M Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select, I've chosen a member of our surprisingly extensive circus art suite, our episode on knife throwing, thanks to Laverne and Shirley. I always thought it was a gimmick, not actually real, but boy, did this episode open my eyes. I hope it opened your eyes too, to the awesomeness of knife throwing. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Chuck Bryant, and there's this stuff you should all right, this bears some explanation. So I was doing my Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle of Impression, which one is Stevie. He was the kid in the wheelchair who's like breathed like that, who talked like that because he he had serious asthma. Yeah, he remember him. Was he just like a classmate? Yeah? He was like his best friend, I believe I remember. I like, I like that show that. Yeah, well that's not what I was doing. Really. No, we're slightly out of breath because we just had a fire alarm. Yeah, we had to walk down four stairs four flights of stairs and not like this, the one, the kind of flight where it's like down, landing down again, the two flights. Yeah, so we walked down eight flights of stairs and then walked back eight more. Right when we got down, stopped and immediately turned around to go back in. It was ridiculous. It was the kind of thing that makes you say, maybe I will only next time. It was a fire alarm. I was prepared to hide in the studio and keep working. Yeah, we thought about it, but there's a fire marshal who works here, so you can't can't run a foul him. Man, he got on that orange best quick changes everything. So I ever heard of those guys that sneak into places with those vests? Yes, I have, I don't is there a name for what I think these? I'm sure more than one person has done this, But there's these two guys in particular who uh kind of got I don't know about famous, but made a name for themselves for putting on the orange vests and saying basically like, if you wear one of these, you can get in anywhere you want. Amost, if you have orange vest on, you look like you're supposed to be there. Well, yeah, you gotta have that steely sense of nerve and Alwaukie talkie is probably a good thing to have to Yeah, but they can go anywhere because the orange vest guy that means that's something's wrong in the orange vest guy has to take care of it. Yeah, Like they showed pictures in the in front of a I can't remember what show it was, but a big, big concert where they were in that buffer area between the people in the stage, right, yeah, and fred Durst is like, oh, there's an orange guest, the best guy. Something must be going on. What year was a h This would been two thousand two maybe the fred Dorst ears Great Years, the Wonder Years. Right, Well, man, I'm hot now too. I'm I feel good. I got like that, got the endorphins fall and this is gonna be a cool episode, buddy. Well the irony is I so grossly out of shape. I started getting on the peloton yeah last week, so I've been and this is not a plug for pellets, I guess it is, but it's not an ad, but I've been getting on that thing. So my legs are ham rubber rubber band hams right now. Anyway, Yeah, Hey, y'all prepare yourself for the rubber band ham. That's hey, will you indulge me for one moment? Oh man, I've been waiting for you to ask me that for a long time. Alright, So I've got the old side get going with Movie Crush, my podcast where every Friday I sit down with someone awesome and talk about their favorite movie and kill it. Thank you. But I have now added a second weekly episode that publishes on Monday called Mini Crushes, And that's where I just sit in here with producer Noel. He's sort of the omniscient voice of God, uh, and he sort of chimes in, and I source a lot of questions from Facebook to the Movie Crush Facebook page, um listener mails, I do recommendations. It's just a really interactive fan based experience. So I want to plug the Mini Crushes and let everyone know that. Yesterday I dropped a very special mini Crush, which was The Chuck and it's Emily's podcast debut. Oh congratulations, man, that's right. It's called The Chuck and Emily drink wine uh and talk about the Oscar nominations. Oh yes, yeah, So we recorded this thing at home. We put the kid to bed and broke out some nice wine and did our pre Oscar round up, So that dropped yesterday, and then next Monday, the day after the Oscars, we're going to have our post Oscar round up where we talked about who won and what the speeches were like and who wore it best. That's awesome, man, Emily is going to be a star. Chuck. Yeah, she was actually pretty great. And if you want a little peek behind the merrital curtain, uh, this is this is your chance. So yeah, if you could check out movie Crush on Apple podcasts or where we get your podcasts. Nice man, do you feel indulged? Very much? Good? All right, let's talk about knife throwing. So I'm a little psyched about this because knife throwing taps into my ninja training that I did under Tommy Roper as I'm sure I've mentioned before, uh reading about this researching it. I never threw knives. We never made it that far, and maybe now I'll be I'll be hang gliding throwing knives at the same time. I'm going to get into both at once. But I did a little throwing star stuff. Throwing star is like the dummies, Uh, knife throwing because that thing always sticks, right, Yeah, I mean, depending on how many spikes you got coming off of it, and how many beers you've had, um, and and whether the tree is actually like a metal pole or not, you're probably gonna stick a throwing star. Throwing a knife is an entirely different endeavor, and it's something that anybody can do. That Nicholas Jerbis or Gervous never met him yet. Um, he points