The original question was about double STICK. But how someone chooses to train with double-stick depends on if they are training for stick-only, or looking for widely applicable lines that can be used with any impact or edged weapon.
I frequently train with live blades. Not with a partner (though I have), but solo (shadow-knifing?), and against the cutting tree, with folder, bowie, machetes and axes. I have cut myself but never seriously. You will never see a school or teacher advocate live-blade training in the united states, because of liability. My teachers were ex-military, and gave instruction to me as a friend, all backyard training. I learned mostly killing lines right away. Never really thought about it. (I think if you know what is a killing line you are less likely to kill someone by 'mistake.') When I trained or exchanged ideas with friends trained in dojos, they were somewhat taken aback, many have no concept of terminal followups. This is because of liability of public teachers, they will get sued.
In many of the double-stick drills, you will find yourself doing things that are not functional for an edged weapon like a machete. You make a lot of bizarre tennis-like backhands, that may be effective with an impact weapon, but with a machete you will only be slapping your opponent with the flat-side of the blade. Training with flat edged weapons, you are much more conscious of keeping the cutting edge at an angle of contact that it actually cuts. You can acheive the same speed and coordination with practice and have the added awareness of keeping the sharp edge at a cutting angle.
When you train with sticks exclusively, you dont 'automatically' accomadate for a cutting edge unless you are very aware of it. As I said above, this is fine if you only intend to use sticks, but if you want your siniwali to translate effectively to an edged weapon you need to be aware of it.
I think it is POSSIBLE to fight with two knives, but highly inadvisable. I think even a trained knifist is likely to cut himself, especially if a close-range wild slashing struggle ensues. I think is is feasable if you have more than one person coming at you from different angles. It is much more possible with machetes, or longer edged weapons. I think with training you are less likely to seriously cut yourself with larger blades. By larger, I mean an average machete or larger.
PS: There is a really good essay by Marc Denny on the Dog Brothers website about Neuro-linguistic Programming. He raises a valid point that no matter how much or effectively we train, our left hand is still psychologically our 'left' or 'weak' hand. How far this can be overcome depends on the individual, but would definately be a factor under stress.
[This message has been edited by James Sass (edited 12 December 1999).]
