February 27, 2018 • 42 mins
Sure knives can cut through a steak or slash through jungle vines, but probably the coolest thing you can do with a knife is throw it. At a person mounted to a wooden wheel. Spinning around. While you’re blindfolded. Learn all about the impalement arts in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Colorado, the States so nice. We're playing there twice,
two days in a row. Chuck, we added a second
show to our Gothic Theater tour. That's right, we're gonna
be there June seventh and June now sold out, but
one of those weird cases where you go see the
first show you were actually late buying tickets. Right. We're
(00:21):
also going to be in Boston April four, d c
April five. We're gonna be in St. Louis on May
and Cleveland one, and then of course we're gonna wrap
this summer up on June at the Gothic Theater in Colorado.
So go to s y s K live dot com
for all of your information and ticket needs. Welcome to
(00:43):
Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles Chuck,
and there's all Right the sparres. Some explanation. So I
(01:06):
was doing my Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle of Impression,
which one is Stevie. He was the kid in the
wheelchair who was like breathed like that, who talked like
that because he he had serious asthma. Yeah, remember him
was he just like a classmate. Yeah, he was like
his best friend. I believe I remember I like I
like that show. Well that's not what I was doing. Really. No,
(01:28):
we're slightly out of breath because we just had a
fire alarm. Yeah, we had to walk down four stairs,
four flights of stairs, and not like this, the one,
the kind of flight where it's like down, landing down again,
two flights. Yeah, so we walked down eight flights of
stairs and then walked back eight more. Right when we
got down, stopped and immediately turned around to go back in.
(01:51):
It was ridiculous. It was the kind of thing that
makes you say, maybe I won'ly next time it was
a fire alarm. I was prepared to hide in the
studio and keep working. Yeah, we thought about it, but
there's a fire marshal who works here, so you can't
can't run a foul him. Man, he got on that
orange vest quick changes everything. So I ever heard of
(02:11):
those guys that sneak into places with those vests? Yes,
I have, I don't is there a name for what
I think these? I'm sure more than one person has
done this, But there's these two guys in particular who
uh kind of got I don't know about famous, but
made a name for themselves for putting on the orange
(02:32):
vests and saying basically like, if you wear one of these,
you can get in anywhere you want them. If you
have orange vest on, you look like you're supposed to
be there. Well, yeah, you gotta have that steely sense
of nerve and alwakie talkie is probably a good thing
to have to But they can go anywhere because the
orange vest guy. That means that's something's wrong in the
orange vest guy has to take care of it. Like
(02:55):
they showed pictures in the in front of a I
can't remember what show it was, but a big, big
concert where they were in that buffer area between the
people in the stage, right, yeah, and fred Durst is like, oh,
there's an orange guest, the best guy. Something must be
going on. What year was that, This would have been
(03:16):
two thousand two, maybe the fred Durst years, Great Years,
the Wonder years. Right. Well, man, I'm hot now too,
I'm I feel good. I got like that, got the
endorphins fall and this is gonna be a cool episode, buddy. Well,
the irony is I so grossly out of shape. I
(03:37):
started getting on the peloton Yeah, last week. So I've
been and this is not a plug for pellets, I
guess it is, but a little bit. It's not an ad,
but I've been getting on that thing. So my legs
are ham rubber rubber band hams right now. Anyway, Yeah, hey, y'all,
prepare yourself for the rubber band ham that's hey, will
(04:01):
you indulge me for one moment? Oh man, I've been
waiting for you to ask me that for a long time. Alright,
So I've got the old side gig going with Movie Crush,
my podcast where every Friday I sit down with someone
awesome and talk about their favorite movie and kill it.
Thank you. But I have now added a second weekly
(04:22):
episode that publishes on Monday called Mini Crushes, and that's
where I just sit in here with producer Noel. He's
sort of the omniscient voice of God, uh and he
sort of chimes in and I source a lot of
questions from Facebook to the Movie Crush Facebook page. Um
listener mails that the recommendations, it's just a really interactive
(04:43):
fan based experience. So I want to plug the mini
Crushes and let everyone know that yesterday I dropped a
very special mini Crush, which was The Chuck and it's
Emily's podcast debut. Oh congratulations, man, that's it's called The
Chuck and Emily drink wine, uh and talk about the
(05:05):
Oscar nominations. Oh yes, nice. Yeah, So we recorded this
thing at home. We put the kid to bed and
broke out some nice wine and did our pre Oscar
round up. So that dropped yesterday, and then next Monday,
the day after the Oscars, we're going to have our
post Oscar round up where we talked about who won
(05:25):
and what the speeches were like and who wore it best.
That's awesome, man, Emily is going to be a star. Chuck. Yeah,
she was actually pretty great. And if you want a
little peek behind the Merritle curtain, uh, this is this
is your chance. So yeah, if you could check out
movie Crush on Apple Podcasts or where we get your podcasts.
Nice man, do you feel indulged? Very much? Good? All right,
(05:49):
let's talk about knife throwing. So I'm a little psyched
about this because knife throwing taps into my ninja training
that I did under Tommy Roper, as I'm sure I've
mentioned before, uh reading about this researching it, I never
threw knives. We never made it that far in Maybe
now I'll be I'll be hang gliding throwing knives at
(06:12):
the same time, going to get into both at once.
But I did a little throwing star stuff. Throwing star
is like the dummies, uh, knife throwing because that always sticks, right, Yeah,
I mean, depending on how many spikes you got coming
off of it, and um, and and whether the tree
(06:32):
is actually like a metal pole or not, you're probably
gonna stick a throwing star. Throwing a knife is an
entirely different endeavor, and it's something that anybody can do that.
Nicholas Jerbis were Gurbs never met him yet. Um. He
points out this is actually kind of like a low
hanging hobby that you could. You can get a set
(06:54):
of knives for ten fifteen bucks apiece. You probably one
about five is well will explain why, um, maybe six.
And then you just practice, give yourself a good block
of wood and practice and anybody can do this. It's
not like you're born to throw knives. You practice and
if you like it, you keep going. You just get
better and better at it, and you can impress your
(07:15):
friends and neighbors. Yes, and here's the point in the
show where we issue our c o A. Kids, if
you're out there, do not go get a steake knife
from your drawer and start throwing it at your dog.
That is not a throwing knife. And never throw anything
at your dog, kids. I will come find you. Yeah,
never throw anything at anybody that's sharp. But Um throwing
(07:38):
knives are built to throw. They're weighted and balanced to throw.
They're not like regular old knives. And we'll get into
all that. But just if you really want to try
throwing knives, go ask mom and dad or Tommy Roper
and get ready, get ready for a no and then
and then play them this podcast where it is an
(08:00):
actual um circus art. And please, for the love of God,
tell me this is the last one. I don't think
of the circus arts. No, it's not. What else is, sir?
There's a bunch we've done. The Globe of Death. Yeah,
flame swallowing, lion taming, swords swallowing, sword swallowing. We did
circus families, just straight up circus families. Human cannonball just
(08:24):
got to be it. I don't think so, man. I
think it's going to keep going in cloud clowns. Clowns
for sure, yeah, Um, they don't don't want to p
T Barnum though, No, you mean Hugh Jackman. What is it,
Chuck Stradamus, I don't know, something like that make one
lucky casting call, predict one sexual predator and one bad
(08:48):
Lifetime movie? Or what what was shark Nato sci fi
sci fi movie? Three little things? That's all. That doesn't
make me nuxtra Domans haven't won the lottery yet. I
think of all the things I've said that didn't come
true right way more. Yeah, I guess that's true. You know, yeah,
whenever writes in and so, well that didn't happen, right,
you really got that? Actually, they do right in to
(09:09):
tell us we've got stuff wrong a lot. So we're
gonna take this seriously because we want you ten year
olds out there who want to get your parents to
let you do this, to to see that you're taking
this seriously by listening to this podcast. First. Okay, that's right.
So what we're talking about specifically is known as, uh
somewhat ironically as an impalement act um, which is really
(09:33):
weird thing to call it. It's well, it's um, yeah,
it really is. I think it's a little tongue in cheek,
you think, because the point is tyn to not write.
The point is to not impale somebody with this kind
of thing, right, And and impalement acts are an umbrella
term that cover not just knife throwing, but bull whip cracking, oh, shoot,
(09:54):
sharp shooting, archery, William tell kind of thing. All of
those fall under the the umbrella term of impalement X.