out, this is actually kind of like a low hanging hobby that you could. You can get a set of knives for ten fifteen bucks apiece. You probably one about five is well, we'll explain why, um, maybe six. You just practice, get yourself a good block of wood, and practice, and anybody can do this. It's not like you're born to throw knives. You practice and if you like it, you keep going and you just get better and better at it, and you can impress your friends and neighbors. Yes, and here's the point in the show where we issue our c o A. Kids, if you're out there, do not go get a steak knife from your drawer and start throwing it at your dog. That is not a throwing knife. And never throw anything at your dog. Kids, I will come find you. Yeah, never throw anything at anybody that's sharp. But um, throwing knives are built to throw. They're weighted and balanced to throw. They're not like regular old knives. And we'll get into all that. But just if you really want to try throwing knives, go ask mom and dad or Tommy Roper and get ready, get ready for a no, and then and then play them this podcast where it is an actual um circus art. And please, for the love of God, tell me this is the last one. I don't think of the circus arts. No, it's not. What else is? There's a bunch we've done the Globe of Death, flame swallowing lions, aiming swords, swallowing sword swallowing. H we did circus families, just straight up circus families. Human cannonball has got to be it. I don't think so, man. I think it's going to keep going into clouns clowns for sure. Yeah, um, they haven't. Don't want to p T Barnum though, No, you mean Hugh Jackman, what is it, Chuck Stradomas, I don't know something like that. I make one lucky casting call predict, one sexual predator and one bad Lifetime movie or what what was shark Nato sci fi sci fi movie? Three Little Things? That's all. That doesn't make me Nuxtra Domans haven't won the lottery yet. I think of all the things I have said that didn't come true right way more. Yeah, I guess that's true. You know, yeah, whatever writes in and well that didn't happen, right, you really got that. Actually, they do right in to tell us we got stuff wrong a lot. That's so we're gonna take this seriously because we want you ten year olds out there who want to get your parents to let you do this, to to see that you're taking this seriously by listening to this podcast. First. Okay, that's right. So what we're talking about specifically is known as uh somewhat ironically as an impalement act um, which is really weird thing to call it. It's well, it's um, yeah, it really is. I think it's a little tongue in cheek, you think, because the point is to not right, The point is to not impale somebody with this kind of thing, right, that's right. And and impalement acts are an umbrella term that cover not just knife throwing but bull whip cracking, oh, shoot, sharp shooting, archery, William tell kind of thing. All of those fall under the the umbrella term of impalement acts. Jerry's undressing over there to our left, she got very hot in the fire drop. Um. All right, so this goes back if we can get back on the way back machine, Um, all the way back to the late nineteenth century. We to go back here further than that. Are you gonna go like to ancient times? No? No, We'll still will just go to the nineteenth century because I'm sure Chinese people in ancient times through stuff that's stuck in walls. Well, I looked at I looked up the oldest knife and started everything. Apparently they did. Apparently they found the oldest knife five thousand years ago. Oh, the oldest knife knife. So we've been using knives longer than there have been modern humans, yeah, for sure. And then we at some point, probably about four hundred and ninety nine thousand years ago, we started throwing knives because it's stabbing is okay, but throwing a knife is when you really can come to appreciate what a knife does, okay, And there was nothing better in it, like an eighties movie. Then when like James Bond through a knife and I got a guy or American ninja. That's what I was trained on. Um. All right, so wild uh wild West shows, Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Shows travel throughout the United States, throughout Europe. Um knife throwing became a big spectacle at things like this, as well as obviously sharp shooting and ye probably archery. They probably did all the impalement arts. They definitely did um and they really brought it to the world, um to the to the point where you can just basically say that's where it started, was Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Yeah. And this is one of those things where, through a modern lens, it it is incredibly misogynistic to think about the fact that you say, hey, let me take a scantily clad woman, a target girl, yeah that's what they call him, a target girl, and throw knives at her. Yeah, just stand there, throw knives near her. It's always a lady. She's always got on like a bikini or something. She's just like almost like wild West steampunk renaissance fair thing, right, you know, just to cover all of the all of the geek boys dreams and desires. Right, But when you look at it to the modern lens, it's like, man, that that is totally misogynistic to Uh, that is the act. Um, it's got a burlesque thing going on. Yeah sure, I mean you can see what they're trying to do is is toillate to the young boys in the audience. They're trying to sell tickets, and it probably wouldn't have sold as many tickets if they just had build a farmhand with a balloon in his mouth getting popped, you know. I mean, it's still pretty cool. You're still seeing the same thing. But yeah, it's just basically tradition and customed to have a scantily clad woman as your