Whirling Dervish

John Gonzalez Knifemaker Dervish Knives

Without a doubt John has a pronounced flair for Persian blades. It is obvious in the upswept tip of his Wendigo and in the Ishtar and Ishtar xl. I was very fortunate to purchase these as a pair from the original owner. None of these large knives are likely to replace my EDC knife because of their size, but boy are they a beauty to behold and to work with.

Is there any rhyme or reason to this Persian style of blade or is it just some ethnic design aberration? That depends largely on whether you are educated in the many ways of knife usage or you are only a collector/spectator. M.A.A. James Keating’s Spyderco, called the Chinook, is another example of this sweeping design Master Keating is not known as a ma to waste his time with superfluous blade shapes. If you have watched any of Keatings’ videos you will know that the sharply upturned tip is intended to be driven into your attacker by rolling your hand over, blade upside down, and snapping it into the target.

Hiking down to the dojo it didn’t take long discover that the shorter Ishtar would cleanly slice and dice pool noodles with its sweeping primary edge. In slashing attacks this knife performed exactly as I would have expected it to. Anything the short Ishtar will do, the XL version of the Ishtar will do, only with greater enthusiasm.

John advised me that they only made two of the XL’s. Rare or not, these knives are fighters and keepers! The radically curved blade tends to pull itself away from the target but there is ample length to get the job done. The first cut, and every following cut, produced nice thin noodle slices. Rolling my hand over into back snap cuts against a cardboard target demonstrated the tremendous penetration power of the wicked tip. Power slashes or back snap cuts delivered with this knife would be devastating! Despite its large size, the Ishtar is still fast in the hand and the bird’s head grip shape provides excellent weapon retention. This handle style and weight forward balance encourages a cutting action and feel similar to that of using a short machete. The faceted grips are visually exciting and very comfortable with all the bulges in the right places. Anything the short Ishtar will do, the XL version of the Ishtar will do, only with greater enthusiasm. John advised me that he only made two of the XL’s. Rare or not, these knives are natural born fighters and keepers!

A Fresh New Look

Hi All,

Gwynne refreshed the look of our blog and in the process our counter has re-started at 0. It was over 22,000 and I am amazed and pleased that so many of you are returning readers (in addition to a surprising number of new readers). Thanks to all of you for visiting our blog. I hope you will also check out our website as our business continues to grow a bit at a time. We have not pushed the store section but we do have some very nice fighting knives there if you have a minute to check. The "Rhythm of One" is at the printers having more copies made. They will be available in about a week to ten days. What sort of services or products would you like to see? What topics are you interested in? email me at ghdave2@hotmail.com

A Memorable, Chilling Book

My daughter and her boyfriend bought me a book for Christmas, which I have just finished reading. I am not going to preach or pontificate about politics or conspiracies, right wing or left wing. I am not going to encourage you to panic and buy more guns, more ammo, stockpile food. What I am going to “suggest” is that you read William Forstchen’s novel, “One Second After.” The rest I leave up to you. Draw your own conclusions, make your own decisions. I guarantee that, no matter what your politics, you will not be unaffected by this story.

Intellectual Integrity

This isn’t working is it! (Note this is a statement not a question.) One of my knife students and I were struggling with the filipino “rolling pattern” we had adapted for knife on knife. There was one section where the technique just did not work. Originally designed to teach machete techniques, when the moves were scaled down to fit a medium sized fighting knife there was a disconnect right in the middle of the flow drill. With some effort we finally figured out how to fix it. Keep in mind that the flow is only important to allow a student to learn smooth transitions. The purpose is not to create a dance.

I am not sure how many instructors will stop in the middle of teaching a technique and admit to a student that its not working, for that student. Intellectual honesty is not rampant in today’s martial arts. It is far easier to take the money and continue on teaching useless techniques just as if everything was copacetic . As I have said before everything works in the dojo. That is not good enough if your student is in a business where people’s lives depend upon his skills, skills he learned from you or I. Repeating a bad technique a thousand times does not make it a good technique, it just ingrains bad muscle memory. Stop lying to yourself and your students, if it does not work in the dojo it will not work on the streets! Fix it.

