While growing up (a process I probably won’t ever quite complete), I had a fascination with knife throwing. It started young. I remember sitting around campfires on family camp trips. My Dad would invariably engage in one of his favorite pastimes — sharpening a knife with a whetstone and strop.
Next he’d shave with it and carefully clean it afterward. Then came the part I always waited for. He would wink at me and throw the knife with ease but considerable force at a nearby tree. I don’t recall him missing.
I got my first set of matched throwing knives when I was eight. I was already a good marksman with a BB gun and pellet gun, and could break them down, clean and reassemble them with practiced efficiency. There was a big old tough tree in my front yard, and I began practicing on it.
Those first knives weren’t fancy, but they were reasonably well-balanced. My first couple thousand throws were a mite sketchy; after that they smoothed right out. I practiced close and far, at angles and straight on, with a soft throw and with all the force I could muster.
After a while, there were certain distances from which I could attain some consistency, and under Dad’s tutelage I slowly improved. During the next few years he showed me how to hold a knife, gauge the needed rotation, control the throw, and follow through.
Some of my friends came over sporting their own set of throwing knives their folks had bought them to come practice with me. A cousin of mine became nearly as obsessed as I was already. By our teenage years, we were very good.
By then, I had a Bowie knife my uncle had given me, and I built a reputation for power and accuracy with that heavy yet beautifully balanced weapon.
Thinking back, I learned a tremendous degree of discipline and control from that hobby. The frustrating part was, no matter how good I got, my Dad could always walk up, pick up a knife and make a perfect throw that made mine look poor. He was motivating me, and later I did the same thing with my kids.
When I became a pre-teenager and began shaving, my Dad taught me to do like I had seen him do. I was already pretty darned good at sharpening knives, but he taught me a lot more about the precise angles, pressures and strokes on both the whetstone and strop.]
I sure remember that the first couple of times it felt like I was scraping my face off. My Dad chuckled and mentioned to Mom that I would learn to properly sharpen knives a lot quicker than I had learned to throw them because pain is the best teacher in the world. He was right. I learned quickly!
My Dad grew up a mountain man in the mountains of Washington State. In his early teens, he often took his pack, rifle, knives, traps and canteen deep into the mountains for weeks on end. It was he and his Mom living in a cabin, and his trips to hunt, trap and skin were a part of how they got by and made a living. He was good with knives and guns.
In his mid-teens the World War II broke out. Dad somehow convinced the recruiter he was old enough and he went into the infantry. Dad was the perfect point man on patrols because of his prowess in the field, and he became a master sergeant.
He survived, but accumulated numerous scars from bullets, bayonets and shrapnel. I’m glad he did, so I could come into this world.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