target girl. Again, that's what they call him, is the target girl, and that is the one of the two people involved in this impalement act. That's right. Um, we mentioned the balloon in the mouth. That was one of the big tricks. There was a German husband and wife named the Gibsons who introduced the very famous wheel of death in at the Ringling Brothers show at in Madison Square Garden. Have you seen this? Oh yeah, okay, So I had seen stuff like with knife throwing before, and I thought Flee Circus was another one. Do you remember our Flee Circus episode where it turns out that Flee Circus has actually involved real fleas. That was the best of the circus arts, and everybody thought it was like, no, it's magnets or just your imagination power of suggestion, and that's just not the case. The same thing applies to knife throwing impalement acts. Like I always thought, did you really? Yeah? I thought I think there was like a Happy Days or something like that where somebody gets volunteered. There's definitely an I Love Lucy with a knife act where she's the target girl. But there's some show where maybe Laverne and surely not I think about it. Anyway, the guys throwing them and like the knives are coming out of the backboard around them, So it's all an illusion, right, That is not true. In knife acts, you're if you're the target girl, a dude is throwing twelve inch long, extremely sharp, pointy knives right at your head and it's trying to get his close as possible to you without hitting you. And again it's not just that's just the profile where they're throwing knives around you and making like a chalk outline of your of your body. That's the profile. But there's other ones, like holding a cigarette in your mouth and knocking the ash off with a knife, or you're holding a flower in your mouth and they slowly like cut the stem off piece by piece. There's some some pretty interesting things that people have done with knife acts. Yeah, sometimes, and this is the riskiest of all moves. Riskier even more so than the Wheel of death is when they do the and they covered the target over with paper. Yeah, the veiled wheel of death, so you can't even see that spinning who is behind there? You just have to have it timed completely perfectly right. But if you take a step back and think about this, there is nothing about that act that should allow you to say, oh, if I throw like this, I will I will miss the person because they're spinning, so you have to know where their body is at every second. But you've taken away how you know that, which is your vision because they're behind a big sheet of paper that you're throwing knives through. And there's this guy who will talk about it a little further. His name is the Great throw Denie. I love this guy. Uh he he has done something. It's probably the most dangerous, most impressive knife throwing act anyone's ever done. He did the veiled wheel of death with two target girls on it. So he has two girls strapped to a board, spinning behind a big piece of paper that he can't see them through, and he's throwing knives at them. Yes, very fast. The guy threw him on an average of a knife every point five nine seconds, UM, and he didn't hit either one of them. Amazing. It is amazing. It's so amazing. I think we should take a break and re regroup. We're back. We just watched uh one hour of grade thirteen even videos. Uh. He apparently caught on like in its fifties. Yeah. I was like, hey, I'm pretty good at this. Back in just I guess somebody was like, maybe have you tried throwing knives? And he said no, I haven't, And they were like, well, tried throwing knives and he said, well, fine, I will. A couple of weeks later, he tried throwing knives and he said I really like this. Um. He said it felt natural and right. So he started throwing knives and entered competitions and UM started winning. I think he became world champion. With him like two years he beat the other four people. Uh, and then he said, you know what, this is fun and all like these competitions, but I think I want to try and act like an old throwback impalement act. So we started one when by tuxedo and basically bought his wife Barbara target girl. Get up that his uh target girl one of them. Yeah, I think she may have been the original one. Uh. Taught her to smoke cigarettes so he could knock the ash off of the end of him. And there you go. Impalement act achieved. But not only that, Chuck like the guy is like legitimately the best knife thrower on the planet. Well, he's one of them. He holds a record for fastest. But boy, you go down a YouTube rabbit hole and to like people like Ralph Thorne and better than Great Thordini. Huh, well Great Thordini does the impalement act as in the Circus art. Ralph Thorn is like, if you're running through the woods chasing somebody, I haven't seen this guy and this is well that's the Thorn style. We'll get into those styles later, okay, but um yeah, he will like bunch himself off of a tree stump in the air and throwing behind his back. And see now that's basically the training I was. Yeah, yeah, like martial arts, real world, suburban neighborhood dangers. There's a raccoon. Oh no, no, no, no, you're not throwing a raccoons. Um, alright, so the raccoon comes at me. Well sure, okay, Um, here's what you need if you if you're gonna throw a knife, you need a throwing knife. Throwing knife. Like I said, it's not a steak knife. It is very much made to be thrown. It is balanced so that you throw it. And we'll talk about the different ways that they're balanced. But one thing they're not is sharp on the sides. Yeah they're very pointy, but um they're dull on the edges because you're gonna a lot of times to be throwing it by that blade. Um, so get a knife for throwing. The