Rote memorization is only worthwhile if the techniques are worthwhile to begin with. There are several facets to learning a martial art from anyone. Here is my simple prescription.

1. learn to discriminate

2. perfect what works

3. practice it endlessly

4. modify/discard that which does not work

Regarding item number four, you must always practice intellectual honesty and not be afraid of change. One final precautionary note: change nothing that does not need changed, and do not become addicted to innovation for innovation’s sake, always seek simplicity in your moves.

Cuts Both Ways

Cuts Both Ways:

I was reading an article on concealed carry of firearms by Massad Ayoob when an interesting thought occurred to me. I quote Ayoob, “When the defender does not know when the attack will come, the only reasonable expectation of safety lies in being always armed.” Certainly this makes a lot of sense, at least to anyone not of a far left Liberal mentality. This mindset reinforces what we preach about carrying a knife that is easily accessed and that you are completely familiar with. But besides being “always armed,” something else came to mind. Again quoting Ayoob, “ Understand that criminals do not fear guns. They are, after all, an armed subculture themselves. What they fear is the resolutely armed man or woman who points that gun at them. Criminals are predators, and their stock in trade is their ability to read people and body language.”

Every knife or martial arts instructor will tell you that if you get into a knife fight expect to get cut. Based on Ayoob’s article, and a conversation I had with Shiva Ki, I believe that these predators also fear the person “resolutely armed” with a knife. If you get drawn into a knife fight they can expect to get cut as well. This puts a whole new face on the efficacy of knife defense. Remember the old adage of the samurai that says, in a duel you have only a one in three chance of surviving. It does not say surviving unscathed either. Consider the title of our new book, When Two Tigers Fight, one will be killed and the other maimed. I submit that there are not a lot of muggers or rapists who are willing to face those odds or take that chance.

Ayoob’s key word is resolutely! You must be unwavering in your willingness to defend yourself or as Ayoob says, “The person who is unwilling to do so will, in the moment of truth, communicate that vacillation to the hardened criminal.” Such a communication will be your undoing. One final thought, quoting General George A. Patton on the mentality of mortal combat, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” Make your attacker pay the full price for his indiscretion.

A Worthwhile Read

Over the past 40 years I have read every book I could find on knife fighting, the good and the bad. A lot of them were not worth my time and money. Once in a while you learn a trick or two that makes it marginally worthwhile. If you page back through my blogs you’ll hear mostly about the bad books.

“The Sting of the Scorpion,” written by the late Bob Kasper, is one of the bright exceptions! His information is delivered in a clear and forthright manner. There is a natural progression to the topics and Mr Kasper avoids interjecting a lot of personal prejudices. There is no gnashing of teeth or profiling like many of today’s genre’ of knife writers.

Apparently Mr Kasper was the real deal and walked the walk. His thoughtful and realistic approach to knife manipulation is manifested in the knives he designed and had produced by Al Polkowski and Rob Patton. Mr. Kasper’s analysis of the knife fighter’s mindset is excellent. His description of footwork is very good. The only shortcoming in the book is a lack of illustrations or photos to support the text. I realize this would have probably doubled the book in size and cost. All of the basics are well covered and some more advanced techniques are also provided. I do not think that you will find a better book for the price, or maybe twice the price.

The book may be purchased for approximately $15.00 online, through Ebay, or from Paladin Press, the publisher. http://www.paladin-press.com/category/s

Trading Destinies:

Corpulent, petulant, puffy cheeked and pig-eyed. You’ve seen them wandering the shopping malls grazing in small herds, shuffling along duck-footed with pants down around their crotches. The males of the species converse in snorts and grunts of a half language half nightmare of what language used to be. After the tragedy of 9-11 I made a personal vow to recognize the sacredness of all life including these replicants of humanity. I cannot do it! I admit that I am too weak and too small spirited. Let me explain.

