A parenthetical moment...

I recently was hit up on the Facebook by someone I don't know, asking me about knife throwing lessons - particularly where she could take them. I was recommended to her by an old friend. Cool. But...

It may seem odd, but I really have no idea where toget knife throwing lessons. What knife throwing skills I have are purely self taught "game" skills. Why? Because throwing a knife is a showy thing, rather than a practical application in a combative moment. Even if I have several throwers on my person, chucking one at a moving target in a hostile situation is about as good as handing an opponent another weapon to use against me.

The chances of scoring a hit that would actually stop an attacker are virtually zero. We'd be talking about a throw that plants a knife into the attacker's chest, either penetrating the ribcage(which is hard enough when you're holding the knife) causing serious damage to the heart, or somehow delivering a powerhouse throw into the solar plexus to drop them. I don't know anyone with the strength to deliver a few ounces of metal with sufficient force to cause a target to drop from it.

Of course, I could throw the knife at the head or neck of the attacker, but again we're talking about years of practice to hit a moving target the size of the human eye. The skull is thick. Tough. The neck less so, but... extremely hard to hit.

Missing these tiny targets by an inch means I may have a wounded attacker, sure, but still an attacker capable of directing purposeful action against me. Except now they're angrier and now have my knife. If I totally missed, well that's one less weapon I have to use now.

In the pretend world of movies and comics, knife throwing is a showy, bad ass way to cooly take out your opponent. In the real world, it's a giant waste of time. Unless like darts, it's a game - wicked fun, but still tricky and dangerous since throwing knives that don't strike on point tend to bounce off the target in really unpredictable ways.

In the pretend world of stage combat, I just can't see a way to throw a "knife" at an actor that is reliably safe, unless both the thrower and "target" actors are both very experienced throwers and stunt people and the blade is little more than an unsharpened piece of lightweight material incapable of causing serious harm.

As far game or sport knife throwing for the casual learner (because, yes there are people who've practiced for years and years and could probably successfully go hunting with a set of throwers) the only advice I have is that throwing a knife is not in fact, "all in the wrist" but rather more in the shoulder. Flick your wrist and you could end up over rotating the point and strike the target with the unsharpened sides or grip. Practice, practice practice. Outside. From 20-25 feet away.

Me, I'll focus on dodging the slow moving projectile and then locking or cutting my opponent into submission.