old saying, Um, sharp of point, sharper point is the point, sharp of edge? It doesn't It does you no good? That old Yeah, that's a great thing. Like that should go on a T shirt. You should so. Um, yeah, you want a sharp point. But there's there's nothing about a sharp edge that's going to help you in any way, shape or form, because the whole point again is the point that's gonna stick into that end of whatever that target is, which is usually a block of wood. Right. So, um, depending on where how you're going to throw it, you want to throw the heavy end first. And there's a reason for this. The reason is is that, if you want to get technical about it, velocity equals um distance divided by time, right. And when you're throwing a knife, especially the heavy end first, the heavy end has traveled a further distance in the same amount of time than the lighter end. This friends creates something very parting a knife throwing, although not fundamental, which is spin. Okay, And so if you throw the throw the knife, you're gonna throw it either blade end or handle end. And the end regards what you're holding when you throw it. And if you're holding say a knife handle, and you're throwing it from the handle end, you're the front of the knife. The point is going to be weighted. It's going to be heavier so that that starts the spin. If you're throwing it blade first, the handle itself will be heavier so that will start the spin. And there's a couple of different depending on which way you're throwing. There's a the spin is going to take place over this the course of um a very short distance actually, and so let me let me just back up a second here. There's there's some factors involved. Okay. They are distanced to target, length of NiFe, weight and balance and then knife type. Right, So the distance the target is going to is going to tell you what type of throw you want. That's right. Um, the kind of knife. Uh, they say, for every good rule of thumb here, just throw it out. But they do mention a rule of thumb regardless. That says a blade that weighs about one ounce per inch, so in this per inch of your the whole knife. Yeah, so um, they shouldn't. Well, you can throw it ever you want, but ten to sixteen ounces is a good starter knife, uh, you know, and about that long or maybe twelve to four fourteen inches and about that many ounces is where you want to start off as a beginner. And all kinds of shapes too, Like some of them are like little spears. Uh, some have multiple points more like throwing stars. Uh. They really run the gamut right and the um. So depending on how you're gonna throw, whether it's a handle throw or a blade throw. The weight of the knife is going to be either in the handle or the blade. It's going to be the opposite of where you're holding the knife. Um. And if you throw holding the blade, you're going to throw a half turn. It's a half turn throw right. And the reason they call it that is because the knife only makes one half turn. The blade straightens out from your hand toward the target, and then that's the only turn it makes. Yeah, it's not like in the movies a lot of times you'll see you go right and turn like nine times and stick the guy in the forehead. That's really not what you're doing with knife throwing. No, it's basically if you if you're throwing it by the blade, it's gonna make one half turn and that's it. So you if your blade throwing, you would stand closest to the target, right, So if some guys coming at you dressed as a raccoon and you know he's gonna hurt you and you can throw a knife and he's real close, you would throw by the blade. That's right. Uh. And in fact, I don't even know if it's possible bowl to throw a knife like they do in the movies that I don't think so just tumbles because every video I saw there, like you try and prevent tumbling as much as you can, Like that's the whole game. It's too because physics says that a revolving object that suddenly breaks free will continue to move in a straight line tangential to the point at which it's released. In other words, that release points a little tricky. You know, you gotta dial that in. But we'll get to that too. And on the actual throwing right, um, so the uh. The next the next furthest away from the target is if you're holding the the knife by the handle and you're throwing it, it's going to make that's a full turn, full spin uh, to where the blade goes from facing the target, facing away from the target, and back to facing the target in time to stick into that target and not embarrassing he bounce off because it hit the blade or the handle first. But it's very humiliating, so humility. Uh. And then the last one is the furthest thrown away And it's about the most you would ever want a blade to turn, which is two times. That's about thirty ft or about ten meters away from your target. You could possibly get it to spin twice, but usually you just wanted to spin once or half and that's it. Yeah, And uh, did you say a half turns about seven or eight feet. I don't think I did. I just said it was the closest. Yeah, about seven or eight feet. It depends full spin about twelve to fifteen And like you said, the the great throw Dni double Bondini double twist is up to Yeah. Although one of these other throws that we're gonna get into, this thorn throw. One of the benefits is you can throw from anywhere, supposedly. So we're gonna take one more break and then we're gonna come back and teach you a little bit about throwing and then, uh, what to look for in a good knife. Okay, so you've got you know about how close you want to stay into the target, depending on whether you're holding the knife by the blade or the handle. The good thing is is there are a couple of different grips, but they're very