Headed back to the motel one day after work I saw the furry body of a gray squirrel lying dead in the road. It caused me to question what divine purpose was served by the death of this small creature. Like myself, it was simply searching for food along this remote stretch of Texas highway. A few hundred yards later I swung into a local “Whataburger” and ordered a chicken sandwich. Across from me sat one of these Mall creatures. He was a fine specimen too, with pudgy knees and fat, pink, hairless legs protruding from his baggy shorts. Seated there with his un-tucked shirt tails hanging down, belly fat-roll protruding out, I could only imagine how proud some parent must be. He was chatting up a couple of young girls, entertaining them with his blinding intellect, while simultaneously stuffing three french fries into his mouth and talking very loudly on his cell phone.

Then I thought back to the finely shaped, compact body of the dead squirrel, graceful and neatly formed. Comparing the Mall rodent seated across from me, and the squirrel lying flattened in the road, I couldn’t help but wonder, God forgive me, but if there is to be a New World Order, wouldn’t that world be a better place if a change of destinies could somehow be arranged?

Coming up next is a review of one of the best knife fighting books I have read in a long time and a review of a new training knife.

Coming Soon?

Tired of punching holes in paper?

Keep checking back for our next class offering and learn how to use that pistol to defend your life.

AGOGE Training

Basic Defensive Pistol Course

Well my daughter Gwynne (the head of White Shadow Security), and her boyfriend Michael Barker (founder of AGOGE Training), hosted their first pistol training class right here in our hometown. Unfortunately the weather was really shitty. We had two days of rain and freezing rain leading up to the class and the morning of, the weather broke cold, foggy, and icy. We started class at 8:30 with a review of grips, stances, safety, etc. since everyone there was reasonably experienced we went out for the range portion pretty quick.

The range conditions were still in the 30s and foggy as hell. The ground was slick with ice and puddles of water everywhere. First off we practiced the proper draw and presentation of the firearm using dry-firing. I found this especially educational despite having shot pistols for over 40 years. For me, their method of drawing and acquiring the sights was a new way of running a gun. Once learned it makes for a quicker and more solid delivery of the weapon to the target. The rationale is that the quicker you get the pistol out of the holster, the more time you have to get the sights aligned and squeeze off the shot. Thus speed and accuracy both improve. All training was performed from a concealed carry.

Personally I went from barely shooting on the paper at low left, to fairly reliable head-shots and center of mass hits by the end of the day. In addition I was in better overall control of the pistol and recoil. Jason (tall guy in the photo with Michael instructing) was shooting two well aimed shots from the draw in about 2 seconds by the day’s end. His progress was very impressive! My basic skills still needed more work so rather than shooting against the clock I worked on smoothing out what I had learned with coaching from Gwynne. My Kimber 45 ACP ran fine all day despite using, what turned out to be, dirty shooting ammo from Lawman. Everyone else was shooting 9mm Glocks. I tried Gwynne's Glock and just don't even like the way it feels in my hand. We did walking and shooting, trotting and shooting, turning and shooting, multiple targets, hostage targets, moving targets on a cable, etc. It was a full 6 hours of shooting time and about 250 rounds down range for each of us. We shot from traditional prone and fetal positions in the mud and water, kneeling and of course off-hand. Most of the shooting was from 12-17 yards.

It was a terrific class despite the cold and damp. All of us had wet bottoms from the prone shooting and were pretty grimy from all of the mud and gunpowder residue. Every one of us came away satisfied that we were drawing and shooting better than we ever had before, with improved accuracy and speed. Kudos to Gwynne and Mike for all of the experience they shared with us. If you want to know more about AGOGE Training or White Shadow Security email me at ghdave2@hotmail.com