Well, as for sticks or anything like that here goes...As an adult, most criminal violence you may encounter will usually involve one criminal with a knife, gun or club ( a lead filled piece of bamboo for one individual at our school) or many unarmed attackers. Knowing the capabilities of a stick for one thing shows that unless you are hit in certain delicate spots, it takes a lot of hitting on you to put you down, so escape, or resistance is at least possible, if really painful and sucky. As to my first idea, that crime as an adult occurs with an armed single indivual, we have an example here in chicago. Two women, coming home late from drinking, were attacked by a drug addict. He initiated the attack by hitting them both in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat. There are several cases that I have heard recently where people have been murdered with knives (no time spent in training by the attackers). One incident happened near our school. One teenage boy (young teen) stabbed his brother in the chest, killing him, over some sneakers. So, FMA with it's emphasis on knives, swords and sticks at least lets you become familiar with the different types of destructive potential of those weapons. A whack with a stick may hurt, but it won't necessarily break a bone. The same level of force with a knife or a machete bought at Wal Mar for 7.99 sends you to the hospital for stictches. There are drug gangs in chicago that use machete's as an intimidation weapon when they kill. So you have that aspect as well.
Besides, as Bob said, weapons training is fun all by itself, and FMA, especially the sword styles are even more fun. Another thing, the stories of the old masters, Ilustrisimo, and the others are very recent as far as time goes. These guys handled these weapons for survival in both war and as civilians.
or if people just ran out of things to talk about here, or if people just forgot about it.