similar. So if you're like, I want to get into blade throwing first because that looks pretty cool, you're going to basically pinch the blade of the knife and remember these are not sharp edges, so you should be fine if you do. If you I saw, if you are using a sharp edge knife, you want to hold the blunt end. But you don't want to do that. You don't even want to do that, so so it doesn't really matter which way you're holding it. But if you if it is sharp on what edge, hold the other edge and you're just basically pinching it between your your thumb and your first three fingers just a little pitch. Yeah, it's just just a teeny pinch. Maybe stick your pinky out for effecture, all right, and that that's the blade throw. Yeah, and you've already got your target. By the way, at this point, I know you mentioned a block of wood, but they recommend um aims small. What does it start? Small? Aim small? Yeah, which is don't don't You don't need a tree trunk um sliced up and put on a wall like you just need, like whatever, a little twelve inch by twelve inch block of wood. Or maybe if you want to screw a bunch of wood together and then draw a target on there, that's fine too. Yeah, you should probably glue though, because the screws might your your knife might bounce off of them. Yeah, you know if you're using metal screws, okay, as opposed to the traditional wooden dell right, so umptail joint right, So the the that's the what did I say, that's the blade throw? Right, yeah, you did blade throw. There's a handle throw too, and this one is called a hatchet throw or hammer throw or the handle throw you could call it to and everybody all know what you're talking about. Yeah, and you stand, uh, you're a little further back for this one because you've got your your full turn going uh, and then you just grip it like a baseball beat and swing away right right, close your eyes, and you hope for the best, say ninja strike, right yeah yeah. So um. The cool thing is what you were saying about starting small, aiming small, is that when you when you figure out that there's actually just a few mechanics going on here, you'll be able to tell what part of your throw is actually off, whether it's distance, whether it's when you're releasing, whether it's um how you're gripping it. The problems are, the issues with your throw will show up, and you'll be able to read based on how the knife is landing or sticking? What's wrong with your throw? Yeah? Like if you are throwing I think blade first and it sticks, but it's sticking at a really hard angle where the where the handle is pointing down. Then they say, maybe just move back six inches with your stance, is it? Yeah, you're right, You're right, and then try it again. Yeah, because that means that you're the knife didn't get its full rotation right. You wanted to basically be sticking straight out perpendicular to the target. Yeah, that's a correct throw or as you're as you're learning to do this. Yeah. And did you say that it's generally your opposite leg of your throwing hand forward? Oh yeah, so so yeah, so the stance, yeah, I mean generally. But then again I also saw this Russian guy that through with his throwing leg or the same leg as a throwing hand forward, and he was like, you know it all works basically. Was this thing good? I knew you had the Italian thing going on, but Russian was good. Oh yeah, I can I can do that. So let's get into of the throw them. Okay, so the stance, I should say, So with the with the stance, you're standing with your Um, you're you're throwing arm. The leg opposite you're throwing arm is closest to the target, kind of like you're throwing a dart, you know. Um, yes, okay, like that. Well, actually that's not quite true when I throw it. When you throw a dart, your you're the leg that is, the foot that is on the line, is the same side as your throwing hand, is it. Yeah, okay, well this is the opposite of that. Maybe I've been throwing darts wrong all this time. So the so the the leg opposite you're throwing arm is the one you want closest to the target traditionally, right, Traditionally your weight is on your back leg, though, is you're throwing, and what you're doing is you're gripping the knife however you want to blade or handle either way. You line it up right with your eye against the target, bring your arm back behind your head, and then keeping your wrists straight. You don't want to flip your wrist or anything like it. You bring it in an arc in front of you, and you finish like you are shaking somebody's hand. If you're going, hey, how are you right? But I got a knife? Right? The thing is here's the thing. You're gonna want to release at that handshake part when your hand is straight out in front of you, and you're gonna find nothing but heartache trying to throw a knife like that. Oh, if you release it right at the end. Oh no, it goes it'll go straight down, right, it'll go down in front of you. Because when you release an object that's going in an arc, it wants to go straight in a tangential line from the the the top of the arc. Right, that's right. So you want to release it at the top of the arc. So that is I was practicing just in the air, trying to to make my brain release it at the top, and that is really difficult to do because you think initially that the nicest gonna go shooting up into the air. It's not. It's gonna go straight. That's right. Pretty neat stuff, that's right. And this is just I don't even know what the traditional throw was called to you, I know, I didn't see a name for it. Well, there are some other throws which I might as well go ahead and mention I've teased. One is the aforementioned thorn style from Ralph Thorne. Okay, that's named after a dude is named after a dude. Either way, it sounds