Khukuri knife fighting techniques

let the debates begin!

3 tine vs. 4...

right up there with revolver vs. Auto, 9mm vs. 45, yadda yadda...




:D

Tom
 
Wonder what the kamis could do with a military fork:
ok0i6v.jpg

:cool:
 
gravertom said:
let the debates begin!

3 tine vs. 4...
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"When's the Salad?"

"The salad comes at the end of the meal."

"But that's the fork I know!"

- From "Pretty Woman"

I can give you movie quotes all day........;)

Meanwhile, here's something more relevant: I was looking through various online resources, incl. Wikipedia, and I found that the little-known, North Indian martial art of Kalaripayat has some weapons techniques called vettukathi, described as employing a machete.....or a kukri.
This would seem very topical, since it's geographically closer, in origin, to Nepal than, say, bando is.
 
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Bando's love of the khukri is born out of World War 2. The founder of American Bando kind of looks at the British and Americans as saviors or something for their work in Burma. He's also really into hero worship or something to that effect, so the khukri is almost studied as a nod of respect to the Gurkhas who fought in Burma.
It kinda makes me curious as to what local machete type tool(s) would've been the keystone weapon(s) of pre-WWII Bando.
 
It seems to be something like this:

dha1kk6.jpg


....or this:

arm402.jpg



The generic term for a Burmese sword or knife (and by extension for these weapons), appears to be, "dha."

I also saw at least one, current picture of a Burmese woman using what appears to be a modern machete, so they may not have had a distinctive, broad-bladed design to preserve, in the first place:
DSCN2232_1.JPG
 
Dha was the term we used for the sword, though I think when referring to blade study in general it's called the dha system. I'd thought it more a true sword than a tool, though.
 
I would certainly hesitate to enter a knife fight with Nepali farmer.
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And other comments related to the above
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Growing up on the farm, I used a fodder knife & machete all the time. Hey, I've always loved blades, so when a job came up that needed it, I usually jumped at the chance.

When I started studying swordsmanship, I thought my background might help me. I was wrong. It's possible that I might know how to cut with a long blade better than most beginners, but the body mechanics for defense, moving from the primary guards, footwork, etc., etc., were totally foreign to me.

Just another perspective for what it's worth.
 
I think you're spot on about the total picture of swordsmanship.
I think it's important to note, though, that the stories of farmers cutting off ears and the like aren't duels, it's one guy taking a quick swipe at another guy. It's a quick, close scuffle.
 
I think that, when you have trained long and hard enough, and you have finally let go of techniques and forms, you may come to see that the old Nepali farmer has a lot more going on when he swings his blade than you originally suspected.
 
DannyinJapan said:
I think that, when you have trained long and hard enough, and you have finally let go of techniques and forms, you may come to see that the old Nepali farmer has a lot more going on when he swings his blade than you originally suspected.
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I think the discrepancy is in what is encompassed by swinging the blade. An old farmer certainly knows how to swing a blade. That does not prepare him to defend his life opposite Sasaki Kojiro and his notorious nodachi. A farmer would do fine in a short, close scuffle, but that's not battlefield use. It's not warrior on warrior.
And with respect to the Ghurkas, the khukri isn't a battlefield weapon per se. It is used in battle, yes. But its applications are in confined quarters and often at night. It's more a weapon of ambush and opportunity (and in that use, far superior to that nodachi). In that sense, a swordsman might be inferior to the farmer. Could you imagine a samurai trying to draw in a kami in the middle of a crowded bazaar?
I think I'm taking the longest possible route to say that there's, after some thought, a bit of an apples to oranges comparison here.
 
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