Jerry's undressing over there to our left. She got very
hot in the fire drop Um. All right, so this
goes back if we can get back in the way
back machine, all the way back to the late nineteenth century,
(10:15):
we gotta go back here further than that. Are you
gonna go like to ancient times? No, No, We'll still
will just go with the nineteenth century, because I'm sure
Chinese people in ancient times through stuff that's stuck in walls. Well,
I looked at I looked up the oldest knife and
every apparently they did. Apparently they found the oldest knife
(10:40):
five thousand years ago. Oh, the oldest knife knife. So
we've been using knives longer than there have been modern humans. Yeah,
for sure. And then we at some point, probably about
four hundred and ninety nine thousand years ago we started
throwing knives. It's stabbing is okay, but throwing a knife
(11:00):
is when you really can come to appreciate what a
knife does. Okay. Man, there was nothing better in it,
like an eighties movie than when like James Bond through
a knife and I got a guy or American ninja.
That's what I was trained on. Yeah. Um, alright, so
wild uh wild West shows. Buffalo Bill and his Wild
(11:20):
West Shows travel throughout the United States, throughout Europe. Um,
knife throwing became a big spectacle at things like this,
as well as obviously sharp shooting and probably archery. They
probably did all the impalement arts. So they definitely did
um and they really brought it to the world. Um,
to the to the point where you can just basically
say that's where it started, was Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Yeah.
(11:42):
And this is one of those things where, through a
modern lens, it is incredibly misogynistic to think about the
fact that you say, hey, let me take a scantily
clad woman, a target girl. Yeah that's what they call him,
a target girl, and throw knives at her. Yeah, just
stand there still, Yeah, their knives near her. It's always
a lady. She's always got on like a bikini or something.
(12:05):
She's just like almost like while West steampunk renaissance fair thing, right,
you know, just to cover all of the all of
the geek boys dreams and desires. Right, But when you
look at it through the modern lens, it's like, man,
that that is totally misogynistic to Uh, that is the act. Um,
it's got a burlesque thing going on. Yeah, sure, I
(12:25):
mean you can see what they're trying to do is
to delate to the young boys in the audience. They're
trying to sell tickets, and it probably wouldn't have sold
as many tickets that they just had build a farmhand
with a balloon in his mouth getting popped, you know.
I mean it's still pretty cool. You're still seeing the
same thing. But yeah, it's just basically tradition and customed
to have a scantily clad woman as your target girl. Again,
(12:48):
that's what they call him, is the target girl, and
that is the one of the two people involved in
this impalement act. That's right. Um, we mentioned the balloon
in the mouth. That was one of the big tricks. Uh.
There was a German husband and wife named the Gibsons
who introduced the very famous Wheel of Death at the
Ringling Brothers show at in Madison Square Garden. Have you
(13:11):
seen this? Yeah? Okay, so I had seen stuff like
with knife throwing before, and I always thought Flee Circus
was another one. Do you remember our Flee Circus episode
where it turns out that Flee Circus has actually involved
real Flea's Yeah, that was the best of the circus arts,
and everybody thought it was like, no, it's magnets are
just your imagination power of suggestion, and that's just not
(13:31):
the case. The same thing applies to knife throwing impalement acts,
Like I always thought, did you really? Yeah? I thought
I think there was like a Happy Days or something
like that where somebody gets volunteered. There's definitely an I
Love Lucy with a Knife act where she's the target girl.
But there's some show where maybe Laverne and surely not
(13:54):
I think about it anyway, the guys throwing them and
like the knives are coming out of the backboard around up.
So it's all an illusion, right, That is not true?
In knife acts, you're if you're the target girl, a
dude is throwing twelve inch long extremely sharp, pointy knives
(14:14):
right at your head and it's trying to get as
close as possible to you without hitting you. Correct And
again it's not just that's just the profile where they're
throwing knives around you and making like a chalk outline
of your of your body. That's the profile. But there's
other ones like holding a cigarette in your mouth and
knocking the ash off with a knife, or you're holding
(14:35):
a flower in your mouth and they slowly like cut
the stem off piece by piece. There's some some pretty
interesting things that people have done with knife acts. Yeah, sometimes,
and this is the riskiest of all moves. Risky or
even more so than the wheel of death is when
they do the when they covered the target over with paper, Yeah,
the veiled wheel of death, so you can't even see
(14:56):
that spinning who is behind there? You just have to
have it timed completely perfectly right. But if you take
a step back and think about this, there is nothing
about that act that should allow you to say, oh,
if I throw like this, I will I will miss
the person because they're spinning, so you have to know
(15:18):
where their body is at every second. But you've taken
away how you know that, which is your vision because
they're behind a big sheet of paper that you're throwing
knives through. And there's this guy who will talk about
a little further. His name is the Great throw Denie Love.
This guy. Uh, he he has done something. It's probably
(15:39):
the most dangerous, most impressive knife throwing act anyone's ever done.
He did the veiled wheel of death with two target
girls on it. So he has two girls strapped to
a board spinning behind a big piece of paper that
he can't see them through, and he's throwing knives at them. Yes,
very fast. The guy through room on an average of
(16:01):
a knife every point five nine seconds um. And he
didn't hit either one of them. Amazing, it is amazing.
It's so amazing. I think we just take a break
and re regroup. We're back. We just watched uh one
(16:40):
hour of great thirteen even videos. Uh. He apparently caught
on like in its fifties. Yeah, it's like, hey, I'm
pretty good at this. Back in just I guess somebody
was like, maybe have you tried throwing knives? And he
said no, I haven't, And they were like, well, try
throwing knives and he said, well, fine, I will. A
couple of weeks later, he tried throwing and he said,
I really like this. Um. He said it felt natural
(17:03):
and right. So he started throwing knives and entered competitions
and um started winning. I think he became world champion
with him like two years he beat the other four people. Uh.
And then he said, you know what, this is fun
and all like these competitions, but I think I want
to try and act like an old throwback and palement act.
(17:24):
So we started one when basically but his wife Barbara
Target girl, get up target Girl, one of them. Yeah,
I think she may have been the original one. Uh.
Taught her to smoke cigarettes so he could knock the
ash off of the end of them. And there you go.
Impalement act achieved. But not only that, Chuck like the
(17:45):
guy is like legitimately the best knife thrower on the planet. Well,
he's one of them. He holds a record for fastest.
But boy, you go down a YouTube rabbit hole and
to like people like Ralph Thorne and better than Thordin. Huh, well,
great Thordini does the impalement act as in the circus art.
Ralph Thorn is like if you're running through the woods
(18:08):
chasing somebody I haven't seen this guy and this is
well that's the thorn style. We'll get into those styles later.
But um, yeah, he will like launch himself off of
a tree stump in the air and throw one behind
his back and see now that's basically the training I was. Yeah, yeah,
like martial arts, real world, suburban neighborhood dangers. There's a raccoon.
(18:31):
Oh no, no, no, no, you're not throwing a raccoons. Um, alright,
so raccoon comes at me. Well sure, okay, Um, here's
what you need if you if you're gonna throw a knife,
you need a throwing knife. Throwing knife, Like I said,
it's not a steak knife. It is very much made
to be thrown. It is balanced so that you throw it,
(18:54):
and we'll talk about the different ways that they're balanced.
But one thing they're not is sharp up on the sides. Yeah,
they're very pointy, but um, they're dull on the edges
because you're gonna a lot of times to be throwing
it by that blade. Um, so get a knife for throwing.
The old saying, Um, sharp of point, sharper point is
(19:17):
the point sharp of edge? Uh it doesn't. It does
you no good that old saying yeah, that's a great thing,
like that should go on a T shirt. You should so, um, yeah,
you want a sharp point, but there's there's nothing about
a sharp edge that's going to help you in any way,
shape or form, because the whole point, again, is the
(19:38):
point that's gonna stick into that endo, whatever that target is,
which is usually a block of wood. Right. So, um,
depending on where how you're going to throw it, you
want to throw the heavy end first. And there's a
reason for this. The reason is is that, if you
want to get technical about it, velocity equals um distance
(20:02):
divided by time, right, And when you're throwing a knife,
especially the heavy end first, the heavy end has traveled
a further distance in the same amount of time than
the lighter end. This, friends, creates something very important a
knife throwing, although not fundamental, which is spin. Okay, And
so if you throw the throw the knife, you're gonna
(20:24):
throw it either blade end or handle end. And the
end regards what you're holding when you throw it. And
if you're holding say a knife handle, and you're throwing
it from the handle end, you're the front of the knife.
