Dr. Philip H.J. Davies began studying under Paatje Kudding in 1981 and has trained in the art since. Dr. Davies' martial arts instruction began in 1977 in Tae Kwon Do. His first experience of Chinese martial arts was in Ninety Nine Step Tai Chi under Mannfred Rottman, a student of the famous Taiwan-based grandmaster Wang Shu-Chin, and between 1984 and 1987 he studied a form of Hung Kuen Kung Fu under one-time instructor to the Toronto Chinese Freemasons Sigong Jimmy Lore (Lore King-Hung) at the Jing-Mo school in Toronto's Old Chinatown. During this period,Dr. Davies also studied Dragon and Lion dance, becoming one of the very few westerners in Toronto's Old Chinatown to publicly perform the Lion's Head, and eventually became one of Jing Mo's junior instructors. Under Paatje Kudding, Dr. Davies has studied not only the empty hand fighting techniques of Kuntao, but also the traditional Indonesian weaponry, internal training (Latihan Pernafasan) and traditional manipulative healing (urut asli). Dr. Davies was certified to teach in 1987, and operated a school in Toronto, Canada, from 1987 to 1991. In 1991 he moved to Calgary to assist Paatje Kudding's main branch of the Institute, where Paatje Kudding appointed Dr. Davies his Assistant Chief Instructor to the Flying Dragon Institute.

In 1992 Dr. Davies moved to Reading, where he completed his Ph.D. at the University or Reading on the management of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6), where he has operated a class in Kuntao from April of 1993. In January, 1998 Dr. Davies relocated to Singapore, where he spent nearly a year and a half teaching sociology for the University of London External Programme at the Stansfield School of Business. While in Singapore, Dr. Davies made an intensive study the 'cultural aspect' of Indonesian/Malay martial arts, in particular traditional gamelan silat under Jurulatih Utama Mohd. Khamin bin Said of the Bugis style Pencak Silat Titi Pinang and Pakcik Zaani Abdullah of the East Javanese art of Silat Banyuwangi, as well as the Indonesian martial arts music of kendang silat under Lek Supari Sumito . After two years teaching back at Reading and two and a half as an Associate Professor in International and Strategic Studies at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. During his time at UM, Dr. Davies completed negotiations with the International Pencak Silat Association which resulted in PSKM being accepted as an 'authentic Indonesian martial art' and included within the international silat community.

In 2003, Dr. Davies returned to the UK, teaching at Brunel University in west London where he is deputy director of the Brunel University Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies. He currently teaches a small, handpicked class of students at Brunel University. The UK branch of PSKM has twice hosted visits from Paatje Kudding, once in October 2000 and most recently in December 2005.

Paatje Richard Kudding and the Reading students of Kuntao Matjan October 2000

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Dr. Davies can be contacted on Email, or through the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 2DD; tel.+44 (0)1895 266827.

¹Paatje: The term Paatje is a colloquialism commonly employed by Dutch Indonesians, roughly comparable to the contemporary Malay honourific pakcik. It is a contraction of bapak ( 'father') and cilik ( 'little'), and means essentially 'uncle'. See also Alex van Deelen's translations from the Fighting Spirit/Zendokan.
²Macan: Current (post-1974) romanisation of 'matjan', the Javanese word meaning 'tiger' (as distinct from the more commonly seen Malay 'harimau').