary Gartenberg in Berkeley, California in January 1984, then traveled to Indonesia to study with PGB founder, Suhu Subur Rahardja, later that year. She became assistant trainer to the Berkeley branch in 1991 and later opened WCS groups in Minnesota, Hawai‘i, and Wisconsin, with approval of grandmaster Suhu Gunawan Rahardja. Jaida has also taught Tao Kung, PGB’s internal energy and health system, in Hawai'i and California. She rejoined the PGB community in California in 2011 and helped form the Bay Area WCS collective in 2013. In 2014, she became the Western Region Trainers’ Liaison to the Chief Trainer of PGB North America, then took the black belt test, signifying full trainer status in PGB, in Indonesia in 2016. Now entering her fifth decade of training, Jaida continues to practice WCS and Tao Kung, but with greater attention to the subtleties of the movements and their affects on the nervous system.

Maggie Dawson began practicing White Crane Silat in 2003. Her physical practices began as a child, in committed dance, gymnastics and later yoga. She has a BA in Physical Anthropology with a focus in human evolution and skeletal functional anatomy. She became a massage therapist and bodyworker, discovered White Crane Silat, and realized she could better help people by empowering them with movement. Maggie travels to practice with the best Silat teachers - in Europe, the US, and ultimately spent 2009-2010 living and training in Indonesia, under the roof and tutelage of the teacher and grandmaster, Suhu Gunawan Rahardja.

Maggie has a keen eye for structure and is known to guide students in developing a precise foundation for supported, centered and balanced unfolding. Maggie's intention is to empower each student with expanding awareness and a “toolbox” of novel physical and energetic options.

Maggie’s full time gig is raising her fiercely powerful little daughter with compassion and calm. She shares her knowledge of silat on the side. Her favorite themes are women’s empowerment, the sam po kun of parenting, and harmonization with Nature.

Ross began training with PGB in 2006. Since then he's studied under a number of senior trainers from around the world, with more than half a year training directly under the supervision of Grandmaster Gunawan Rahardja in Indonesia. In the summer of 2017 Ross became certified to teach, and in 2023 he was awarded his Black Belt.

Ross is passionate to share his knowledge and expertise of PGB's surprising and revealing modalities, particularly the development of "feeling" through the feet. As someone who spends large portions of his day behind screens like other modern denizens, Ross loves to create classes that gets students "back into their body" and allows for deep practice in a short time.

(Pictured here with PGB's Chief Trainer at his Black Belt ceremony)