A shotel.
Illustration by Peter Fuller.
which is a long, deeply curved blade that is sharpened on the inside edge. It is not a chopping weapon like the kukri. Rather, it is used to reach around an opponent’s shield and stick him. Now this is a good trick with a curved sword, but as a fighting style it is marvelously ineffective.1
[There are styles that did work, however, and some of them were recorded for posterity. One manual in particular I have always found useful, as it includes knives as well as swords. The style described in it cannot be called a] modern combat style, but it has captured the essence of the art, and done it very well.
The author of this work was George Silver, an English fencing master who lived in the late sixteenth century. He seems to have been not only a Master of the Sword, but of practically every other edged weapon as well. He had a knack of grasping the capabilities and limitations of various weapons with little or no apparent effort. His book, Paradoxes of Defense, is an excellent assessment of many weapons, and in view of his fame with the sword, it’s interesting that he preached the superiority of the “short sword” over the rapier. This was prophetic, as what he termed the “short sword” became known as the small sword or the dueling sword.
In the quotation below, I have modified the antiquated spelling for the purposes of clarity. But I want you to remember something as you read it. George Silver made his living with a sword, not with books.
First know that to this weapon there be no wards nor grips but move against such a one as if foolhardy and will suffer himself to have a full stab in the face or body to hazard the giving of another, then against him you may use your left hand in throwing him aside, or strike up his heels after you have stabbed him.
In this dagger fight you must use continual motion so that he not be able to put you too close to grips, because your continual motion disappoints him of his true place, and the more fierce he is in running in, the sooner in giving you the place, whereby he is wounded and you not endangered.
The manner of handling your weapon and continual motion is this. Keep out of distance and strike or thrust at his hand, arms, face or body. Press upon him, and if he defends the blow or thrusts with his dagger, make your blow or thrust at his head.
If he comes in with his left leg forwards, or with the right, do you strike at him as soon as it shall be within your reach, remembering to use continual motion in your progression and regression.
Although the dagger fight be thought a very dangerous fight by reason of the shortness and singleness of the weapons, yet the fight being handled as aforementioned is as fast, safe and defensive as any other. Thus endeth my brief instructions.
Street fighting and knives are not generally considered pleasant subjects. They seem to generate a certain distaste and scorn. Oddly enough, this scorn frequently occurs in the sort of people who extol the virtues of Jim Bowie and man-to-man shoot-outs in the Old West. The knife fights of Jim Bowie are the stuff of legends and the man-to-man shoot-outs of the Old West are questioned by many historians. No matter. Those things happened a long time ago.
Street fights with the knife still occur.
Hank’s experimental double-edged fighting knife, 13 inches overall length. HRC43
1Editor’s Note: this is where a page was missing from Hank’s manuscript; his introduction is merged into his first chapter. The transitional material, shown in brackets, was written by Whit Williams.
2
THE COLD EYE OF REALITY
Knife fighting has often been held to be somewhat glamorous, even heroic. Here’s your first, and one of the most important lessons in the science: Hogwash.
Standard folder, 7¾ inches overall length. HRC617
There has never been anything glamorous or heroic about it. It has always been a quick and dirty business and it always will be. When two men are facing each other with death as the very probable outcome, the only thing that counts is surviving. With that as the goal, most people choose to throw everything else out the window.
Here’s your second and even more important lesson about the science of knife fights: stay out of them. If you can run, run. If you can’t run, shoot. If you don’t have a gun and can’t run, well, maybe what follows will be of help.
Let’s start with one aspect of the knife fight that most, if not all the other books, have ignored: what happens afterward. Cutting and/or killing another human being is regarded in a rather serious light by our society. The courts take an especially dim view of knives and the use of them on other people. Punishment can be severe.
A friend of mine who is a cop told me about the first real cutting he ever saw (he doesn’t count minor stabbings). Some guy went berserk in a bar and started slicing up people. One of his victims was cut so badly there was some question as to whether he would live. The knife wielder was lucky, however, in that someone brained him with a chair before the cops, including my friend, arrived. Had he still been standing then, he would quickly have received a chestful of .357s. Some great luck. Now all he has to worry about is being in jail, under $30,000 bond, facing three to five in the state prison. I wonder if he feels what set him off is worth what he’s looking at now?
When I was about sixteen, I saw my first knife fight. I was, I admit, roaming a ghetto section of town where I had no real reason to be. I was just looking around, feeling tough and quite streetwise. A fight broke out and I crossed over to watch the action. This was great fun, then.
There were two guys in their early twenties. Both had knives out, but weren’t circling or moving at all. Then they both moved forward and started slicing. No fancy moves, no dodging, no parrying, just two crazy guys hacking away at each other. It lasted about a minute, although to me it seemed like half an hour. Then one stepped back and you could see blood spurting from his neck. He shook his head slightly, then fell. The other walked forward holding his stomach. Then he turned and collapsed on the ground and you could see his entrails on the pavement.