The point is going to be weighted. It's going to
be heavier so that that starts the spin. If you're
(20:47):
throwing it blade first, the handle itself will be heavier,
so that will start the spin. And there's a couple
of different depending on which way you're throwing. There's a
the spin is going to take place over this the
course of um a very short distance actually, and so
(21:07):
let me let me just back up a second here. Okay,
there's there's some factors involved. Okay, they are distanced to target,
length of nighte, weight and balance and then knife type. Right,
So the distance the target is going to is going
to tell you what type of throw you want, that's right, Um,
(21:30):
the kind of knife. Uh, they say, for every good
rule of thumb here, just throw it out. But they
do mention a rule of thumb regardless. That says a
blade that weighs about one ounce per inch, so in
thiss per inch of your the whole knife. Yeah, so um,
they shouldn't. Well, you can throw it ever you want,
(21:51):
but ten to sixteen ounces is a good starter knife, uh,
you know, and about that long or maybe twelve to
fourteen inches and about that many ounces is where you
want to start off as a beginner. All kinds of
shapes to like definitely. Some of them are like little spears. Uh.
Some have multiple points, more like throwing stars. Uh. They
(22:12):
really run the gamut right there. Um. So, depending on
how you're gonna throw, whether it's a handle throw or
a blade throw, the weight of the knife is going
to be either in the handle or the blade. It's
going to be the opposite of where you're holding the knife. Um.
And if you throw holding the blade, you're going to
throw a half turn. It's a half turn throw right, Yeah.
(22:34):
And the reason they call it that is because the
knife only makes one half turn. The blade straightens out
from your hand towards the target, and then that's the
only turn it makes. Yeah, it's not like in the
movies a lot of times you'll see you go right
and turn like nine times and stick the guy in
the forehead. That's really not what you're doing with knife throwing. No,
(22:55):
it's basically if you if you're throwing it by the blade,
it's gonna make one half turn and that's it. So
you if your blade throwing, you would stand closest to
the target, right, So if some guys coming at you
dressed as a raccoon and you know, he's gonna hurt you,
and you can throw a knife and he's real close,
you would throw by the blade, that's right. Uh. And
in fact, I don't even know if it's possible to
(23:16):
throw a knife like they do in the movies that
I don't think. So just tumbles because every video I
saw there, like you try and prevent tumbling as much
as you can, Like that's the whole game as too,
because physics says that a revolving object that suddenly breaks
free will continue to move in a straight line tangential
to the point at which it's released. In other words,
(23:38):
that release points a little tricky. You know, you gotta
dial that in. But we'll get to that too. And
on the actual throwing right, Um, so the uh, the
next the next furthest away from the target is if
you're holding the the knife by the handle and you're
throwing it, it's going to make that's a full turn,
full spin uh, to where a blade goes from facing
(24:01):
the target, facing away from the target, and back to
facing the target in time to stick into that target
and not embarrassingly bounce off because it hit the blade
or the handle first. That's very humiliating. So humiliating. Uh.
And then the last one is the furthest throwing away
and it's about the most you would ever want a
blade to turn, which is two times. That's about thirty
(24:23):
ft or about ten meters away from your target. You
could possibly get it to spin twice, but usually you
just wanted to spin once or half and that's it. Yeah.
And uh, did you say a half turn's about seven
or eight feet? I don't think I did. I just
said it was the closest. Yeah, about seven or eight feet.
It depends full spin about twelve to fifteen And like
(24:44):
you said, the the great throw Dni double Bondini double
twist is up. Yeah. Although one of these other throws
that we're gonna get into this thorn throw. One of
the benefits is you can throw from anywhere, supposedly. So
we're gonna take one more break and then we're gonna
come back and teach you a little bit about throwing
(25:06):
and then, uh, what to look for in a good knife. Okay,
(25:35):
so you've got you know about how close you want
to stand at the target, depending on whether you're holding
the knife by the blade or the handle. The good
thing is is there are a couple of different grips,
but they're very similar. So if you're like I want
to get into blade throwing first because that looks pretty cool,
you're going to basically pinch them the blade of the knife.
(25:55):
And remember these are not sharp edges, so you should
be fine if you do. If you I saw, if
you are using a sharp edge knife, you want to
hold the blunt end. Yeah, but you don't want to
do that. You don't even want to do that, so
so it doesn't really matter which way you're holding it.
But if you if it is sharp on what edge,
hold the other edge and you're just basically pinching it
between your your thumb and your first three fingers, just
(26:17):
a little pitch. Yeah, it's just just a teeny pinch.
Maybe stick your pinky out for effect, all right, and
that that's the blade throw. Yeah, and you've already got
your target. By the way, at this point, I know
you mentioned a block of wood, but they recommend um
aims small. What does it start small? Aim small? Yeah,
which is don't don't You don't need a tree trunk
(26:39):
um sliced up and put on a wall, like you
just need like whatever, a little twelve inch by twelve
inch block of wood, or maybe if you want to
uh screw a bunch of wood together and then draw
a target on there, that's fine too. Yeah. You should
probably glue though, because the screws might your your knife
might bounce off of them. Yeah, you know if you
(27:00):
using metal screws as opposed to the traditional wooden dell. Right.
So um, right, so the the that's the what did
I say, that's the blade throw? Right? Ye, there's a
handle throw too, and this one is called a hatchet
throw or hammer throw or the handle throw you could
(27:20):
call it to and everybody all know what you're talking about. Yeah,
and you stand, uh, you're a little further back for
this one because you've got your your full turn going, uh,
and then you just grip it like a baseball bat
and swing away right right, close your eyes, and you
hope for the best ninja strike, right yeah. Yeah. So um.
(27:41):
The cool thing is what you were saying about starting small,
aiming small, is that when you when you figure out
that there's actually just a few mechanics going on here,
you'll be able to tell what part of your throw
is actually off, whether it's distance, whether it's when you're releasing,
whether it's um how you're gripping it. The problems are
(28:02):
the issues with your throw will show up, and you'll
be able to read based on how the knife is
landing or sticking. What's wrong with your throw? Yeah, Like
if you are throwing, I think blade first, and it sticks,
but it's sticking at a really hard angle where the
where the handle is pointing down. Then they say, maybe
(28:24):
just move back six inches with your stance. That is it. Yeah,
you're right, you're right, and then try it again. Yeah,
because that means that you're the knife didn't get its
full rotation. You wanted to basically be sticking straight out
perpendicular to the target. Yeah, that's a correct throw as
(28:44):
you're as you're learning to do this. Yeah, and did
you say that it's generally your opposite leg of your
throwing hand forward, So so yeah, so the stance, yeah,
I mean generally. But then again I also saw this
Russian guy that through with his throwing leg or the
same leg as a throwing hand forward, and he was like,
(29:05):
you know it all works basically was this thing. I
knew you had the Italian thing going on, but Russian
that was good. I can I can do that. So
let's get into the throw them. Okay, So the stance,
I should say, so with the with the stance, you're
standing with your um, you're you're throwing arm. The leg
(29:25):
opposite you're throwing arm is closest to the target. It's
kind of like you're throwing a dart, you know, um, yes, okay,
like that. Well, actually that's not quite true when I
throw it. When you throw a dart, you're the leg
that is, the foot that is on the line is
the same side as you're throwing hand, is it. Yeah? Okay,
well this is the opposite of that. Maybe I've been
(29:47):
throwing darts throng arms time. So the so the the
leg opposite you're throwing arm is the one you want
closest to the target. Traditionally, right, Traditionally your weight is
on your back leg, that is you're throwing, and what
you're doing is you're gripping the knife. However you want
to blade or handle either way. You line it up
(30:11):
right with your eye against the target, bring your arm
back behind your head, and then keeping your wrists straight.
You don't want to flip your wrist or anything like it.
You bring it in an arc in front of you,
and you finish like you are shaking somebody's hand. You're going, hey,
how are you right? But I got a knife? Right.
(30:32):
The thing is, here's the thing. You're gonna want to
release at that handshake part when your hand is straight
out in front of you, and you're gonna find nothing
but heartache trying to throw a knife like that. Oh,
if you release it right at the end, it goes,
it'll go straight down, right, It'll go down in front
of you. Because when you release an object that's going
(30:54):
in an arc, it wants to go straight in a
tangential line from the the the top of the arc. Right,
that's right. So you want to release it at the
top of the arc. That's right. So that is I
was practicing just in the air, trying to to make
my brain release it at the top. And that is
(31:16):
really difficult to do because you think initially that the
nicest gonna go shooting up into the air. It's not.
It's gonna go straight. That's right. Pretty neat stuff, that's right.
And this is just I don't even know what the
traditional throw was called, you, I know, I didn't see
a name for it. Well, there are some other throws
(31:36):
which I might as well go ahead and mention I've teased.
One is the aforementioned Thorn style from Ralph Thorne. Okay,
that's named after a dude. Was named after a dude.