cool. Yeah this one, Um, did you see this one at all? Inline? I didn't see that one. I kind of had an idea of what they were talking about based on the article. Yeah, they say that it resembles spear throwing. The action, Um, I guess, and that you're you're not taking the knife like behind your ear. You're sort of just extending your whole arm and doing a big almost like you're throwing a baseball pitch. Sure, that's what I imagine. Yeah, that's what. It sort of looked like, a side arm, sort of like a bunch of people were doing it different. And then this guy's jumping all over behind his back like Thorne style seems to be two just do whatever you want. Okay, that's not true. Thorne's probably just like so angry right now. He's like, yeah, come out. Uh. Then there was the Russian style and this look it's a very compact um, the elbow is in near the body, you hold the knife behind the ear. Uh. And this I saw it was a little bit more like, you know, like that kind of thing. So that seems to me like depending on how close you're holding your elbow to your body like you're gonna chop the top of your ear off. Well you want to avoid that, but it's it's more like you're pushing it out rather than throwing it like a tomahawk. So that's what I thought, Um Moon you on style was like where you're basically like shoving the knife forward. Well what I saw with that style, And again, all these videos were different, so I don't know if these people are just I mean, it is YouTube making it. It's not like they're like, I'm an accredited thornist. But the MoMu In style looks like they were having the knife like in their hand, like kind of in their palm and would throw it. But I don't know if that was because of the knife, because the guy on there was like, this is a bo bo shurrikan spike which is thrown in the Momuen style. And that's what this article said to people really get into this online online though, right, That's what I did discover. So the three the three things, those three types thorn style, Momuan and Russian style, those are all styles of knife throwing that involved no spin. That's what the common thread that they all have yeah, which is pretty cool. It is cool, And there's a couple of reasons you want to do this. The most knife throwers say that's really tough on the joints after a while. Yeah, that's what they say. And um, the reason why is because it involves like doing crazy like snapping motions with your elbow and your wrist and stuff. Whereas with knife throwing, it's just a smooth arc you're making it. Almost all of the motion is in your shoulder and your elbow, Your wrist stays straight, and you just areally generally releasing your grasp on the NiFe. Right, do this into his ages all day long? Right? Yeah? That with the no spin styles, it is, it's just tougher. It's more of a snapping motion. That's like you're gonna get tennis elbow after a while. The reason the advantage that these have is like, if you're trying to throw a knife through a hole, you can't have a twelve inch knife spinning making this twenty four inch arc basically or or circle. Um, you just want to send it straight like a missile through that hole into some dude's leg, into his calf, and then you you pounce on him. Put your hand over his mouth and nose until he falls asleep, and then you can advance further towards the castle. Well, the Russian I saw was talking about the first thing you do is find the balance point. So he held out his finger and put the knife on it until, you know, like a little until I found the exact point. And he's like, there's a balance point. So once you find out where that is, that will teach you exactly how to hold it, um in any in any scenario. Basically, I know where the balance point is though, So whatever you're doing, though, if if this sounds like something you want to do, whether it's spin throwing or no spin throwing techniques, the key to knife throwing of any kind is practice, practice, practice, And this article actually gives a really good piece of advice. It says, get a little set of throwing knives, the best you can afford, because the more expensive they are, typically with them, the better the more well made they are. And um, get some, get like I said, of three or five or whatever, because you're you're going to have to practice rep eatedly. And if you have one knife and you're standing fifteen feet away you throw it, you have to go get it. You throw it again, go get it. That's not nearly as fun as trying to throw like five quickly in a row. So you're number one, you're going to be more entertained. Um. But also if you do, no matter how many knives you have, if you start to lose focus, if you start to get bored or frustrated, stop because if there's one thing about knife throwing, it's meant to be fun. And if you're practicing with your friends, uh, don't they don't stand to the side of the target. They don't stand directly behind you. Um, I would recommend they stand well behind you and well to one side of you. I've got one even better. Don't even don't even let your friends anywhere near you. You you have to be alone while you're practicing throwing knives, but you have to be in text or phone contact with your parents who are watching you from a safe distance, streaming it to your parents. Maybe. So, Uh, you should go and look at some of these Ralph Thorn videos because the funniest, the funniest part is uh the almost um not angry, but just his trudge towards the target afterward is very like I don't know, it's weird. He'll jump up in the air and throw a few and then he's just like do do do and then walks over and undoes it from the log like, I don't know. All the pizzazz leaves as soon as he's thrown. Yeah, that's when you need. The pizzazz is during the