They had tied for second place.
I never realized that two men could hold so much blood. By the time the ambulance arrived, they were both dead. I wondered at the time what it was they fought about. I still wonder. Was it worth their lives? It had better have been because that’s what it cost them.
That was thirty years ago2 and things were a little different then. Two guys could get into a fight, one or both get cut and, when the cops came, no one knew who did it. If one of them got caught, he’d claim he was jumped by a total stranger. If they both got caught, they’d claim they were both jumped by two other strangers. No one wanted the police in their quarrels.
I remember one guy who did call the cops, however.
He was a redheaded guy who worked out at the gym with us. When he started, he was pretty skinny, but he gained some weight and got right husky. Then he stopped coming. He failed to show up for workouts and no one heard from him. Finally, one night he walked in. He looked like death warmed over. He’d lost about twenty-five pounds. His head, neck and back were crosshatched with scars. I thought he had been in a wreck and gone through a windshield, but the lines were awfully straight.
After repeated questioning, he finally told us the story.
Seems he had got into a fight with a neighbor and as they started to square off, the other guy flicked out his knife. Red backed off and then popped out his own knife.
Red said that his neighbor stopped, threw down his knife and said, “Nah. Red, we been friends for too many years. Let’s just have it out man to man. No knives.”
Red, being a gallant, if somewhat stupid, soul, agreed and threw down his knife, next to his neighbor’s.
I didn’t really need to ask what happened, but I did.
Red, looking somewhat embarrassed, said, “He reached down and picked up both of them.”
I managed not to laugh, and then Red told me he’d done something really bad to get even.
“When I woke up in the hospital, I told the po-lice who it
was that cut me, and even swore out one of them warrants. It may have been dirty, but he had no right to cut me with my own knife.”
I lost touch with Red and haven’t heard of him since. But I bet he owns a lot of land in Florida, and several bridges to boot.
I don’t mean to be flippant about Red or his neighbor, but how anyone could be so innocent and grow up in the same neighborhood I did is beyond me. Once those knives are out, it’s totally different from a high school fistfight. It is real and very, very serious. No games, no givebacks. It’s for every marble, all at once. If you have a choice, don’t play. It simply isn’t worth it. If you don’t have a choice, however, then play tough, hard, strong, and for keeps. Because it is for keeps.
But as I said, things have changed. Now you stand a very good chance of a long jail term. If I harp on that, bear with me. All too many people think once it’s over, it’s over. But it isn’t. Frequently, a ten-second knife fight kicks off twenty years of grief.
◊ ◊ ◊
Blood has never turned me on. I dislike it, mine or anyone else’s. But given a preference, I would rather see his blood than mine, and that has to be your feeling, also. Being tough, able to take pain, etc., is fine. But is it intelligent?
It might surprise you to know how many people are fearful of hurting someone else. This is well and good. Maybe it indicates these folks are a little higher up the evolutionary ladder than the rest of us. But in combat, whether it’s on the street or a battlefield, that attitude will sign your death warrant.
Quick and dirty. Ugly and brutal. It’s no game to take lightly. I admit I have known some who did and are now growing old peacefully, but I’ve known a far greater number who’re not growing old at all. Or else are doing it behind bars.
Once you get involved, you’re talking about the rest of your life. Just how lightly do you take the rest of your life?
Wound, downward cut across the body.
2Thirty at the time of writing, sixty years at the time of first publication.
3
THE STREET KNIFE
A lot of books have been written about fighting knives. They’ve discussed the Bowies,
A historic Bowie knife, 16 inches overall length.
From The Antique Bowie Knife Book, Norm Flayderman collection
the Fairbairn-Sykes,
Reproduction Fairbairn-Sykes, 11½ inches overall length. HRC612
the kukri—in short, the “glamour” knives. “Street” knives are usually dismissed in a short paragraph, if they’re mentioned at all. This always struck me as odd, since there have probably been more people killed or injured with these knives than any other.
Fighting knives can be broken down into two categories. The large sheath knives that are worn openly and the smaller concealed weapon types. It is not my purpose to deal with fighting knives in general in this book, but only with the smaller types. The larger knives have a method of use that is all their own. Techniques that work with a full-sized blade will not work with a small knife. There is obviously some overlap, and no expert can tell you exactly where the cutoff in size lies. But there is enough of a difference to warrant a separate study and explanation.
Street knives can be broken down into two categories: the folder
A typical folding pocket knife, 7¾ inches overall length. HRC616
and the small sheath knife.
A small concealable boot knife, 6¾ inches overall length. HRC32
Push daggers would fall into the latter category, although they are generally less versatile than any of the others.
Folders have always been the most prevalent and the reason is obvious. You might talk a judge or cop out of a concealed weapons charge if all you’re carrying is a pocket knife. It’s much harder to do that when you have a small dagger that is obviously intended only as a weapon. A folder is also cheaper and can be thrown away with much less of a financial loss.