Either way, it sounds cool. Yeah this one, Um, did
you see this one at all? Inline? I didn't see
that one. I kind of had an idea of what
they were talking about based on the article. Yeah, they
(31:57):
say that it resembles spear throwing. The action, um, I guess,
and that you're you're not taking the knife like behind
your ear. You're sort of just extending your whole arm
and doing a big almost like you're throwing a baseball pitch. Sure,
that's what I imagine. Yeah, that's what it sort of
looked like, sort of like a bunch of people were
doing it different. And then this guy's jumping all over
(32:19):
behind his back like Thorne style seems to be two
just do whatever you want. Okay, that's not true. Thorne's
probably just like so angry right now he's Uh. Then
there was the Russian style and this look it's a
very compact um, the elbow is in near the body,
(32:42):
you hold the knife behind the ear. Uh. And this
I saw it was a little bit more like, you know,
like that kind of thing. So that seems to me
like depending on how close you're holding your elbow to
your body, like you're gonna chop the top of your
ear off. Well you want to avoid that, but it's
it's more like you're pushing it out rather than throwing
it like a tomahawk. So that's what I thought. Um
(33:05):
mom you on style was like where you're basically like
shoving the knife forward. Well what I saw with that style,
and again all these videos were different, so I don't
know if these people are just I mean, it is
YouTube making it. It's not like they're like, I'm an
accredited thornist. But the MoMu In style looks like they
(33:29):
were having the knife like in their hand, like kind
of in their palm and would throw it. But I
don't know if that was because of the knife, because
the guy on there was like, this is a bo
bo hurrikan spike which is thrown in the MoMu in style.
Then that's what this article said to people really get
into this on online though, right, That's what I did discover.
(33:52):
So the three the three things, those three types thorn style,
mom you on, and Russian style. Those are all styles
of knife throwing. Them all no spin. That's what the
common thread that they all have. Yeah, which is pretty cool.
It is cool. And there's a couple of reasons you
want to do this. The most knife throwers say that's
really tough on the joints after a while, that's what
they say. And um, the reason why is because it
(34:15):
involves like doing crazy like snapping motions with your elbow
and your wrist and stuff. Whereas with knife throwing it's
just a smooth arc you're making it. Almost all of
the motion is in your shoulder and your elbow, your
wrist stays straight, and you just are generally releasing your
grasp on the NiFe right into his ape all day long. Right. Yeah.
(34:36):
With the no spin styles, it is, it's just tougher.
It's more of a snapping motion. That's like you're gonna
get tennis elbow after a while. The reason the advantage
that these have is like, if you're trying to throw
a knife through a hole, you can't have a twelve
inch knife spinning making this twenty four inch arc basically
or circle. Um, you just want to send it straight
(34:57):
like a missile through that hole in to some dude's
leg in his calf, and then you you pounce on him,
put your hand over his mouth and nose until he
falls asleep, and then you can advance further towards the castle. Well,
the the Russian guy I saw was talking about the
(35:19):
first thing you do is find the balance point. So
he held out his finger and put the knife on
it until, you know, like a little sea solid till
he found the exact point. And he's like, there's a
balance point. So once you find out where that is,
that will teach you exactly how to hold it um
in any in any scenario. Basically, I know where the
(35:39):
balance point is though, So whatever you're doing, though, if
if this sounds like something you want to do, whether
it's spin throwing or no spin throwing techniques, the key
to knife throwing of any kind is practice, practice, practice,
And this article actually gives a really good piece of advice.
It says, get a little set of throwing nives, the
(36:00):
best you can afford, because the more expensive they are,
typically with them, the better the more well made they are.
And um, get some, get like I said, of three
or five or whatever, because you're you're going to have
to practice repeatedly. And if you have one knife and
you're standing fifteen feet away, you throw it, you have
(36:21):
to go get it. You throw it again and go
get it. That's not nearly as fun as trying to
throw like five quickly in a row. So you're number one,
you're gonna be more entertained. Um. But also if you do,
no matter how many knives you have, if you start
to lose focus, if you start to get bored or frustrated,
stop because if there's one thing about knife throwing, it's
meant to be fun. And if you're practicing with your friends, uh,
(36:45):
don't they don't stand to the side of the target.
They don't stand directly behind you. UM. I would recommend
they stand well behind you and well to one side
of you. I've got one even better. Don't even don't
even let your friends anywhere near you. You you have
to be alone while you're practicing throwing knives, but you
have to be in text or phone contact with your parents.
(37:07):
We're watching you from a safe distance. Sing it to
your parents. Maybe. So, Uh, you should go and look
at some of these Ralph Thorn videos because the funnies,
the funniest part is, uh, the almost um, not angry,
but just his trudge towards the target afterward is very like,
(37:29):
I don't know, it's weird. He'll jump up in the
air and throw a few and then he's just like
do do do and then walks over and undoes it
from the log like I don't know. All the pizzazz
leaves as soon as he's thrown. That's when you need.
The pizzazz is during the throwing. The rest is just
wasted energy. Yeah, but you don't see throw Deny. That's
the difference between an impalement act and a dudeness backyard
(37:51):
on YouTube. Well, throw DENI has the smarts to hire
an editor to edit that part out. Yeah, it's a
good point. I don't know if we said the great
throw Denie's name. His name is David ed Amovitch and
he's a neat guy. Great name. So if you want
to know more about the great throw Deanie or what's
what's Thorne's first name, Jesse Thorn, the other thing Ralph
(38:14):
Ralph Thorn, or any kind of night throw and go
go check out some videos. Again, do not do this
unless your parents say it's okay, and do it safely.
Don't be stupid and never ever throw any living thing
ever of any kind ever, or Josh and Chuck are
going to be so mad at you. Uh. And in
the meantime, let's listen to some listener Matt, all right,
(38:40):
I'm gonna call this, oh, welcome back to the fold.
This just delighted me. I like this one too. You
know in April it's gonna be ten years, which is
just nutty, nutty, nutty. No one ever thought we'd be
doing this so long. Jerry has an age today, now
she hasn't, but she's taken up more clothes as the podcasts. Uh,
(39:03):
she's getting ready for a gig as a target girl.
Um all right, guys, um, and Jerry, whoever, whoever else
that Stuff you should Know might actually be reading this.
I don't know how famil works, is what she says.
This is how it works. Yeah, we read it. I realized, um,
that the most I'm realistically going to achieve by stating this.
(39:23):
It's making you feel old. But when I was eleven
years old in two thousand eleven, Stuff you Should Know
was my favorite podcast and listen to every episode. Kept
on listening for a couple of years until I was
thirteen when I stopped listening to it, because that's all
we lose them is when they get too cool for school.
That's right. So for those those of your teenagers who
(39:43):
have kept listening through your teen years, we think you're cool.
You're doing it right. Your peers probably don't, but we do.
I have no idea why I stopped guys up until today.
I actually figured you guys must have stopped making it,
and I never bothered to go back and check until today.
Isn't that funny to think back? To think that someone
can think back like, oh remember those guys? Like how
(40:05):
long a daily? Weekly life? So funny. I'm not sure
how to properly put how I feel into words, though, Uh,
because not a lot else from when I was that
age still exist. I grew up with the Internet, but
poking around Google and looking for old sites I used
to just uh, it reveals a trail of deleted accounts
and domain names that no longer resolve. What does she
(40:28):
find an old computer or something? I don't know. Maybe
she's definitely taking a trip down memory lane. I know, man,
I've moved countries, so most of my physical stuff was
either given away or thrown into a landfill across the Atlantic.
The fact that stuff you should know still exists and
it's still making episodes that are just as good as
I remember them being as incredible. Wow, this is crazy.
(40:48):
This is from Hazel. She has to We have a
po box as you can send some Jofa cakes. Oh
this I don't remember if I gave Hazel or address,
well please do. But Hazel, if you're right back, we'll
give you our dress and we can get some chopic cakes.
Thanks for coming back. Yeah, we appreciate that. We're glad
to have kept the home fires burning for you there, Hazel.
I'd like to hear from Sarah. Sarah Sparrow, the amazing
(41:11):
ninety year old fan. Yeah, she's eleven years old. I
think she was at the time. No, she was like
was she like eight or nine? Yeah, I can't remember
when she started. Yeah, but she was really young. Yeah
she became a cool teenage, she definitely did. But maybe
she'll become an actually cool college student in Yeah. Well
thanks a lot, Hazel. Uh, if you left us and
(41:33):
came back and thought it was as good as ever,
we can hear that stuff all day long. You can
tweet to us at josh um Clark or s Y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff You Should Know.
