Are you skilled in the art of the BALISONG (butterfly) knife?
 

I've had a balisong since I was young, but never really knew how to open it correctly. I would always bang the hell out of my knuckles or cut myself.

Well I saw a book on the balisong on the net so I thought I'd check it out, and maybe learn how to correctly use the knife.

So far I'm getting pretty good with the basic opening and closing. I still bang up my knuckles occasionaly, but I dulled my knife (a must when learning I think) so no more cuts.

I'd like to learn the ariel opening and closings but I have a feeling I'm a ways away from mastering that type of opening. Mind you none of this is for self-defense, just a cool skill to have.

Anyone here skilled with a balisong that can reccomend a good book or tape?

Any thoughts on the balisong in general?

My roommate had one in college. I got pretty good at opening/closing. Then I slipped, and it landed one foot from my roommate. He didn't let met play with it anymore. He'll still take the knives from my table setting if we go to dinner.

Yea i have one..

The guy at the swap shop showed me how to operate it, everyone does it a lil different actually. you can open the thing no frills, jus pop right open, or you could make it more fancy, which in tern is more intimidating.

eh i sometimes pack it...but the blade has long dulled..

and i've managed to cut my knuckes on two occasions...by opening it the wrong way (how stupid is that :D )

They sure are fun though :)

theres a few good sites with online vids... learned some neat little tricks. once you get basic moves down you can start stringing stuff together.

http://www.balisongxtreme.com/index.htm
http://www.balisong.net/en/techniques.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Lodge/3609/

Just dont lop off any fingers and blame me!

holy SHIT that guy is good

heh heh... yeah... im not quite that good yet... i still dont trust myself to do a throw with em yet. I can do basic stuff with double balisong. I had videos of me somewhere. One I had a bandaid on my finger as well. Almost took off a finger. The night i learned bone isnt all that cool looking.

You barely tell 8 of his fingers are prosthetics.. But seriously, folks, you gotta wonder how many scars that guy has on his fingers...

Balisongs are neat. Most books and videos advise you to tape the blade for safety's sake. Even a dulled blade can cut you.

I love butterfly knives. I played around with one all the time in college. I'm not a master by any means, but I can handle one better than most.

I don't really care for fancy openings, I just flip it open, rotate it, and catch the handle as it comes back. It looks cooler when peopl do tricks and stuff, but I can get mine out in a fifth of the time.

Reminds me, I can open one relatively quickly with the right hand. The left hand keeps looking for a thumb knurl or switch trigger or something. Cannot get it even close to functional with the left hand.

yeah... doing all the neat looking things just is an opening for someone to kick your ass.

I can do alot of the tricks and at one time was learning how to do simultaneous hands different spins, then I realized what a waste of time it would be from a fighting standpoint.

I believe the the fancy-ness of the opening is so that it can be one in many ways while fighting/self defence. There handy just to hold closed in your had for a little extra punch. Same idea as switch blades.... Concealed


to bad there ilegal in canada.

I used to be able to do some cool stuff but have since lost my blade :( oh well, live and learn, I'll pick another one up when I can find one that doesnt wobble all over the place.

Try www.knifezilla.com thats where im gunna get me next few.
And the pins do get wobbly, there's some good fix's for that on that balisongxtreme page.

Thanks to EXODUS for those links. They were very helpful.

I picked up a training balisong (Benchmade) which is invaluable in my opinion for learning ariel openings. The "blade" is thicker and flat all the way around so there is no edge to cut yourself with.

Anyway about a week ago I picked up my real balisong which was next to the training one and opened it and closed it in quick succession. Only after it was closed did I realize I had the live one AND was holding the free handle. Now, the worst part wasn't the cuts in my knuckle and finger, but having to wait 'til the cuts healed, since the handle of the blade hit right where the cuts were when opening the knife.

Now if you catch your knuckle hard normally when opening it can certainly hurt, but with a cut it's extremely painful. So, no practice for me for a week. Live and learn.

If done that a few times. yea, it really does put of practise for a while eh. I never had one of thoose training ones i've had ones that were really dull, but if you open it fast enough and slam your fingers they still manage to do quite a number.

Yea, try bringing your wrist back with the knife, you shouldn't have much of an impact.

I dunno, when i cut my knuckles i still played with my butterfly knife :P

practice, practice, practice, and a important tip buy a cheapy the same size and weight of your kife and take the blade down with a file lets you practice with your knife and not practice bleading or bandaging. I carry a four inch double edge sharpened bali almost always

Some of those moves are incredibly dificult, and even with the diagrams I have nooooooo idea what they are doing to make it look so sweet, I guess I just suck, *shrug*

Trust me you don't suck. It's difficult to learn it with a book. I picked up a video about a week ago and am finding that I'm learning alot quicker than with the book I had.

The only problem is that I think I'm getting pretty darn good with the standard opening and closing, but I still don't look nearly as smooth as the instructor in the video.

Oh well, I guess you do have to practice, practice, practice.

Another thing as i was looking throught books and videos is that i always forget to practise with my other hand,... So when i think im getting pretty good with one opening i realize i want to be good with both, and for me, my left hand is a helluva lot harder.

Hmm....I like to play with an old butterfly I picked up from a friend....and I like the moves showing the knife flipped and held with the blade close to the wrist instead of out. I always feel more secure with the knife blade that way. Unfortuanately I am just not as fast flipping it out that way. Maybe its a mental block.

if you carry a knife to impress people with your dexterity, then go with a butterfly, but, if you carry a knife to use it, get a halo.

I don't know. I think that's a general misconception about the balisong. While it's true that if you're proficient with one you can certainly impress people, the fact is that a person good with a balisong can open one just as fast as a folder.

Plus the twin handle design covers the blade entirely. So even if you have a double-edged blade, you can safely carry it in your pocket. When open the handles lock over a pin on the tang of the knife that's going to be stronger the any folding knife's locking system on the market.

So there are deffinitely more advantages to the balisong than just impressing people.

And about the Halo. Do you mean the Microtech Halo? It's the only knife called Halo I found when I did a search on yahoo. If that's the case, it's on OTF which is probably going to be faster to open than any other type of knife. However, it's also illegal in most states unless you're with military or government. So most can't get one.