throwing. The rest is just wasted energy. Yeah, but you don't see throw Denie. That's the difference between an impalement act in a dude in his backyard on YouTube. Well, throw Denie has the smarts to hire an editor to edit that part out. Yeah, you know, it's a good point. I don't know if we said the great throw Denie's name. His name is David ed Amovitch and he's a neat guy. Great name. So if you want to know more about the great throw Denie or what's what's Thorne's first name, Jesse Thorn and the other thing Ralph Thorne, Ralph Thorn, or any kind of nice throw and go go check out some videos. Again, do not do this unless your parents say it's okay, and do it safely. Don't be stupid, and never ever throw any living thing ever of any kind ever or Josh and Chu are going to be so mad at you. Ah. And in the meantime, let's listen to some listener. Man. All right, I'm gonna call this, oh, welcome back to the fold. This just delighted me. I like this one too. You know in April it's gonna be ten years, which is just nutty, nutty, nutty. No one ever thought we'd be doing this so long. Jerry has an age today, now she hasn't, but she's taken up more clothes as the podcasts. Uh, she's getting ready for her a gig as a target girl. Um all right, guys, um and Jerry, whoever, whoever else that Stuff you should Know might actually be reading this. I don't know how fam will work. This is what she says, this is how it works. Yeah, we read it. I realized, Um, that the most I'm realistically going to achieve by stating this. It's making you feel old. But when I was eleven years old in two thousand eleven, Stuff you Should Know was my favorite podcast and listen to every episode. Kept on listening for a couple of years until I was thirteen, when I stopped listening to it because that's what we lose them is when they get too cool for school. That's right. So for those those were your teenagers who have kept listening through your teen years, we think you're cool. You're doing it right. Your peers probably don't, but we do. I have no idea why I stopped guys up until today. I actually figured you guys must have stopped making it, and I never bothered to go back and check until today. Isn't that funny to think back? To think that someone can think back like, oh, remember those guys? Like I wonder how long are last? Daily weekly life? So funny. I'm not sure how to properly put how I feel into words, though, Uh, because not a lot else from when I was that age till exist. I grew up with the Internet. But poking around Google and looking for old sites I used to just uh, it reveals a trail of deleted accounts and domain names that no longer resolve. What does she find an old computer or something? I don't know. Maybe she's definitely taking a trip down memory lane. I know, man, I've moved countries, so most of my physical stuff was either given away or thrown into a landfill across the Atlantic. To fact, the stuff you should know still exist and it's still making episodes that are just as good as I remember them being as incredible. Very nice. Wow, this is crazy. This is from Hazel. She has to We have a po box as you can send some Jaffa cakes. Oh, this is nice. I don't remember if I gave Hazel or address. Well please do. But Hazel, if you're right back, we'll give you our address and we can get some choppy cakes. Thanks for coming back. Yeah, we appreciate that. We're glad to have kept the home fires burning for you there, Hazel. I'd like to hear from Sarah. Sarah Sparrow, the amazing ninety year old fan. Yeah's eleven years old. I think she was at the time. No, she was like was she like eight or nine? Yeah, I can't remember when she started. Yeah, but she was really young. Yeah, she became a cool teenage, she definitely did. But maybe she'll become an actually cool college student and come back. Yeah. Well thanks a lot, Hazel. Uh, if you left us and came back and thought it was as good as ever, we can hear that stuff all day long. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff You Should Know You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and has always joined us at her home on the web, Stuff You Snow dot com

M Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select, I've chosen a member of our surprisingly extensive circus art suite, our episode on knife throwing, thanks to Laverne and Shirley. I always thought it was a gimmick, not actually real, but boy, did this episode open my eyes. I hope it opened your eyes too, to the awesomeness of knife throwing. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Chuck Bryant, and there's this stuff you should all right, this bears some explanation. So I was doing my Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle of Impression, which one is Stevie. He was the kid in the wheelchair who's like breathed like that, who talked like that because he he had serious asthma. Yeah, he remember him. Was he just like a classmate? Yeah? He was like his best friend, I believe I remember. I like, I like that show that. Yeah, well that's not what I was doing. Really. No, we're slightly out of breath because we just had a fire alarm. Yeah, we had to walk down four stairs four flights of stairs and not like this, the one, the kind of flight where it's like down, landing down again, the two flights. Yeah, so we walked down eight flights of stairs and then walked back eight more. Right when we got down, stopped and immediately turned around to go back in. It was ridiculous. It was the kind of thing that makes you say, maybe I will only next time. It was a fire alarm. I was prepared to hide in the studio and keep working. Yeah, we thought about it, but there's a fire marshal who works here, so you can't can't run a foul him. Man, he got on that orange best