You can send us an email The Stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com and has always joined us
at her home on the web. Stuff You shnow dot com.
(41:58):
For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com mhm
Hello, Colorado, the States so nice. We're playing there twice,
two days in a row. Chuck, we added a second
show to our Gothic Theater tour. That's right, we're gonna
be there June seventh and June now sold out, but
one of those weird cases where you go see the
first show you were actually late buying tickets. Right. We're
(00:21):
also going to be in Boston April four, d c
April five. We're gonna be in St. Louis on May
and Cleveland one, and then of course we're gonna wrap
this summer up on June at the Gothic Theater in Colorado.
So go to s y s K live dot com
for all of your information and ticket needs. Welcome to
(00:43):
Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles Chuck,
and there's all Right the sparres. Some explanation. So I
(01:06):
was doing my Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle of Impression,
which one is Stevie. He was the kid in the
wheelchair who was like breathed like that, who talked like
that because he he had serious asthma. Yeah, remember him
was he just like a classmate. Yeah, he was like
his best friend. I believe I remember I like I
like that show. Well that's not what I was doing. Really. No,
(01:28):
we're slightly out of breath because we just had a
fire alarm. Yeah, we had to walk down four stairs,
four flights of stairs, and not like this, the one,
the kind of flight where it's like down, landing down again,
two flights. Yeah, so we walked down eight flights of
stairs and then walked back eight more. Right when we
got down, stopped and immediately turned around to go back in.
(01:51):
It was ridiculous. It was the kind of thing that
makes you say, maybe I won'ly next time it was
a fire alarm. I was prepared to hide in the
studio and keep working. Yeah, we thought about it, but
there's a fire marshal who works here, so you can't
can't run a foul him. Man, he got on that
orange vest quick changes everything. So I ever heard of
(02:11):
those guys that sneak into places with those vests? Yes,
I have, I don't is there a name for what
I think these? I'm sure more than one person has
done this, But there's these two guys in particular who
uh kind of got I don't know about famous, but
made a name for themselves for putting on the orange
(02:32):
vests and saying basically like, if you wear one of these,
you can get in anywhere you want them. If you
have orange vest on, you look like you're supposed to
be there. Well, yeah, you gotta have that steely sense
of nerve and alwakie talkie is probably a good thing
to have to But they can go anywhere because the
orange vest guy. That means that's something's wrong in the
orange vest guy has to take care of it. Like
(02:55):
they showed pictures in the in front of a I
can't remember what show it was, but a big, big
concert where they were in that buffer area between the
people in the stage, right, yeah, and fred Durst is like, oh,
there's an orange guest, the best guy. Something must be
going on. What year was that, This would have been
(03:16):
two thousand two, maybe the fred Durst years, Great Years,
the Wonder years. Right. Well, man, I'm hot now too,
I'm I feel good. I got like that, got the
endorphins fall and this is gonna be a cool episode, buddy. Well,
the irony is I so grossly out of shape. I
(03:37):
started getting on the peloton Yeah, last week. So I've
been and this is not a plug for pellets, I
guess it is, but a little bit. It's not an ad,
but I've been getting on that thing. So my legs
are ham rubber rubber band hams right now. Anyway, Yeah, hey, y'all,
prepare yourself for the rubber band ham that's hey, will
(04:01):
you indulge me for one moment? Oh man, I've been
waiting for you to ask me that for a long time. Alright,
So I've got the old side gig going with Movie Crush,
my podcast where every Friday I sit down with someone
awesome and talk about their favorite movie and kill it.
Thank you. But I have now added a second weekly
(04:22):
episode that publishes on Monday called Mini Crushes, and that's
where I just sit in here with producer Noel. He's
sort of the omniscient voice of God, uh and he
sort of chimes in and I source a lot of
questions from Facebook to the Movie Crush Facebook page. Um
listener mails that the recommendations, it's just a really interactive
(04:43):
fan based experience. So I want to plug the mini
Crushes and let everyone know that yesterday I dropped a
very special mini Crush, which was The Chuck and it's
Emily's podcast debut. Oh congratulations, man, that's it's called The
Chuck and Emily drink wine, uh and talk about the
(05:05):
Oscar nominations. Oh yes, nice. Yeah, So we recorded this
thing at home. We put the kid to bed and
broke out some nice wine and did our pre Oscar
round up. So that dropped yesterday, and then next Monday,
the day after the Oscars, we're going to have our
post Oscar round up where we talked about who won
(05:25):
and what the speeches were like and who wore it best.
That's awesome, man, Emily is going to be a star. Chuck. Yeah,
she was actually pretty great. And if you want a
little peek behind the Merritle curtain, uh, this is this
is your chance. So yeah, if you could check out
movie Crush on Apple Podcasts or where we get your podcasts.
Nice man, do you feel indulged? Very much? Good? All right,
(05:49):
let's talk about knife throwing. So I'm a little psyched
about this because knife throwing taps into my ninja training
that I did under Tommy Roper, as I'm sure I've
mentioned before, uh reading about this researching it, I never
threw knives. We never made it that far in Maybe
now I'll be I'll be hang gliding throwing knives at
(06:12):
the same time, going to get into both at once.
But I did a little throwing star stuff. Throwing star
is like the dummies, uh, knife throwing because that always sticks, right, Yeah,
I mean, depending on how many spikes you got coming
off of it, and um, and and whether the tree
(06:32):
is actually like a metal pole or not, you're probably
gonna stick a throwing star. Throwing a knife is an
entirely different endeavor, and it's something that anybody can do that.
Nicholas Jerbis were Gurbs never met him yet. Um. He
points out this is actually kind of like a low
hanging hobby that you could. You can get a set
(06:54):
of knives for ten fifteen bucks apiece. You probably one
about five is well will explain why, um, maybe six.
And then you just practice, give yourself a good block
of wood and practice and anybody can do this. It's
not like you're born to throw knives. You practice and
if you like it, you keep going. You just get
better and better at it, and you can impress your
(07:15):
friends and neighbors. Yes, and here's the point in the
show where we issue our c o A. Kids, if
you're out there, do not go get a steake knife
from your drawer and start throwing it at your dog.
That is not a throwing knife. And never throw anything
at your dog, kids. I will come find you. Yeah,
never throw anything at anybody that's sharp. But Um throwing
(07:38):
knives are built to throw. They're weighted and balanced to throw.
They're not like regular old knives. And we'll get into
all that. But just if you really want to try
throwing knives, go ask mom and dad or Tommy Roper
and get ready, get ready for a no and then
and then play them this podcast where it is an
(08:00):
actual um circus art. And please, for the love of God,
tell me this is the last one. I don't think
of the circus arts. No, it's not. What else is, sir?
There's a bunch we've done. The Globe of Death. Yeah,
flame swallowing, lion taming, swords swallowing, sword swallowing. We did
circus families, just straight up circus families. Human cannonball just
(08:24):
got to be it. I don't think so, man. I
think it's going to keep going in cloud clowns. Clowns
for sure, yeah, Um, they don't don't want to p
T Barnum though, No, you mean Hugh Jackman. What is it,
Chuck Stradamus, I don't know, something like that make one
lucky casting call, predict one sexual predator and one bad
(08:48):
Lifetime movie? Or what what was shark Nato sci fi
sci fi movie? Three little things? That's all. That doesn't
make me nuxtra Domans haven't won the lottery yet. I
think of all the things I've said that didn't come
true right way more. Yeah, I guess that's true. You know, yeah,
whenever writes in and so, well that didn't happen, right,
you really got that? Actually, they do right in to
(09:09):
tell us we've got stuff wrong a lot. So we're
gonna take this seriously because we want you ten year
olds out there who want to get your parents to
let you do this, to to see that you're taking
this seriously by listening to this podcast. First. Okay, that's right.
So what we're talking about specifically is known as, uh
somewhat ironically as an impalement act um, which is really
(09:33):
weird thing to call it. It's well, it's um, yeah,
it really is. I think it's a little tongue in cheek,
you think, because the point is tyn to not write.
The point is to not impale somebody with this kind
of thing, right, And and impalement acts are an umbrella
term that cover not just knife throwing, but bull whip cracking, oh, shoot,
(09:54):
sharp shooting, archery, William tell kind of thing. All of
those fall under the the umbrella term of impalement X.
