A knife is a weapon that does not leave indifferent the representatives of the stronger sex. Today it is far from uncommon for such a hobby as collecting exclusive knives. But today we’ll not talk about collecting edged weapons, but about handling it. Possession of a knife is a whole art, which is difficult to master. But if you succeed in this matter, then it looks very impressive and brutal.
Knife Basics
You should start with the basics and gradually move on to more complex elements. The most important thing in training knife ownership is safety. You can learn to work with a knife on special rubber dummies, this reduces the likelihood of injury to zero, and when you are already clearly able to carry out the elements, you can try to work with a real knife.
Knife Training
It is difficult to learn on your own, it is much easier to turn to special people who are masters in this matter. A professional can quickly and safely teach you how to use knives. At the same time, you can focus on simple tricks of owning a knife, or you can go deeper into this matter and achieve the highest skill. It all depends on your goals, free time and financial opportunities (in the case of paid lessons from professionals).
In addition, today you can find many video tutorials on the Internet. Here are a lot of tutorials from the best masters in their field. You can find basic lessons, and you can see the most serious technique of working with a knife from a pro, this will help you understand where you need to strive and what exactly to develop.
Self defense
You must understand that the lessons of owning a knife are intended solely for self-defense. That is, by mastering the technique of working with knives, you learn and resist the people who own such weapons and are trying to attack you.
It should be understood that engaging in a fight with a criminal attacking you is only in the most extreme case. If it is possible to avoid conflict, then this must be done. Melee weapons are not jokes, just one wrong move and the situation can end in failure both for the attacking criminal and for a decent, defending person.
But, you need to understand that the possession of a combat knife can one day help you out or even save your life and those close to you.
Major misconceptions
There is an opinion that suggests that the knife can be knocked out of the hands of the enemy simply and easily with a kick on it (the knife). If you are not sure of the complete success of such an action, then it is better not to try to use it. For a beginner, such a blow can end very, very badly, because an armed criminal can cut his leg, and for this he will not need to make any special efforts at all.
He just needs to turn the knife with a blade at you at a certain angle, you will do the rest with your own kick and push yourself against the knife. Even experienced fighters practice this technique only in rare cases. But it should be understood that a successful strike on a knife can really render a criminal harmless and even put him into a stupor for a while. At this time you need to act.
Eight
This is a basic, basic exercise for mastering a knife. Exercise begin to perform slowly, gradually increasing speed. The exercise is a mental outline of the figure eight by air in front of you. You can perform actions direct or reverse grip or by combining both options. It is worth saying that you can perform the exercise in horizontal and vertical variations. The difference is only in the shape of the pattern that you depict with a knife during the exercise.
Mastering the trajectories
This is an important point for the knife ownership technique. To easily master this moment, you need to mentally draw a ball around you in your head. The boundaries of this imaginary ball will be at those points to which you can reach the tip of the knife. Your task is to inflict imaginary blows with a knife on the borders of a fictional ball.
Strikes can be performed with a direct grip, a reverse grip. You can also perform pokes, cuts, even blows with a knife handle grip. Gradually, the speed of the exercise should increase. In addition to increasing speed, there are also complicating elements for this task. With these complicating elements, your art of owning a knife will noticeably add to your skill. These elements should be included in the exercises gradually, when you are completely confident in your abilities. These complicating elements include:
- Knife ownership in motion.
- Work with a knife with elements of acrobatic stunts.
- Training in confined spaces (simulating a battle in the corridor, elevator, small room, etc.).
- Training with the connection of a free hand to capture an opponent or an additional blow with his free hand.
- Training with two knives and work with both hands at the same time.
- Exercises with one knife and a second auxiliary object (a knife in one hand, a stick in a second hand, a bat, a golf club, a discharged gun, etc.).
- Work with rival mannequins (the number of mannequins increases from one to eight).
- Training paired with a real human opponent.
Features
It should be understood that the technique of owning a knife is not a joke at all. For example, if in the case of self-defense, you decide to use cold steel against criminals, it is important to understand that if you lose a knife during a hassle and the criminals end up with it, then they (criminals) can use your knife against you, even if they were originally this is not planned. This will happen at the level of instincts and aggression.
