Hi Jussi,
I have to take the opposing view here. Human fighting arts evolved with and around the weapons they had to use. I think we can all subscribe to the notion that different weapons have their own best strokes. To use an extreme example, you really don't want to use a rapier the same way you'd use an axe. Now, some arts, primarily but not exclusively in the East, have an ideal set of moves, and use those moves with all sorts of weapons. This is your idea of "fighting with an art." I have seen this taken to extremes, where (for instance) a chinese tiger fork is used with to chop with like a guando, even though it doesn't have a sharp edge.
On the other side are the functional types who figure out the best strokes with the weapon, and then built their art bottom-up from this. This is the way most weapon arts develop, I think. There are, of course, arts where technique and philosophy mix.
I'd also like to point out that culture matters here. To go back to the samurai, I'd point out that they carried the daisho (long and short combination) primarily because the two swords were the badge of the samurai in Tokugawa Japan, by the Shogun's fiat, not by custom. Yes, the wakizashi works better in close quarters, but the thing is, prior to the Tokugawa shogunate, many samurai carried a tanto instead of a wakizashi, and did so on the battlefield. In this case, we're grafting a functional explanation onto what was basically a legislative act.
So far as the keris goes, I have no idea whether it can be held in an icepick grip, although it would be fun to find out. Equally, it could be that this blade was the equivalent of a man's necktie, worn not for physical utility but because it was part of his normal clothing. The handle was twisted out of the way, either to make it easier to wear (as Alan suggested), and it may also have signaled that the owner wasn't interested in getting into a knife fight.
My 0.0002 cents,
F
|