No-spin knife throwing: the 3 methods (video)

Yesterday, after watching these videos, I went out and had my wife mark a pad to determine when I was using one style vs another. I just don't give it (style) much thought when throwing. My accuracy was generally horrible. I had been to the ophthalmologists for a couple of hours of tests and was throwing everything to the right so I spent more time picking up than usual. But I learned: I am throwing all underhand and side hand Thorn style with elbow fully extended and the arm full length. I am throwing long throws Thorn style and shorter ones Russian style when I don't think about it. My back hand is horrible in any style. I knew that and need to spend much more time on it. As I get more tired, I throw Russian more often and shorter ranges without thinking about it. She could never see me using a forward extension with a push. Accuracy seems about the same both ways. I want to check this all again when my eyes are back to speed today or tomorrow.
 
Initially I planned to include the following in the video, but decided against it in the interest of keeping the video concise.

(1) I don't claim to be an expert knife thrower, and I don't claim to have mastered any of these sub-techniques. This video simply shows my best but flawed effort at isolating the no-spin sub-techniques, as I understand them.
(2) The info I present in the video is a simplification of the topic. Everyone, including me, throws with a blend and variety of methods and mechanics. I'm sure if Thorn, Fedin, or Suzuki saw this video, they would find issues and flaws.
(3) I think the similarities of the sub-techniques are probably more valuable than the distinctions. The main purpose of this video is to summarize the distinctions and to point out that no-spin can be achieved with different mechanics. I think there are too many videos that show one way to throw no-spin, and these may give newcomers a limited impression of the sport.
 
I still appreciate what you did here. It at least causes me to think more about how I throw at different distances and height targets. One big thing for me is rotator issues in my left shoulder. I couldn't throw a nice extended arm arc with my left if I tried. It is too painful. So I clearly use different styles even between hands. The biggest problem I see with most folks over here is they try to throw entirely too hard. It is fairly easy to lob a knife with the arm extended. My wife will lob one so slow it looks like a mortar ball arcing. And once it is consistently sticking, it is easy to speed up the arm for more distance and penetration as well as flatter throwing . But these things have to fly spear style no matter which system one uses so you can't just make a rock out of it and blast away unless the target is 6 feet or so away.
 
Pat,

Where did you get that tee shirt?

Recently I did a lot of thinking about elbow mechanics being the way to differentiate these three types of no spin throw and as far as standing at a normal distance and throwing overhand at a target I think you have it right. The nit I would pick would be that the essence of the Thorn style is always wrist action propulsion, which in tight spaces renders arm angle and elbow and shoulder mechanics irrelevant, which is why you see me doing around the back and other strange angle throws easily whereas in other styles people don't do them at all. The vast majority of people just want to stand still from 12 feet away and plunk at a target overhand though.
 
ERT, thanks for watching! I got some Flying Steel t-shirts printed in August. I have L and XL if you're interested.

The Russian technique also uses a wrist flop, which is one of the reasons I didn't mention it - I wanted to give people a very brief differentiation of the methods. My basis for the presentation of your technique was the effective explanation you gave at the Philly seminar. To break the ice, you told people (I paraphrase) "Swing your arm with a simple motion. Don't try to break it into separate mechanics and don't overthink it." Of course, later in the day, you introduced the wrist flop.

So my presentation in this video was a mirror of that initial lesson/explanation you gave, if that makes sense. I think it will be appropriate for me to either reshoot the video or add some text at the end to clarify some of these details and disclaimers.
 
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