Experts:
I have become addicted to You-Tube and the wide variety of news, documentaries and other forms of education it offers. I have also found a fair share of videos that are less commendable. Some of them have to do with an unhealthy fascination of some posters with wartime atrocities and horrific torture stories especially of women. Whether these are true or not I am appalled that You-Tube permits them. I have to admit that I rush past those videos and refuse to open them, even if only for the opportunity to give them a thumbs down. I don’t want to be counted as visiting them at all.
The other videos I find somewhere between laughable and lamentable are the many “unboxing” of knives. They treat this as some mystical, magical moment. Almost a religious experience like unveiling the holy grail. I also cringe at the knife reviews posted by people ignorant of knife usage and verbiage. I am waiting for the video of some one of these idiots cutting off one of his own fingers while doing trick moves or knife spins. There is one of a man slicing the top of his head open with a Smatchet while clearing brush. Then there are the hundreds of people who feel they are morally obligated to do a video on the dreaded Bowie “Back cut.” You would think that any other use of a Bowie knife was somehow a sign of the unenlightened knife fighter. The back cut is certainly a very effective move, but not the only one in the repertoire of Bowie knife fighting. But now if I get into a knife duel I can expect to encounter my opponent performing a back cut and therefore be prepared to counter it. Oh yes, it can be countered, like any other angle of attack. Once you expose your “trick move”, it is no longer “trick”.
I wonder if Jim Bowie ever used the back cut? Certainly the late Bill Bagwell and James Keating made it famous. Both men deadly proponents of the Bowie knife. Not every Bowie knife is well adapted to performing the back cut or thrust. Its success all depends on the shape of the tip of the blade and to a large extent, the user’s flexibility and reflexes. In addition the fencer must set-up his attacker so that the attack comes at the right height, time and angle. Most of the posters do not go into this baiting, or invitation as it is called. Perhaps they are not aware of it as the key to applying the back cut.
Just remember, every move has a counter, and there is a counter to the counter, if you seriously practice your art. In reality it is not a give and take, a back and forth. Remember also, what my instructor once told me. Everything works everytime in the dojo. Winning is giving a target and taking the victory. And now I have told you my trick.
I have become addicted to You-Tube and the wide variety of news, documentaries and other forms of education it offers. I have also found a fair share of videos that are less commendable. Some of them have to do with an unhealthy fascination of some posters with wartime atrocities and horrific torture stories especially of women. Whether these are true or not I am appalled that You-Tube permits them. I have to admit that I rush past those videos and refuse to open them, even if only for the opportunity to give them a thumbs down. I don’t want to be counted as visiting them at all.
The other videos I find somewhere between laughable and lamentable are the many “unboxing” of knives. They treat this as some mystical, magical moment. Almost a religious experience like unveiling the holy grail. I also cringe at the knife reviews posted by people ignorant of knife usage and verbiage. I am waiting for the video of some one of these idiots cutting off one of his own fingers while doing trick moves or knife spins. There is one of a man slicing the top of his head open with a Smatchet while clearing brush. Then there are the hundreds of people who feel they are morally obligated to do a video on the dreaded Bowie “Back cut.” You would think that any other use of a Bowie knife was somehow a sign of the unenlightened knife fighter. The back cut is certainly a very effective move, but not the only one in the repertoire of Bowie knife fighting. But now if I get into a knife duel I can expect to encounter my opponent performing a back cut and therefore be prepared to counter it. Oh yes, it can be countered, like any other angle of attack. Once you expose your “trick move”, it is no longer “trick”.
I wonder if Jim Bowie ever used the back cut? Certainly the late Bill Bagwell and James Keating made it famous. Both men deadly proponents of the Bowie knife. Not every Bowie knife is well adapted to performing the back cut or thrust. Its success all depends on the shape of the tip of the blade and to a large extent, the user’s flexibility and reflexes. In addition the fencer must set-up his attacker so that the attack comes at the right height, time and angle. Most of the posters do not go into this baiting, or invitation as it is called. Perhaps they are not aware of it as the key to applying the back cut.
Just remember, every move has a counter, and there is a counter to the counter, if you seriously practice your art. In reality it is not a give and take, a back and forth. Remember also, what my instructor once told me. Everything works everytime in the dojo. Winning is giving a target and taking the victory. And now I have told you my trick.
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