Grayman Stabber

“And now for something completely different,” as the Monty Python skit goes. Yes part of my degeneracy I blame squarely on the crew of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. But on a more serious note, this blog is truly about something different, a knife called the “Monkton Church Key.”

A few blogs back I said I was in line to get one of these distinctive push daggers from Mike of Grayman Knives. (Page back a few blogs for my review of his 8” Kordofan knife.) This stout stabber is made from ¼ inch thick steel and micarta®. That’s it, nothing especially exotic except the design. It came neatly tucked into one of Grayman’s plastic-lined nylon sheaths. The Molle compatible sheath fairly swallows up this nasty bit of self-defence knife and it would take up very little room on your pack or rucksack. With this novel design you have the option of a choked up grip or an extended grip. Grasping it by the very end you are provided with a substantial cross guard. The beauty of a push dagger design is that you never have to worry about your hand sliding onto the blade. With the Grayman design you never have to worry about your attacker’s knife sliding up your blade and smashing into the fingers of your knife hand. If you want a fuller, firmer grip, then you can choke up on the handle and wrap your fingers around the forward guard.

The black coated blade is symmetrically double ground in a chisel profile. Yes the back of the blade is perfectly flat. This does not reduce the penetrating power in any way. The one unique thing about a push dagger (that few people talk about) is the havoc it can inflict by stabbing in, twisting it like a door knob, and withdrawing it. The average knife handle does not give you the leverage to do this. For those of you who regularly practice “comma cuts” you will immediately see the advantage to this handle configuration. It is like turning a key in a lock. Mike says the name came from the habit of British Intelligence people training at Fort Monkton carrying “church keys” as a backup, last ditch, weapon. (It would also prove handy today to open your Boddington, or Guinness beer.) Most people today would not recognize church key as referring to a bottle opener. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see that if you grind the end off of one of these bottle openers a covert weapon reveals itself.

Like all Grayman Knives this bit of steel appears to be indestructible and deadly efficient. The price is well within the reach of even the greenest recruit. If you want a sturdy backup weapon you couldn’t do any better than to pick up one of these church keys. Now all I have to do is figure out where to add mine to my Eberlestock™ pack. Thanks Mike. (Please excuse my poor photos.) By the way, this is a stabber, do not expect it to have a fine edge for slicing. A double-edged blade this thick by nature cannot be sharpened to a high degree.
http://www.graymanknives.com/

Coming soon! A review of a rare handmade reproduction of William E. Fairbairn’s last known fighting knife, the Cobra.

Sheng Tung, Chi Hsi

"Sheng Tung, Chi Hsi:" Uproar in the East Strike in the West.
Sun Tzu

Old Sun Tzu knew a thing or two about strategy. His “The Art of War” is one of the most read texts on combat strategy and like Musashi’s famous “Book of Five Rings” has been widely used for many applications, from one-on-one combat, to corporate sales strategy.

This particular saying, "Sheng Tung, Chi Hsi", popped up while I was reading the late Che Guevarra’s manual on Guerilla warfare. Now Che’ is quite popular with today’s youth, many of whom have no real idea who he was. He does make for great T-shirt graphics. But I come not to praise Che’, but to bury him. Well not exactly that either.

Che’ (and Sun Tzu) recognized the value of deception, the art of the feint, and that is what I really want to talk about. When you are outgunned, literally or figuratively, you may find a little deception extremely valuable. A small sleight of hand can gain you vital time or distance. Misdirection and distraction are also tools of the professional fighter. When you are practicing a kata or you are doing some sparring see how you can take advantage of these tools. Where are the logical points that you can break the pattern or disrupt the form or flow to create an opening for your true attack? Mao Tse Tung in his manifesto on Guerilla war said that the three ingredients to successfully fighting an asymmetrical war were: time, space, and will. All of these men knew the art of fighting “small” wars required the creative use of deception to gain time or space.

For a more concrete example in knife work, thrust right then cut left. Begin an assault with a large movement and stop. Just stop! Then continue onward in the same direction or a different direction at a different speed. Change your timing and break the rhythm. Cut high then drop to a low squat and thrust. Attack straight in and rotate around your opponent’s block. There are hundreds of ways to employ deception and you should explore as many as possible. Look one way cut another. The only restriction is they must work at least ONCE. They may not work a second time because your opponent/training partner will be ready for them. Abide by Musashi’s sage advice and never try the same technique three times. When finished our new book, “When Two Tigers Fight,” will talk in depth about the art of deception and sleight of hand. In the mean time get creative but do not make a game of it. Keep an eye to the reality of mortal combat. Take a bit of advice and be wary of the opponent who is not moved by your initial feints, he may be more skilled than you have reckoned.