The perennial favorite of the Hollywood Bad Guy is the switchblade. The movies were very successful in establishing this as the ultimate weapon of the juvenile delinquent. They were so successful, the things were banned and it’s damned near impossible to find one nowadays. Knifings still continued at the same old pace and that should tell people something.
In the movies, Bad Guys always opened their knives with a very loud and menacing click. Now, this “click” has always impressed a certain type of knife carrier. He might not have an idea what to do with a knife, and he almost always would be better off if he could open the thing without attracting attention. But no. He wants the knife to produce a very loud click when it opens. It’s the same type of mentality that judges a car by the way the door slams. The durn thing may not have much of a motor, but if the door closes with a solid thunk . . .
Ninety-nine percent of the switchblades I’ve seen were the edged-weapon version of the Saturday Night Special, not even worth the single buck they usually cost. Just cheap, poorly made pieces of junk. A few years after the end of the Second World War, some new switchblades appeared on the market. These were the Italian switchblade stilettos.
Italian switchblade stiletto.
They were well-made knives with good springs, good riveting, and decent steel blades. But they suffered from two faults. The blades were meant only for stabbing and had an edge too dull to be decently used for cutting. The second fault was that they were designed like many of the other switchblades with a button to open and a lock to keep the blade being pushed accidentally. That meant it opened too slowly. If you carried the knife with the lock on, you had to push it off before you pressed the button. By the time you did this, a fast man could thumb a manual folder open and cut you. The alternative was to carry your knife with the lock off and that was not wise, either.
I heard about one guy who was kissing a girl with a great deal of passion and she pressed against him. The knife sprang open in his pocket. So much for passion.
There was one switchblade available then that was quite excellent. It was a German knife sold in Army-Navy surplus stores. It didn’t work on a button, but rather a lever that was hinged on the front bolster.
German switchblade with lever.
By flipping the lever up and back quickly, you could cause the blade to spring out. The lever flipped back into position, locking the blade. It was made of good steel that would take a razor-sharp edge, and it had a strong spring. It wasn’t popular, possibly because it didn’t make much noise when it opened. I rather liked that, since I couldn’t imagine many situations where I wanted to advertise I was opening a knife. But I’ve never been on the cutting-edge of fashion. It was the only type of switchblade I ever owned and it cost me $2.95. I ran across one in about 1979 and the price was a cool $100.00. I passed it up.
Most of the people I knew in my younger days carried a plain pocket knife. Usually they carried a Case, Queen, Western, or Sabre. Lockbacks were prized, but very hard to find.
Hank’s Queen, 8½ inches overall length. HRC650
Lockbacks are knives where the blade locks into place once it is opened. The lock must be released before the blade can be closed. Usually this is done by pressing a spring on the back of the knife.
The fact that most knives did not lock led to a pretty good maneuver that was taught to me by a man who was at least sixty-five. I was seventeen. The move was simplicity itself: merely striking down with the open hand across the back of the blade held by your opponent. This caused the blade to close, cutting fingers when it was stopped by the hand. There was the simple and obvious counter of merely turning the knife so that the blade is edge up.
Striking down across the back of an opponent’s blade causes the blade to close, cutting fingers when stopped by the hand.
The obvious counter to the old man’s trick is to turn the knife blade edge up
The old man explained it to me and I just didn’t believe he could do it. I was considered pretty fast. I held a small stick and I knew what he was going to do and he did it anyway. I felt like a spastic
snail.
I’ve always had a lot of respect for old people because some of them didn’t get that way by being timid. Some of them are just plain dangerous!
OPENING THE FOLDER
There are four basic ways to open a folder and we’ll deal with each in turn.
Most knives have springs that allow them to be popped open with a quick flick of the wrist. The blade is gripped tightly between thumb and index finger, and the hand is then snapped downward and back. With a little practice, this can be done in the space of a few inches, barely moving the hand.
The folding knife can also be opened by reversing the grip and holding the handle rather than the blade. This is harder to do because the blade has less mass than the handle. This also requires faster hand and arm movement and more room.
Popping open a folder by holding the blade (above) and by holding the handle (below).
The most common method of opening a pocket knife was to thumb it.
Thumbing open a folder: start (left) to finish (right).
The knife is gripped by the thumb and middle finger with the pivot point of the knife (where the blade is hinged) pointing away. The little finger and the ring finger are on the sides of the knife handle. The thumb presses down and out, while the last two fingers pull back. This causes the blade to rotate forward into an open position. This operation can be sped up by snapping the wrist and imparting some momentum to the blade. This method involves a certain element of risk. If the thumb contacts the edge and moves along it, the result is a nasty cut. This is not only painful but it plays hell with the tough, macho image that should go along with the movement.
Hank Reinhardt's Book of Knives: A Practical and Illustrated Guide to Knife Fighting Page 2