Weapons From The 'Other' Side

Last Monday night training, Guru Ed and I started our training with our Belati Buahs. Quick revisions on all eight, each of us did two rounds.

No Sauh training that night. Instead, we did our 5 Buahs of Sakti Pencawangan throughout the remaining session. I did not know why, but I felt really sleepy during training. Probably, I was getting flu, but sore throat was the only other symptom besides fatigue.

Before we end our session, Guru Jak showed us a new Buah, the Sakti Pencawangan sixth Buah. Impressive as the others, only that, I being much vertically challenged when put against Guru Ed, I think I do have to adjust some moves a bit to compensate my lack of height advantage. Despite the fatigue, we tried on this new Buah for about five minutes.

After class, Guru Jak unveiled to us some old weapons, several variations of the Tumbuk Lada. They looked gorgeous I would say, their Pamor, the pattern welding work, one is called the 'Tapak Gajah', which translated as, Elephants Footprints, while the other takes another pattern, called Pucuk Rebung which translated, as Young Bambooshoots. Simply beautiful piece of work they are. There were another two, both of which looked like a combination of a Keris and a Tumbuk Lada. This is due to their forms, which displayed characteristics of the Keris, curves at the end of the blade and I also saw what looked like the Belalai Gajah, or the Elephant's Trunk, a common characteristic of a Keris, at the other end of the Tumbuk Lada. Within these two interesting Tumbuk Lada, I could also see that there are a smaller Keris within their core body. Simply amazing.

I asked Guru Jak how do we use these weapons. According to him, it is used as how we use our Belati. He also told us that, these weapons, two of the earlier mentioned, came from the 'other' side, and needed to go through a process of orientation or familiarization before they are ready to be used for whatever purposes on 'this' side.

Wallahualam. God knows Best.

After class, went out for a quick supper, some bee hoon soup and two glasses of hot lime tea. Having them with a good company, a good chat, and receiving my first ever Christmas gift, certainly satisfied the tummy, soothed the throat, the fatigue miraculously disappeared, and not to mention, warmed the heart too.

Salam.