Thank you
Those rules are just the product of common sense and a love for the art of the bladed yo-yos.That,and knowing how idiotic many humans can be.
Even back in the old days,those of us from our hometown who carried the balisongs tried to stick to many of these basic "rules".It just made good sense to us,and still make sense to me.
As far as damage to one's self goes,I have a little story of a man we called "Kutz".He was an older guy,probably around his late 40's when we were in our early 20's.It was in the early 80's when the balisong was just hitting it bigtime everywhere."Kutz" was one of the regulars at the knife store where we would all hang out and practice our moves.He was somewhat clumsy at times with his blades.He had many cuts on his hands and a few other places,so we named him Kutz,half for the amount of cuts he had,the other for being such a klutz.
Well,Kutz had a good collection of balisongs,many of which were very expensive customs & production models.All in all,he had about 2 grand worth of blades (if I remember correctly).He also had almost twice this amount in doctor's bills,because he was so clumsy.It wasn't his fault though,it was just that his fingers,eyes & mind didn't all want to work together for long periods of time.
Kutz may have been clumsy,but we respected him for his willpower to continue his attempts to learn all the moves he could possibly learn.We showed him everything we could,and he would learn them..although he still suffered a lot of wounds.
Kutz is the one who had bought the slightly used C.I. 1200 that I had been eyeing.Not long after he bought it,he found a beautiful P.C. that he wanted...but there was a problem.The P.C. had a fully doubled edged blade.There was almost no safe area of the tang at all.
Well,Kutz had to buy it,even though he knew he could never use it without being taught the best possible ways to use the knife without having his fingers sliced off completely.So,he came to me.I taught him every little trick I knew of how to get the edge to graze the skin without letting it actually slice.I taught him all the finger twirls that were safe to do with such a blade,along with all the other safe moves.I even taught him how to use his wrist in conjunction with the move so that even if the edge would touch the skin,it wouldn't slice it at all.
Kutz learned everything,and started having less and less "accidents".For this,he gave me the C.I.,which I still have to this day,and it is named after Kutz.
This just goes to show that no matter how much you get sliced,diced,poked and punctured by the balisong...if you love the knife,you'll continue to learn and grow.It also goes to show that you can always learn new things from others that will help you learn the art of the bladed yo-yos to the best of your ability
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*The* Lunatic Puppy
It wasn't me...It was my *good* twin..
My "inner puppy" made me do it..