Crying Fraud!

A quick thought for the day. I see everyone in the Government is up in arms about the fraud at Goldman Sachs. The Feds are waggling a sanctimonious scolding finger at Wall street. I have paid Social Scurity Taxes for 46 years. Can anyone in Washington tell me where my money has gone???

Unhinged

I don’t know what would posses me to spend three or four hours cleaning a set of hinges. Maybe I was unhinged. In the process of remodeling our kitchen I decided to redo the back door. It had suffered a lot of drying from the southern sun and needed a new coat of varnish. As I was driving out the bent hinge pins I couldn’t help but notice the accumulation of dozens of layers of paint. Paint was so built up that it had literally dripped off the ends to form stalactite like lumps. I decided to remove the paint and in the process I discovered something beautiful under all of the ugliness and abuse.
Hidden under layers of casually, sloppily applied paint, hidden layer by layer was an intricate design. The hinges are cast iron, not a fancy material but one which served the manufacturers and consumers of this nation well for many years. Sturdy products like stoves, cook ware, furnaces, engine blocks, etc were cast in simple iron. It is not surprising that a simple structure like our house, built in the 1840s, would have cast iron hinges. Who would have thought that those pieces of hardware, with no other function than to hold up a door, would have any embellishment? (The importance of a door and its function of protecting one from bad weather and intruders will have more relevance later in this posting.) Successive generations ignored the beauty, abused the outmoded cast iron, and caught up in newer materials, too busy to care, simply painted over the design.
As I sat there on my back stoop picking out pieces of paint with a box knife, periodically soaking the hinges in paint stripper, I had plenty of time to think about things. For example, what sort of person would choose expediency over beauty? Who was so busy they couldn’t take the time to wipe off the paint? What was lost in their haste?
There is something else on a grander scale that came to me while sitting and picking on my back stoop. Our basic foundation, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights were once simple and beautiful in their essential design. The people of this nation were supported and protected by them, and although fairly simple, these documents were embellished with loving care by the founders of this nation. Successive generations have overlaid that simple beauty with ugly layers of obfuscation, distorting the original clarity and purity of design. Each generation of lawyers and politicians, hundreds of special interest groups, have layered it with their ugliness. Ugliness, and by extension distortion, are found in the strangest places. I was just looking at a website last night for the SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center. What does that, SPLC, mean? Take a minute and go there. Look at their seven pages of “Patriots.” This is a list of people they derisively call patriots but whom they describe as anti-government, anarchists, terrorists, etc. Who is covering up what with white paint? Some of the people on this list may be marginal and misdirected but all of them believe in the fundamental nature of the Consitution. That belief does not give the SPLC the right to equate the word Patriot with Terrorist. The majority of the people on the list were also my age. Maybe we are the last generation to remember the beauty of cast iron. Which hinge do you prefer, and is it worth your time to remove the layers of ugliness? You have to decide for yourself.

Fake Cobras on Ebay

Fake Cobras

Just a short note to let you know there are unauthorized Russian copies of our Cobra on Ebay. The saying goes "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Well if you want a real Cobra for a few hundred dollars less, just contact us at ghdave2@hotmail.com .

Here is a photo of the Fake!

Like Riding Bicycles

I wrote this about a year ago but I never posted it.

The other night at sword class one of my students performed his Iai (sword) kata while I critically observed. He is preparing to test at his karate school for san-Dan (3rd degree blackbelt). As part of that testing he is going to demonstrate his proficiency with the katana. He has been practicing hard and he wanted to be sure he was ready. I was impressed with his improvement over the last few months. His confidence was evident in his focus and precision. His cuts were now straight and more powerful.

When He finished I told him how pleased I was with his progress. “Now what?” He asked me. I replied, “You continue to practice.” Although he didn’t like it he already knew what my answer would be. The martial arts are not like riding a bike. If you stop practicing them for even one week you lose a month’s progress. Stop for a month and you lose 6 month’s work. Stop for six months and you will probably never go back to training. Martial arts training is a lot like practicing your faith, once you give it up there is little hope of recovering it. Trust me on this one.

