“WHERE THE POINTY END STICKS OUT.“
There is some, to, too-much time spent in the military, martial arts and combatives world debating, discussing even arguing about which grip is superior and how you must ignore one and must pick the other. I have written satirically before about the “Knife Whisper,” someone who slides up to you and whispers, “My uncle knows a guy who knew a guy in the ______ (fill in the blank…Marines, Mafia, FMA) …and told me that the ______ grip is the real-deal, and if you see a guy with this grip, he REALLY knows the knife and you’d better run.” (Of course, seeing either grip-you might think about escape.)
In my long running (31 years now) traveling the world and teaching knife material I NEVER tell anyone what grip is superior. I want you to train and know both grips through my modules. You decide because both can work. Situationally. I even hate to reveal my favorites because I don’t want to sway you in your free decision. And I even wish that my certified instructors have this free unbiased premise, so we-they endorse “freedom of choice” down the line.
I do have some standards though. Please use ALL your fingers to hold the knife handle and not these, what I’ve called “Cancer Grips,” where one or two fingers are pointing outward,and worst of all when the thumb is up off the grip. Jeez, people! It’s just so unreal and so dufus. Oh, and learn and do things to stay out of jail which is difficult in the legal knife universe. Try though. Drop all the macho shit and help stay out of jail.
At higher levels in time and grade, Ernesto Presas would teach grip switching, it can be done and can be trained – with the intensity of like…like passing the baton in an Olympic relay race. Why switch? Well, some like saber while standing and reverse grip when grounded. Up to you, but such switches can and do exist.
I did a little knife work in Parker Kenpo in the early 1970s and there were some sessions in the Army, but I started serious training with the knife in 1980s with Paul Vunak, then the Inosanto family. Paul said, “In a jam, you never really know how you will “snatch” up a knife, so you’d better know both grips.
