How did all of you start manipulating balisong knives??

Picture this: The year was 1994, and I had recently finished high school. I was visiting a very good friend of mine (who had done more living by the age of 19 than most people do all their lives, truly a unique individual). This particular evening, five of us had been hanging out, watching taped episodes of DS9, enjoying the occasional brew & BT, playing some chess ... immensely relaxing evening. :cool: At one point, "J" & "K" were very deep into a game of chess, "M" & "G" were watching TV snow, and I happened to see, lying on his coffee table, a brass-handled butterfly (In retrospect, I think it might have been a Taylor or Valor, but I haven't seen another one quite like it since). I picked it up, and fiddled ... and fiddled.

Ah, I'm getting all misty from the nostalgia ...
:)
 
Well i was first introed to the bali by my friends brother. We were camping and were at the camp fire. I was carving wit my imatation swiss army knife and i see him bust out with a knife. I was stuned... KOOL i said. After the trip i forgot all bout it.:barf: But like 4 yrs ago i rembered all bout the bali thz to face/off, my bro was alwaz on ebay buying stuff so one day when he went away from the comp i typed in butterfy knife and it came up. A whole list of china cheapys.I was like:D So i asked him to buy one for me. He did and for that week i was checking the mail almost every second. I was like 11 that time. When it finally came i didnt know what to do with it. After coming across Clay's wonderful page as with most of us i was hocked. A few months later my house was robed. All i cared about was my cheap china balli...........it was gone i was heart broken. My hosue was rob 3 times all in bout a 6 months Sometime that week i ordered my jag.When i got it the pins broke after a few days.I had a head notice from this forum that jags are bad cause of their cehapy hollow pins but after a good pining job they wre once again decent. It broke and thz to Clay;s page the repinning part i was off to the hard ware store.I bought all the supplys he said i needed it cost about 30$ to buy all i needed. I thought why spend so much to fix a knife of 25$. So i decided to buy anohter bali..this was a valor i think with the black coated blade and the wavey handles. I also bought a book called "The Advanced Balisong Manual by Jeff Imada" which is a great book but i dont think its the best for learning how to flip i thought it was great for learning self defense with it. But all in all i learnd from Clay's page and a little from the book. I now need to get a good bali like a benchmade 42 or sumthing in that range but i need to get the money first.:D Until then im stuck wit my jag which is still fliping but its going to die soon so i need to get a good bali that wont die on me.:D


-Brian:cool: sorry so long i got into it and like 1 hour ago my house was like atacked by people with fireworks they lite off a strip of black cats at my front door and i was pissed and my mom called the cops and had the cop talk to me and my bro bout us runing out and cussing at the people who did light off the fireworks but we didnt knoe who it was so i was just yelling at like 11 pm . so im really still pissed so i decided to kool off by typeing all this thz for reading.:D
 
My older brother bought a couple of cheap balisongs when we were on vacation in France, when I was maybe 6 or 7 y/o, and I used to watch him play with it. Years later (I must have been 10 or 12 y/o), when my parents had rented the same house in France, I found a small all stainless tanto handmade knife on a market. I couldn't flip it, so I lost interest. I had bought Sonny Umpad's book on bali manipulation after that, but couldn't get any of the moves down :(

Now, a year ago, I found one of my brother's china cheapies in a drawer, opened the book again, got one opening down, and hurt my knuckles like they had never been hurt before, but I just couldn't quit flipping :D
I searched the net and found Clay's site, and Bladeforums, and I got more and more interested in these knives :)
Now, at 19 y/o, I know a couple of openings and throws, but that's it.
I'm trying to get those pesky fingertwirls down, because they look so nice.
 
Better late than never!:rolleyes:
I got my first bali when I was 8, My parents where really cool about me having and making weapons. Oh of course the movies played a big part in the inspiration, but most of it came from studying MA and Gymnastics since I was 6 or 7. Since then I've been involved in just about every sport (with the exception of Football, Basketball, and Jai Alai):D Anyway the human body and it's motions are my main interest. I even invented a flip I call the balisong.
 
I don't remember when I first saw a bali in a movie, but it was in 1984 or something.

But I knew it was a bali (not the name, but the design) watching Code Name Wild Geese .. then I saw Imada's Advanced book in a magazine.

Before I got my first bali, I flipped it in my mind, using Tom Cody (Streets of Fire) double flip closing technique .. and one day : TADA, I got my first Korean Kamikaze ...

never stop flipping since then ...
 
Simple I needed to add one to my growing knife collection so I bought a cheapie. I didn't like it for months until I found Clay's site and completely fell in love with them.
 
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