Once he made San-dan his life got complicated by other things and he stopped coming to class. So I never posted this. As far as I know he has quit practicing Iaido, or maybe he's teaching it now. I guess some people master things quicker and tire of them quicker than I do. Speaking of that, forgive me Koicihi Sensei, after 14 years I am still trying to get Muko o no Katana, the first Yagyu sword kata, right. The photo is from the Bugei Trading Company website. Its the tsuba on my latest purchase from them. Go to their website and check out the "Peace Sword." I am not repsonsible for any money you spend there. http://www.bugei.com/

Dale Larson Knives:

If I keep saying this it is going to lose its impact, but “this is the sharpest knife I ever held.” If you remember the small Matt Lamey Bowie held this title only a few months ago (A New Definition of Sharp.) Now along comes this knife by Dale Larson and it at least equals, if not surpasses, the Lamey knife. I previously bought one other of Dale’s knives off Ebay and was impressed with its simplicity and the quality too. When I saw this one I decided to put in a bid on it. Most of the Larson knives I had seen before were smaller 5-6 inch hunters. Just to look at this knife you would think it was much bigger than a seven inch blade. I tend to consider any knife with a blade anything under 9 inches not quite a full-fledged Bowie. This sweetly upswept, heavily recurved blade is forged from 5160 steel and is about ¼ inch thick through the tang. The long false edge is partially sharpened. The finish on the blade is hand-polished to what looks like a 600 grit and it is one of the best finishes I have ever seen on a knife blade.

Dale also has a superb sense of handle ergonomics that many knife makers could take lessons from. This knife is no exception! The smallish handle fits my hand perfectly giving excellent retention and just encouraging me to swing the knife in broad slashing moves. Yes I know it will not be any good in reverse grip. So what?

So anyways, getting back to sharp. A good sharp blade will perform a clean draw-cut on the edge of a piece of copier paper. This one will cleanly cut off a slice just by virtue of its own weight and the force of gravity! What I am saying is that holding a piece of paper on end and holding the knife lightly by thumb and forefinger, the blade actually slid downwards, through the paper. This is phenomenal cutting power! Pool noodle targets offered no resistance either. Will it cut through ¼ inch steel bolts or stab through the hood of a 1936 Desoto? I don’t know and I don’t care. This knife has all the appearances of a Spanish/Mexican Bowie with one very big difference. Unlike most of those poorly tempered tourist pieces this knife will really cut. Watch for Dale Larson’s work on Ebay or contact him direct. You won’t get a lot of flash for your money but you will get a superbly shaped and finished knife that just happens to have the sharpest edge you’ll probably ever hold. Outstanding work Dale!

http://larsonforgeandfinish.com/index.html

Wishing you a Holy and Happy Easter.

Pray for our nation and our future, and a return to our core beliefs and mores.

"Go For It"

OK I know I said I would forget about politics but I am offended by a president who continues to campaign instead of lead. How long before he realizes he is not cheerleading a basketball game. When he says "go for it", who is using inflammatory rhetoric? Who is he challenging and why?

On the bright side I finally found something I could agree with Mr. and Mrs. Obama about. I am ashamed of our country, especially the way things are being done today. I am disgusted with politicians who openly admit they don’t give a damn about the US Constitution and raise the politics of corruption to a new high.

I am ashamed of an executive and legislative branches who say that if things don’t go their way they will just bypass the constitution and do whatever it takes to accomplish their goals, even against the expressed desires of the majority of the American people. I am ashamed of a president who apologizes for Americans and chums around with Chavez and other Socialist dictators while insulting our old allies. There is an abundance of regulations, mandates, and oversights in this power grabbing administration, but what really bugs me is their arrogance, contempt, and outright deception. I am insulted by a president who looks on the average American as an opponent and ridicules them saying.

"After I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling, some cracks opening up in the earth," Obama said, adding it turned out to be a nice day and "birds were chirping, folks were strolling down the mall."
Obama on Health Care reform

When this nation was founded the new Americans revelled in their new found freedom and wanted to do whatever it took to make them and their new nation stronger. Their descendants enjoyed the fruits of this hard-earned liberty and asked, “What can we do to make ourselves and our country better?” Then came a generation of self-centered spoiled brats that asked, “What can I do to make myself happier?” And now we have degenerated to a Socialist society who asks Mr. Big Government, “What can you do to make me feel safer? And Mr. Big Government looks around and asks how can I make us more like socialist europe?