Jerry's undressing over there to our left. She got very
hot in the fire drop Um. All right, so this
goes back if we can get back in the way
back machine, all the way back to the late nineteenth century,
(10:15):
we gotta go back here further than that. Are you
gonna go like to ancient times? No, No, We'll still
will just go with the nineteenth century, because I'm sure
Chinese people in ancient times through stuff that's stuck in walls. Well,
I looked at I looked up the oldest knife and
every apparently they did. Apparently they found the oldest knife
(10:40):
five thousand years ago. Oh, the oldest knife knife. So
we've been using knives longer than there have been modern humans. Yeah,
for sure. And then we at some point, probably about
four hundred and ninety nine thousand years ago we started
throwing knives. It's stabbing is okay, but throwing a knife
(11:00):
is when you really can come to appreciate what a
knife does. Okay. Man, there was nothing better in it,
like an eighties movie than when like James Bond through
a knife and I got a guy or American ninja.
That's what I was trained on. Yeah. Um, alright, so
wild uh wild West shows. Buffalo Bill and his Wild
(11:20):
West Shows travel throughout the United States, throughout Europe. Um,
knife throwing became a big spectacle at things like this,
as well as obviously sharp shooting and probably archery. They
probably did all the impalement arts. So they definitely did
um and they really brought it to the world. Um,
to the to the point where you can just basically
say that's where it started, was Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Yeah.
(11:42):
And this is one of those things where, through a
modern lens, it is incredibly misogynistic to think about the
fact that you say, hey, let me take a scantily
clad woman, a target girl. Yeah that's what they call him,
a target girl, and throw knives at her. Yeah, just
stand there still, Yeah, their knives near her. It's always
a lady. She's always got on like a bikini or something.
(12:05):
She's just like almost like while West steampunk renaissance fair thing, right,
you know, just to cover all of the all of
the geek boys dreams and desires. Right, But when you
look at it through the modern lens, it's like, man,
that that is totally misogynistic to Uh, that is the act. Um,
it's got a burlesque thing going on. Yeah, sure, I
(12:25):
mean you can see what they're trying to do is
to delate to the young boys in the audience. They're
trying to sell tickets, and it probably wouldn't have sold
as many tickets that they just had build a farmhand
with a balloon in his mouth getting popped, you know.
I mean it's still pretty cool. You're still seeing the
same thing. But yeah, it's just basically tradition and customed
to have a scantily clad woman as your target girl. Again,
(12:48):
that's what they call him, is the target girl, and
that is the one of the two people involved in
this impalement act. That's right. Um, we mentioned the balloon
in the mouth. That was one of the big tricks. Uh.
There was a German husband and wife named the Gibsons
who introduced the very famous Wheel of Death at the
Ringling Brothers show at in Madison Square Garden. Have you
(13:11):
seen this? Yeah? Okay, so I had seen stuff like
with knife throwing before, and I always thought Flee Circus
was another one. Do you remember our Flee Circus episode
where it turns out that Flee Circus has actually involved
real Flea's Yeah, that was the best of the circus arts,
and everybody thought it was like, no, it's magnets are
just your imagination power of suggestion, and that's just not
(13:31):
the case. The same thing applies to knife throwing impalement acts,
Like I always thought, did you really? Yeah? I thought
I think there was like a Happy Days or something
like that where somebody gets volunteered. There's definitely an I
Love Lucy with a Knife act where she's the target girl.
But there's some show where maybe Laverne and surely not
(13:54):
I think about it anyway, the guys throwing them and
like the knives are coming out of the backboard around up.
So it's all an illusion, right, That is not true?
In knife acts, you're if you're the target girl, a
dude is throwing twelve inch long extremely sharp, pointy knives
(14:14):
right at your head and it's trying to get as
close as possible to you without hitting you. Correct And
again it's not just that's just the profile where they're
throwing knives around you and making like a chalk outline
of your of your body. That's the profile. But there's
other ones like holding a cigarette in your mouth and
knocking the ash off with a knife, or you're holding
(14:35):
a flower in your mouth and they slowly like cut
the stem off piece by piece. There's some some pretty
interesting things that people have done with knife acts. Yeah, sometimes,
and this is the riskiest of all moves. Risky or
even more so than the wheel of death is when
they do the when they covered the target over with paper, Yeah,
the veiled wheel of death, so you can't even see
(14:56):
that spinning who is behind there? You just have to
have it timed completely perfectly right. But if you take
a step back and think about this, there is nothing
about that act that should allow you to say, oh,
if I throw like this, I will I will miss
the person because they're spinning, so you have to know
(15:18):
where their body is at every second. But you've taken
away how you know that, which is your vision because
they're behind a big sheet of paper that you're throwing
knives through. And there's this guy who will talk about
a little further. His name is the Great throw Denie Love.
This guy. Uh, he he has done something. It's probably
(15:39):
the most dangerous, most impressive knife throwing act anyone's ever done.
He did the veiled wheel of death with two target
girls on it. So he has two girls strapped to
a board spinning behind a big piece of paper that
he can't see them through, and he's throwing knives at them. Yes,
very fast. The guy through room on an average of
(16:01):
a knife every point five nine seconds um. And he
didn't hit either one of them. Amazing, it is amazing.
It's so amazing. I think we just take a break
and re regroup. We're back. We just watched uh one
(16:40):
hour of great thirteen even videos. Uh. He apparently caught
on like in its fifties. Yeah, it's like, hey, I'm
pretty good at this. Back in just I guess somebody
was like, maybe have you tried throwing knives? And he
said no, I haven't, And they were like, well, try
throwing knives and he said, well, fine, I will. A
couple of weeks later, he tried throwing and he said,
I really like this. Um. He said it felt natural
(17:03):
and right. So he started throwing knives and entered competitions
and um started winning. I think he became world champion
with him like two years he beat the other four people. Uh.
And then he said, you know what, this is fun
and all like these competitions, but I think I want
to try and act like an old throwback and palement act.
(17:24):
So we started one when basically but his wife Barbara
Target girl, get up target Girl, one of them. Yeah,
I think she may have been the original one. Uh.
Taught her to smoke cigarettes so he could knock the
ash off of the end of them. And there you go.
Impalement act achieved. But not only that, Chuck like the
(17:45):
guy is like legitimately the best knife thrower on the planet. Well,
he's one of them. He holds a record for fastest.
But boy, you go down a YouTube rabbit hole and
to like people like Ralph Thorne and better than Thordin. Huh, well,
great Thordini does the impalement act as in the circus art.
Ralph Thorn is like if you're running through the woods
(18:08):
chasing somebody I haven't seen this guy and this is
well that's the thorn style. We'll get into those styles later.
But um, yeah, he will like launch himself off of
a tree stump in the air and throw one behind
his back and see now that's basically the training I was. Yeah, yeah,
like martial arts, real world, suburban neighborhood dangers. There's a raccoon.
(18:31):
Oh no, no, no, no, you're not throwing a raccoons. Um, alright,
so raccoon comes at me. Well sure, okay, Um, here's
what you need if you if you're gonna throw a knife,
you need a throwing knife. Throwing knife, Like I said,
it's not a steak knife. It is very much made
to be thrown. It is balanced so that you throw it,
(18:54):
and we'll talk about the different ways that they're balanced.
But one thing they're not is sharp up on the sides. Yeah,
they're very pointy, but um, they're dull on the edges
because you're gonna a lot of times to be throwing
it by that blade. Um, so get a knife for throwing.
The old saying, Um, sharp of point, sharper point is
(19:17):
the point sharp of edge? Uh it doesn't. It does
you no good that old saying yeah, that's a great thing,
like that should go on a T shirt. You should so, um, yeah,
you want a sharp point, but there's there's nothing about
a sharp edge that's going to help you in any way,
shape or form, because the whole point, again, is the
(19:38):
point that's gonna stick into that endo, whatever that target is,
which is usually a block of wood. Right. So, um,
depending on where how you're going to throw it, you
want to throw the heavy end first. And there's a
reason for this. The reason is is that, if you
want to get technical about it, velocity equals um distance
(20:02):
divided by time, right, And when you're throwing a knife,
especially the heavy end first, the heavy end has traveled
a further distance in the same amount of time than
the lighter end. This, friends, creates something very important a
knife throwing, although not fundamental, which is spin. Okay, And
so if you throw the throw the knife, you're gonna
(20:24):
throw it either blade end or handle end. And the
end regards what you're holding when you throw it. And
if you're holding say a knife handle, and you're throwing
it from the handle end, you're the front of the knife.
