No David, I did not take that photo myself, my wife took it, and the bend in the wrist is to allow her get the pic.
I did these pics three times. I tried to get one of my sons who has Asian type hands, to hold the keris while I took the photo, but although it looked OK when I took the pics, when I got home and processed it, he had not got it quite right so I held the keris while my wife took the pics.
The previously published photos of this grip had one of my sons holding it, and it looks a lot more convincing.
Donn Draeger spent his life researching the way in which South East Asian weapons were actually used. If anybody was expert on this, then I think that perhaps Donn F. Draeger was that man. His remarks on the way in which a keris was used, when it was still an everyday weapon are interesting. He maintained that because the keris in Jawa had not been used as a common weapon for many, many years, and that since no documentation of methods of use existed, it simply was not possible for somebody living at the present time to truly know how the keris was held and used in Jawa when every man carried one as a weapon.
I cannot comment on the practicality or otherwise of the grip that I have shown, for use in silat applications.
I am not a silat practitioner, I have seen demonstrations, and I find it an admirable, athletic, and beautiful form of martial art which seems to require a very high degree of flexibility and extremely fast reflexes.
What I can comment on is the person who taught me this way to hold a keris.
This gentleman was a neighbour in Solo almost 40 years ago. He had worked as a "waste disposal contractor" during the period from the time the Japanese occupied Jawa until into at least the 1950's. His teachers were the sons and grandsons of the overseers and enforcers who were used by the Dutch. He was not a pencak silat teacher, he was a man who used elements of silat, kun tao, and other arts as his professional stock in trade. His objective was to avoid fights. He did not get paid for fighting. He did get paid for getting rid of the waste he been paid to get rid of. His preferred tool of trade was not a keris, but he had used a keris in his work. The way in which he taught me to hold a keris was the way in which he had been taught to hold a keris.
Perhaps the grip that I have shown photos of would be totally useless for pencak silat situations. I do not know, and have no foundation upon which to offer a comment. But this grip was used by one man at least who earnt his living with it, and by ensuring that others did not.
Although I cannot vouch personally for the efectiveness or otherwise of this grip, I can say that it is a very firm grip, because it effectively locks the blade into three pressure points in the hand:- the pinch between forefinger and thumb, and the first joint of the forefinger locked down onto the top of the gonjo.
I would suggest that if this grip is not applicable to use in pencak silat, then the obvious solution is not to use it.
But as to whether it was used in a practical situation or not, well, theoretically bumble bees cannot fly.
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