For this reason, as already mentioned, the knife should be used only in exceptional cases, when there is nowhere to retreat, conflict cannot be avoided and there is a real threat to your life or the health of your loved ones.
In addition, keep in mind that if you only master cold steel, this does not mean at all that in battle you are incredibly dexterous and skillful, experience will come with time. In the early stages, you are a vulnerable, indecisive and inexperienced victim, if you have a trained criminal against you.
Butterfly knife
A very popular type of knife. The technique of using a butterfly knife looks very impressive and spectacular. All these quick rotations of the blade around the axis of the brush look incredibly dangerous and bold. In fact, everything is not so complicated and not even so dangerous if you master the principles and basics of technology.
The butterfly knife has an official name: balisong. The model is a folding folder. This knife model has distant Filipino roots. Owning a butterfly knife is an effective means of self-defense and at the same time very affordable financially. Also often used by people are models designed for flipping.
Flipping is a certain separate and independent subculture in the world of knives. Flipping is a process that involves the extremely skillful possession of a knife and the demonstration of various spectacular tricks with it (the knife).
Flipping is today considered one of the most advanced knife skills. Initially, this direction originated in the United States. In our country at one time (the nineties of the last century), elements of flipping were common in places not so distant. The most popular knife for this was just balisong (butterfly knife).
Currently, the criminal situation in the country has returned to an acceptable level. Now we are engaged in flipping law-abiding citizens who choose this skill of owning a knife as a hobby.
Knife throwing
This is also a separate subculture in knife art. This direction is very spectacular. Learning to throw knives is quite difficult if we are talking about the highest level, precise execution and accuracy close to ideal.
You can learn to throw yourself or take lessons from the pros. Both options have a place to be, but the pros will always be able to quickly and accurately deliver a throwing technique. In addition, you can learn on your own from video lessons from professionals in their field. Such lessons today can easily be found on the respective video hosting sites.
How to choose a knife?
If you are a beginner, then learn the simplest techniques on dummies. After you have mastered the basics, and will already have a good command of the knife, you can consider buying some simple models. Of course, when you become a pro, you will want to buy a real professional and exclusive knife. There are handmade models that are produced individually or in general in a single copy.
You can definitely give one piece of advice: if you are a beginner, then do not buy an expensive knife, maybe after training a couple of months you will understand that this activity is not for you and tie it with this hobby. And buying an expensive knife will just be wasted money.
Another point that you should pay attention to when buying a knife is the law. The fact is that some knives are just knives, and some models are already edged weapons. Permission is required for melee weapons; permission to carry is not necessary for a conventional knife. We will talk about the features of this issue a little lower.
How to carry a knife?
Of course, safety is the main thing. If the knife is folding, then everything is simple. You can wear it folded with almost no restrictions. If the knife does not fold, then you will need the appropriate scabbard (holster), usually such devices have a mounting system either on the body or on the belt. You need to choose a place for carrying the knife so that it is both inaccessible to outsiders and affordable, convenient for you so that you can quickly get the knife if necessary.
Legislation
In general, in our country there is a criminal liability for carrying cold steel without special permission. But it is worthwhile to understand that not every knife is considered a cold weapon. Distinctive qualities of knives:
- The blade is longer than 9 cm.
- The blade thickness is more than 2.4 mm.
- The angle of divergence of the handle and blade is not more than 70 degrees.
- The blade roll is less than 9 mm.
- The hardness of steel blades is over 25 Rockwell.
- The blade can go to a depth of 2 cm or more.
- There is a clear stop under the fingers.
- The tip of the blade assumes an easy application of a piercing blow (in the presence of a limiter under the fingers).
It is also important to know in order to determine whether a knife is a cold steel or not, you need to conduct special appropriate certification or forensic examination. The appropriate punishment for carrying knives, if recognized as such, can only occur if there is no appropriate permit.
As a rule, today in specialized stores always indicate in the annotation to the knife model the moment that says whether a particular knife is a melee weapon or not.