The point is going to be weighted. It's going to
be heavier so that that starts the spin. If you're
(20:47):
throwing it blade first, the handle itself will be heavier,
so that will start the spin. And there's a couple
of different depending on which way you're throwing. There's a
the spin is going to take place over this the
course of um a very short distance actually, and so
(21:07):
let me let me just back up a second here. Okay,
there's there's some factors involved. Okay, they are distanced to target,
length of nighte, weight and balance and then knife type. Right,
So the distance the target is going to is going
to tell you what type of throw you want, that's right, Um,
(21:30):
the kind of knife. Uh, they say, for every good
rule of thumb here, just throw it out. But they
do mention a rule of thumb regardless. That says a
blade that weighs about one ounce per inch, so in
thiss per inch of your the whole knife. Yeah, so um,
they shouldn't. Well, you can throw it ever you want,
(21:51):
but ten to sixteen ounces is a good starter knife, uh,
you know, and about that long or maybe twelve to
fourteen inches and about that many ounces is where you
want to start off as a beginner. All kinds of
shapes to like definitely. Some of them are like little spears. Uh.
Some have multiple points, more like throwing stars. Uh. They
(22:12):
really run the gamut right there. Um. So, depending on
how you're gonna throw, whether it's a handle throw or
a blade throw, the weight of the knife is going
to be either in the handle or the blade. It's
going to be the opposite of where you're holding the knife. Um.
And if you throw holding the blade, you're going to
throw a half turn. It's a half turn throw right, Yeah.
(22:34):
And the reason they call it that is because the
knife only makes one half turn. The blade straightens out
from your hand towards the target, and then that's the
only turn it makes. Yeah, it's not like in the
movies a lot of times you'll see you go right
and turn like nine times and stick the guy in
the forehead. That's really not what you're doing with knife throwing. No,
(22:55):
it's basically if you if you're throwing it by the blade,
it's gonna make one half turn and that's it. So
you if your blade throwing, you would stand closest to
the target, right, So if some guys coming at you
dressed as a raccoon and you know, he's gonna hurt you,
and you can throw a knife and he's real close,
you would throw by the blade, that's right. Uh. And
in fact, I don't even know if it's possible to
(23:16):
throw a knife like they do in the movies that
I don't think. So just tumbles because every video I
saw there, like you try and prevent tumbling as much
as you can, Like that's the whole game as too,
because physics says that a revolving object that suddenly breaks
free will continue to move in a straight line tangential
to the point at which it's released. In other words,
(23:38):
that release points a little tricky. You know, you gotta
dial that in. But we'll get to that too. And
on the actual throwing right, Um, so the uh, the
next the next furthest away from the target is if
you're holding the the knife by the handle and you're
throwing it, it's going to make that's a full turn,
full spin uh, to where a blade goes from facing
(24:01):
the target, facing away from the target, and back to
facing the target in time to stick into that target
and not embarrassingly bounce off because it hit the blade
or the handle first. That's very humiliating. So humiliating. Uh.
And then the last one is the furthest throwing away
and it's about the most you would ever want a
blade to turn, which is two times. That's about thirty
(24:23):
ft or about ten meters away from your target. You
could possibly get it to spin twice, but usually you
just wanted to spin once or half and that's it. Yeah.
And uh, did you say a half turn's about seven
or eight feet? I don't think I did. I just
said it was the closest. Yeah, about seven or eight feet.
It depends full spin about twelve to fifteen And like
(24:44):
you said, the the great throw Dni double Bondini double
twist is up. Yeah. Although one of these other throws
that we're gonna get into this thorn throw. One of
the benefits is you can throw from anywhere, supposedly. So
we're gonna take one more break and then we're gonna
come back and teach you a little bit about throwing
(25:06):
and then, uh, what to look for in a good knife. Okay,
(25:35):
so you've got you know about how close you want
to stand at the target, depending on whether you're holding
the knife by the blade or the handle. The good
thing is is there are a couple of different grips,
but they're very similar. So if you're like I want
to get into blade throwing first because that looks pretty cool,
you're going to basically pinch them the blade of the knife.
(25:55):
And remember these are not sharp edges, so you should
be fine if you do. If you I saw, if
you are using a sharp edge knife, you want to
hold the blunt end. Yeah, but you don't want to
do that. You don't even want to do that, so
so it doesn't really matter which way you're holding it.
But if you if it is sharp on what edge,
hold the other edge and you're just basically pinching it
between your your thumb and your first three fingers, just
(26:17):
a little pitch. Yeah, it's just just a teeny pinch.
Maybe stick your pinky out for effect, all right, and
that that's the blade throw. Yeah, and you've already got
your target. By the way, at this point, I know
you mentioned a block of wood, but they recommend um
aims small. What does it start small? Aim small? Yeah,
which is don't don't You don't need a tree trunk
(26:39):
um sliced up and put on a wall, like you
just need like whatever, a little twelve inch by twelve
inch block of wood, or maybe if you want to
uh screw a bunch of wood together and then draw
a target on there, that's fine too. Yeah. You should
probably glue though, because the screws might your your knife
might bounce off of them. Yeah, you know if you
(27:00):
using metal screws as opposed to the traditional wooden dell. Right.
So um, right, so the the that's the what did
I say, that's the blade throw? Right? Ye, there's a
handle throw too, and this one is called a hatchet
throw or hammer throw or the handle throw you could
(27:20):
call it to and everybody all know what you're talking about. Yeah,
and you stand, uh, you're a little further back for
this one because you've got your your full turn going, uh,
and then you just grip it like a baseball bat
and swing away right right, close your eyes, and you
hope for the best ninja strike, right yeah. Yeah. So um.
(27:41):
The cool thing is what you were saying about starting small,
aiming small, is that when you when you figure out
that there's actually just a few mechanics going on here,
you'll be able to tell what part of your throw
is actually off, whether it's distance, whether it's when you're releasing,
whether it's um how you're gripping it. The problems are
(28:02):
the issues with your throw will show up, and you'll
be able to read based on how the knife is
landing or sticking. What's wrong with your throw? Yeah, Like
if you are throwing, I think blade first, and it sticks,
but it's sticking at a really hard angle where the
where the handle is pointing down. Then they say, maybe
(28:24):
just move back six inches with your stance. That is it. Yeah,
you're right, you're right, and then try it again. Yeah,
because that means that you're the knife didn't get its
full rotation. You wanted to basically be sticking straight out
perpendicular to the target. Yeah, that's a correct throw as
(28:44):
you're as you're learning to do this. Yeah, and did
you say that it's generally your opposite leg of your
throwing hand forward, So so yeah, so the stance, yeah,
I mean generally. But then again I also saw this
Russian guy that through with his throwing leg or the
same leg as a throwing hand forward, and he was like,
(29:05):
you know it all works basically was this thing. I
knew you had the Italian thing going on, but Russian
that was good. I can I can do that. So
let's get into the throw them. Okay, So the stance,
I should say, so with the with the stance, you're
standing with your um, you're you're throwing arm. The leg
(29:25):
opposite you're throwing arm is closest to the target. It's
kind of like you're throwing a dart, you know, um, yes, okay,
like that. Well, actually that's not quite true when I
throw it. When you throw a dart, you're the leg
that is, the foot that is on the line is
the same side as you're throwing hand, is it. Yeah? Okay,
well this is the opposite of that. Maybe I've been
(29:47):
throwing darts throng arms time. So the so the the
leg opposite you're throwing arm is the one you want
closest to the target. Traditionally, right, Traditionally your weight is
on your back leg, that is you're throwing, and what
you're doing is you're gripping the knife. However you want
to blade or handle either way. You line it up
(30:11):
right with your eye against the target, bring your arm
back behind your head, and then keeping your wrists straight.
You don't want to flip your wrist or anything like it.
You bring it in an arc in front of you,
and you finish like you are shaking somebody's hand. You're going, hey,
how are you right? But I got a knife? Right.
(30:32):
The thing is, here's the thing. You're gonna want to
release at that handshake part when your hand is straight
out in front of you, and you're gonna find nothing
but heartache trying to throw a knife like that. Oh,
if you release it right at the end, it goes,
it'll go straight down, right, It'll go down in front
of you. Because when you release an object that's going
(30:54):
in an arc, it wants to go straight in a
tangential line from the the the top of the arc. Right,
that's right. So you want to release it at the
top of the arc. That's right. So that is I
was practicing just in the air, trying to to make
my brain release it at the top. And that is
(31:16):
really difficult to do because you think initially that the
nicest gonna go shooting up into the air. It's not.
It's gonna go straight. That's right. Pretty neat stuff, that's right.
And this is just I don't even know what the
traditional throw was called, you, I know, I didn't see
a name for it. Well, there are some other throws
(31:36):
which I might as well go ahead and mention I've teased.
One is the aforementioned Thorn style from Ralph Thorne. Okay,
that's named after a dude. Was named after a dude.
