[Federico]

Originally Posted by themorningstar

the day has finally dawned. let me kindly address a few things in this post. 1. citations, i have no need of so-called citations or your research. i lived in sulu and grew up w/ a barung as my blanket, my life was my research and that is all the verification required.

Well if you feel that there is no need for my "research" feel free to ignore my posts. However, not growing up in Sulu, with a barung, then should I consign myself to never understanding the history or the weaponry of the region? As such, it would seem that most of us on this forum should thus give up our discussions, since the vast majority of us are not and will never be from the places from which the weaponry we collect are from. However, if we want to play "academics", then we must conform to some form of standardization. Now, if we dont want to play "academic" that is something else, and fine then there is no need for citation. However, the very fact that you can claim that your knowledge comes from first hand experience, to me would count as citation of some sorts. It is knowledge that is coming from a source (eg. your personal experience), and has some quantification. However, I would prefer to avoid mystery in our discussioins. I try to be forthcoming about who I am, and what constitutes what little knowledge I have to form my opinion. I understand some knowledge must be kept secret, for cultural reasons. But if we are going to attempt a discourse, if we limit our discussion by secrecy we hit a dead end of communication real fast.

Originally Posted by themorningstar

2. training, there was no gi or belt ranking system in my family's style of silat. yes, working out scenarios with "family members" actually constituted a large part of training as our art was only kept within the "family" direct or extended.

This was in fact the original point behind my post, that what to some observers may not qualify as "training", due to a lack of perceived formality such as gi's, it is still valid training. I am not, and I stress once again, I am not arguing that one needs formality to constitute valid training.

Originally Posted by themorningstar

cutting w/ a blade actually is an instinctual action amongst those that were raised by the old law of the barung that effected a natural as well as necessary instinct. cutting with a barung is an art and science unto itself that escapes many, especially those that train in a closed-guard. .

Again, there is a caveat in this statement, eg. it is natural amongst those who are raised in said environment implying a some form of training no matter how altruistic. However, stick a barung in the hands of someone growing up in the US who has never handled a blade other than a steak knife, they will not be able to instinctually cut with it. Which was my point. The ability to cut is not universal instinct innate amongst all people. Training, even if something as innate as cultural immersion is still necessary. I have hung out with enough people, who have never handled a blade longer than 3", to know that even though my own small background growing up with bolo may not seem all that much, it is far more than what they had and makes the difference between being able to clear the backyard of weeds with a bolo, and swinging and swinging without ever cutting anything.

Originally Posted by themorningstar

pure logic suggests nothing because that is its essence, logic is logic, suggestion borders on assumption. and finally, ioo (in our opinion) a warrior's skill is not measured by their amount of training, but in their ability to use their training, and that is not debatable.

Ok, I am a little lost by the quote on logic. I am also unsure if when stating in our opinion, you are in fact multiple people posting under one handle, or a single individual representing a group of people (your profile is rather blank). However, I meant to simply suggest, on a pure statistical level, without training the chance of people picking up an un-known weapon and suddenly becoming succesful at its use against trained opponents is very low. I am sure there are people who are natural warriors, but to assume that an entire population can without training be filled with natural warriors is to me logically un-sound (now again mind you I am still unclear what you meant in your discussion of logic as logic). Now, again I did not mean to imply there is some fixed amount of time of training that creates some super warrior, but rather skill varies for individuals. And while there are some who can pick up skill sets quickly, many cannot. Hence the debatability of the validity that any set amount of training, is more dependent on the individual, rather than X amount of years. Hence, what may seem like a short period of training to some, may in fact be all that was needed by a certain individual. Whereas others to achieve the same results may take years to attain.