The Lineage
The Wisdom of Ages
The Origins
Many Streams, One System
The Wisdom of Ages — the parent traditions behind Serbatik's twelve arts — reached Maha Guru McCleary through five streams of direct transmission, teacher to student. The Jeet Kune Do line is the most famous of them — one stream among many others.
The Jeet Kune Do Line
Training from 1988 under Sifu Langley West; then under Sifu Larry Hartsell from 1996, Guro Dan Inosanto from 1998. The most famous of Serbatik's streams, charted in full below.
Sanuces Ju-Jitsu
Training from 1995 under Prof. Allen; Shodan awarded 1997.
Thai Boxing
Training from 1998 under Master Chai, President of the USA Thai Boxing Association.
Pekiti Tirsia Kali
Training from 1998; Guro Isa (1999); Mataas Na Guro — Master Instructor (2004).
Pentjak Silat Serak
Training from 2001. Pembantu Guru, Council of Elders, and Coordinator of the System — the deepest formal rank line in Serbatik.
Teacher to Student
The Five Streams
Every stream runs the same way — teacher to student, hand to hand, into the Serbatik synthesis. The Jeet Kune Do line branches through two senior teachers; the rest run direct.
The Jeet Kune Do Line
The Hartsell Line
The Inosanto Line
The Synthesis
Sanuces Ju-Jitsu
Thai Boxing
Pekiti Tirsia Kali
Pentjak Silat Serak
Sifu Larry Hartsell — Bruce Lee's senior student. Co-founder and lead instructor of the Jun Fan / Jeet Kune Do Grappling Association. Carried the grappling, ground game, and cross-training that anchor modern JKD. Trained Grandmaster McCleary throughout the late 1990s and appointed him State Director of the Grappling Association in 1999.
Guro Dan Inosanto — Bruce Lee's principal student and the torchbearer of Jeet Kune Do. Through the Inosanto Academy he carried "absorb what is useful" into a lifetime of cross-training across the Filipino, Indonesian, and Chinese arts. Trained Grandmaster McCleary from 1998 in Inosanto Kali and Jun Fan / Jeet Kune Do.
Sanuces Ju-Jitsu was the first stream to arrive from outside the Jeet Kune Do line. Training under Prof. Charles Allen began in 1995, in the direct line of Dr. Moses Powell, the art's grandmaster; McCleary was awarded Shodan in 1997. Sanuces contributes the joint manipulation and standing locks woven through the system.
Thai Boxing entered the system in 1998 under Master Chai, President of the USA Thai Boxing Association. The clinch, elbows, and knees of the Thai ring condition Serbatik's kickboxing range to this day.
Pekiti Tirsia Kali — the Filipino blade art — came the same year under Tuhon William McGrath, President of Pekiti Tirsia International. McCleary was awarded Guro Isa in 1999 and Mataas Na Guro, Master Instructor, in 2004. Pekiti Tirsia anchors the weapons ranges of the system.
Pentjak Silat Serak arrived in 2001 under Maha Guru Victor de Thouras, and grew into the deepest formal rank line in Serbatik: Pembantu Guru and Senior Representative for the Eastern United States in 2003, then the Council of Elders and Coordinator of the System in 2004. When the system was founded in 2005, it carried the name Pukulan Pentjak Silat Serbatik.
Grandmaster McCleary — trained under Sifu Hartsell from 1996 and Guro Inosanto from 1998, with the Sanuces, Thai Boxing, Pekiti Tirsia, and Serak streams running alongside. In 2005 he founded the Serbatik system as the synthesis of all of these transmissions and the broader cross-training of his career.
Guiding Principles
The Five Tenets
Values transmitted down the lineage and lived in every session.
Respect for the lineage, for your training partner, for the art itself, and for the person you are becoming through it. The tone of the room before any technique is taught.
The willingness to show up and train the unflattering reps. To hold form when no one is watching. Discipline is what turns a good day into a habit and a habit into a craft.
Engaging with intensity. Facing the live blade, the full-contact partner, the unfamiliar drill. Courage is choosing to meet the gap between what you know and what you can do under pressure.
Mastery is years of slow accumulation. The patience to drill the same angle, the same feed, the same structure long enough that it stops being technique and starts being you.
A lineage is carried by people, not paper. Senior students invest in juniors, juniors keep seniors honest, and the room is built so that everyone leaves better than they came in.