Either way, it sounds cool. Yeah this one, Um, did
you see this one at all? Inline? I didn't see
that one. I kind of had an idea of what
they were talking about based on the article. Yeah, they
(31:57):
say that it resembles spear throwing. The action, um, I guess,
and that you're you're not taking the knife like behind
your ear. You're sort of just extending your whole arm
and doing a big almost like you're throwing a baseball pitch. Sure,
that's what I imagine. Yeah, that's what it sort of
looked like, sort of like a bunch of people were
doing it different. And then this guy's jumping all over
(32:19):
behind his back like Thorne style seems to be two
just do whatever you want. Okay, that's not true. Thorne's
probably just like so angry right now he's Uh. Then
there was the Russian style and this look it's a
very compact um, the elbow is in near the body,
(32:42):
you hold the knife behind the ear. Uh. And this
I saw it was a little bit more like, you know,
like that kind of thing. So that seems to me
like depending on how close you're holding your elbow to
your body, like you're gonna chop the top of your
ear off. Well you want to avoid that, but it's
it's more like you're pushing it out rather than throwing
it like a tomahawk. So that's what I thought. Um
(33:05):
mom you on style was like where you're basically like
shoving the knife forward. Well what I saw with that style,
and again all these videos were different, so I don't
know if these people are just I mean, it is
YouTube making it. It's not like they're like, I'm an
accredited thornist. But the MoMu In style looks like they
(33:29):
were having the knife like in their hand, like kind
of in their palm and would throw it. But I
don't know if that was because of the knife, because
the guy on there was like, this is a bo
bo hurrikan spike which is thrown in the MoMu in style.
Then that's what this article said to people really get
into this on online though, right, That's what I did discover.
(33:52):
So the three the three things, those three types thorn style,
mom you on, and Russian style. Those are all styles
of knife throwing. Them all no spin. That's what the
common thread that they all have. Yeah, which is pretty cool.
It is cool. And there's a couple of reasons you
want to do this. The most knife throwers say that's
really tough on the joints after a while, that's what
they say. And um, the reason why is because it
(34:15):
involves like doing crazy like snapping motions with your elbow
and your wrist and stuff. Whereas with knife throwing it's
just a smooth arc you're making it. Almost all of
the motion is in your shoulder and your elbow, your
wrist stays straight, and you just are generally releasing your
grasp on the NiFe right into his ape all day long. Right. Yeah.
(34:36):
With the no spin styles, it is, it's just tougher.
It's more of a snapping motion. That's like you're gonna
get tennis elbow after a while. The reason the advantage
that these have is like, if you're trying to throw
a knife through a hole, you can't have a twelve
inch knife spinning making this twenty four inch arc basically
or circle. Um, you just want to send it straight
(34:57):
like a missile through that hole in to some dude's
leg in his calf, and then you you pounce on him,
put your hand over his mouth and nose until he
falls asleep, and then you can advance further towards the castle. Well,
the the Russian guy I saw was talking about the
(35:19):
first thing you do is find the balance point. So
he held out his finger and put the knife on
it until, you know, like a little sea solid till
he found the exact point. And he's like, there's a
balance point. So once you find out where that is,
that will teach you exactly how to hold it um
in any in any scenario. Basically, I know where the
(35:39):
balance point is though, So whatever you're doing, though, if
if this sounds like something you want to do, whether
it's spin throwing or no spin throwing techniques, the key
to knife throwing of any kind is practice, practice, practice,
And this article actually gives a really good piece of advice.
It says, get a little set of throwing nives, the
(36:00):
best you can afford, because the more expensive they are,
typically with them, the better the more well made they are.
And um, get some, get like I said, of three
or five or whatever, because you're you're going to have
to practice repeatedly. And if you have one knife and
you're standing fifteen feet away, you throw it, you have
(36:21):
to go get it. You throw it again and go
get it. That's not nearly as fun as trying to
throw like five quickly in a row. So you're number one,
you're gonna be more entertained. Um. But also if you do,
no matter how many knives you have, if you start
to lose focus, if you start to get bored or frustrated,
stop because if there's one thing about knife throwing, it's
meant to be fun. And if you're practicing with your friends, uh,
(36:45):
don't they don't stand to the side of the target.
They don't stand directly behind you. UM. I would recommend
they stand well behind you and well to one side
of you. I've got one even better. Don't even don't
even let your friends anywhere near you. You you have
to be alone while you're practicing throwing knives, but you
have to be in text or phone contact with your parents.
(37:07):
We're watching you from a safe distance. Sing it to
your parents. Maybe. So, Uh, you should go and look
at some of these Ralph Thorn videos because the funnies,
the funniest part is, uh, the almost um, not angry,
but just his trudge towards the target afterward is very like,
(37:29):
I don't know, it's weird. He'll jump up in the
air and throw a few and then he's just like
do do do and then walks over and undoes it
from the log like I don't know. All the pizzazz
leaves as soon as he's thrown. That's when you need.
The pizzazz is during the throwing. The rest is just
wasted energy. Yeah, but you don't see throw Deny. That's
the difference between an impalement act and a dudeness backyard
(37:51):
on YouTube. Well, throw DENI has the smarts to hire
an editor to edit that part out. Yeah, it's a
good point. I don't know if we said the great
throw Denie's name. His name is David ed Amovitch and
he's a neat guy. Great name. So if you want
to know more about the great throw Deanie or what's
what's Thorne's first name, Jesse Thorn, the other thing Ralph
(38:14):
Ralph Thorn, or any kind of night throw and go
go check out some videos. Again, do not do this
unless your parents say it's okay, and do it safely.
Don't be stupid and never ever throw any living thing
ever of any kind ever, or Josh and Chuck are
going to be so mad at you. Uh. And in
the meantime, let's listen to some listener Matt, all right,
(38:40):
I'm gonna call this, oh, welcome back to the fold.
This just delighted me. I like this one too. You
know in April it's gonna be ten years, which is
just nutty, nutty, nutty. No one ever thought we'd be
doing this so long. Jerry has an age today, now
she hasn't, but she's taken up more clothes as the podcasts. Uh,
(39:03):
she's getting ready for a gig as a target girl.
Um all right, guys, um, and Jerry, whoever, whoever else
that Stuff you should Know might actually be reading this.
I don't know how famil works, is what she says.
This is how it works. Yeah, we read it. I realized, um,
that the most I'm realistically going to achieve by stating this.
(39:23):
It's making you feel old. But when I was eleven
years old in two thousand eleven, Stuff you Should Know
was my favorite podcast and listen to every episode. Kept
on listening for a couple of years until I was
thirteen when I stopped listening to it, because that's all
we lose them is when they get too cool for school.
That's right. So for those those of your teenagers who
(39:43):
have kept listening through your teen years, we think you're cool.
You're doing it right. Your peers probably don't, but we do.
I have no idea why I stopped guys up until today.
I actually figured you guys must have stopped making it,
and I never bothered to go back and check until today.
Isn't that funny to think back? To think that someone
can think back like, oh remember those guys? Like how
(40:05):
long a daily? Weekly life? So funny. I'm not sure
how to properly put how I feel into words, though, Uh,
because not a lot else from when I was that
age still exist. I grew up with the Internet, but
poking around Google and looking for old sites I used
to just uh, it reveals a trail of deleted accounts
and domain names that no longer resolve. What does she
(40:28):
find an old computer or something? I don't know. Maybe
she's definitely taking a trip down memory lane. I know, man,
I've moved countries, so most of my physical stuff was
either given away or thrown into a landfill across the Atlantic.
The fact that stuff you should know still exists and
it's still making episodes that are just as good as
I remember them being as incredible. Wow, this is crazy.
(40:48):
This is from Hazel. She has to We have a
po box as you can send some Jofa cakes. Oh
this I don't remember if I gave Hazel or address,
well please do. But Hazel, if you're right back, we'll
give you our dress and we can get some chopic cakes.
Thanks for coming back. Yeah, we appreciate that. We're glad
to have kept the home fires burning for you there, Hazel.
I'd like to hear from Sarah. Sarah Sparrow, the amazing
(41:11):
ninety year old fan. Yeah, she's eleven years old. I
think she was at the time. No, she was like
was she like eight or nine? Yeah, I can't remember
when she started. Yeah, but she was really young. Yeah
she became a cool teenage, she definitely did. But maybe
she'll become an actually cool college student in Yeah. Well
thanks a lot, Hazel. Uh, if you left us and
(41:33):
came back and thought it was as good as ever,
we can hear that stuff all day long. You can
tweet to us at josh um Clark or s Y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff You Should Know.
You can send us an email The Stuff podcast at
how stuff works dot com and has always joined us
at her home on the web. Stuff You shnow dot com.
(41:58):
For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com mhm
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