Hi everyone,

Just let me begin by saying how proud I was to receive MM13's blogger of the week award, although I'm under no illusions, I got it for being a newbie rather than for any artistic merit.
Never the less I shall endeavour to live up to such esteemed company.

For those of you who have been following my attempt to change my screen name with great interest and even for those following it with belligerent indifference I can announce success, those lovely people, the mods, have let me change it to ...(drum roll) ...Darth Buir (Mando for father). My original choice. Thanks again to all those who offered advice.

If your still reading I'll get to the point, and if your not still reading then move along.
While watching ROTJ with my padawans my youngest asked me something that got me thinking about the whole subject of Jedi training. We were at the point where Luke is entering Jabba's palace and is confronted by the Gamorrean Guards.
He asked me, "How can Luke 'Force choke', that's a Sith power?" (He knows this from battlefront) and to be honest I was stumped. I've watched this movie scores of times and just not noticed it.

I'm slowly working my way through the EU lit. I'm trying to do it chronologically so the answer may be out there, but I'd assumed that Luke was being trained by the ghostly Obi-Wan, in which case, I can't believe that this is something he would pass on. So then it leads to the conclusion that this is something that Luke has taught himself. How? Is there some element of a Dark side lineage to the Skywalker line? If so, where from, as Anakin was supposedly conceived through the Force?

It got me thinking as to the nature of a Jedi's training and how skills are passed on. Do Jedi Masters simply act as mentors nudging padawans in the right direction with words of wisdom as their abilities grow. Or is the training a more regimented system of teaching, where lessons are taught and then the pupils tested on that knowledge. We see very little of the actual training in the movies apart from the AOTC scene with Yoda and the younglings. In the books I've read the lessons are predominantly Lightsaber lessons, although Path of Destruction mentions Darth Bane studying holocrons.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I'd be delighted to hear them.

MTFBWY DD