quick changes everything. So I ever heard of those guys that sneak into places with those vests? Yes, I have, I don't is there a name for what I think these? I'm sure more than one person has done this, But there's these two guys in particular who uh kind of got I don't know about famous, but made a name for themselves for putting on the orange vests and saying basically like, if you wear one of these, you can get in anywhere you want. Amost, if you have orange vest on, you look like you're supposed to be there. Well, yeah, you gotta have that steely sense of nerve and Alwaukie talkie is probably a good thing to have to Yeah, but they can go anywhere because the orange vest guy that means that's something's wrong in the orange vest guy has to take care of it. Yeah, Like they showed pictures in the in front of a I can't remember what show it was, but a big, big concert where they were in that buffer area between the people in the stage, right, yeah, and fred Durst is like, oh, there's an orange guest, the best guy. Something must be going on. What year was a h This would been two thousand two maybe the fred Dorst ears Great Years, the Wonder Years. Right, Well, man, I'm hot now too. I'm I feel good. I got like that, got the endorphins fall and this is gonna be a cool episode, buddy. Well the irony is I so grossly out of shape. I started getting on the peloton yeah last week, so I've been and this is not a plug for pellets, I guess it is, but it's not an ad, but I've been getting on that thing. So my legs are ham rubber rubber band hams right now. Anyway, Yeah, Hey, y'all prepare yourself for the rubber band ham. That's hey, will you indulge me for one moment? Oh man, I've been waiting for you to ask me that for a long time. Alright, So I've got the old side get going with Movie Crush, my podcast where every Friday I sit down with someone awesome and talk about their favorite movie and kill it. Thank you. But I have now added a second weekly episode that publishes on Monday called Mini Crushes, And that's where I just sit in here with producer Noel. He's sort of the omniscient voice of God, uh, and he sort of chimes in, and I source a lot of questions from Facebook to the Movie Crush Facebook page, um listener mails, I do recommendations. It's just a really interactive fan based experience. So I want to plug the Mini Crushes and let everyone know that. Yesterday I dropped a very special mini Crush, which was The Chuck and it's Emily's podcast debut. Oh congratulations, man, that's right. It's called The Chuck and Emily drink wine uh and talk about the Oscar nominations. Oh yes, yeah, So we recorded this thing at home. We put the kid to bed and broke out some nice wine and did our pre Oscar round up, So that dropped yesterday, and then next Monday, the day after the Oscars, we're going to have our post Oscar round up where we talked about who won and what the speeches were like and who wore it best. That's awesome, man, Emily is going to be a star. Chuck. Yeah, she was actually pretty great. And if you want a little peek behind the merrital curtain, uh, this is this is your chance. So yeah, if you could check out movie Crush on Apple podcasts or where we get your podcasts. Nice man, do you feel indulged? Very much? Good? All right, let's talk about knife throwing. So I'm a little psyched about this because knife throwing taps into my ninja training that I did under Tommy Roper as I'm sure I've mentioned before, uh reading about this researching it. I never threw knives. We never made it that far, and maybe now I'll be I'll be hang gliding throwing knives at the same time. I'm going to get into both at once. But I did a little throwing star stuff. Throwing star is like the dummies, Uh, knife throwing because that thing always sticks, right, Yeah, I mean, depending on how many spikes you got coming off of it, and how many beers you've had, um, and and whether the tree is actually like a metal pole or not, you're probably gonna stick a throwing star. Throwing a knife is an entirely different endeavor, and it's something that anybody can do. That Nicholas Jerbis or Gervous never met him yet. Um, he points out, this is actually kind of like a low hanging hobby that you could. You can get a set of knives for ten fifteen bucks apiece. You probably one about five is well, we'll explain why, um, maybe six. You just practice, get yourself a good block of wood, and practice, and anybody can do this. It's not like you're born to throw knives. You practice and if you like it, you keep going and you just get better and better at it, and you can impress your friends and neighbors. Yes, and here's the point in the show where we issue our c o A. Kids, if you're out there, do not go get a steak knife from your drawer and start throwing it at your dog. That is not a throwing knife. And never throw anything at your dog. Kids, I will come find you. Yeah, never throw anything at anybody that's sharp. But um, throwing knives are built to throw. They're weighted and balanced to throw. They're not like regular old knives. And we'll get into all that. But just if you really want to try throwing knives, go ask mom and dad or Tommy Roper and get ready, get ready for a no, and then and then play them this podcast where it is an actual um circus art. And please, for the love of God, tell me this is the last one. I don't think of the circus arts. No, it's not. What else is? There's a bunch we've done the Globe of Death, flame swallowing lions, aiming swords, swallowing sword swallowing. H we did circus families, just straight up circus families. Human cannonball has got to be it. I don't think so, man. I think it's going to keep going into clouns clowns for sure. Yeah, um, they haven't. Don't want to p T Barnum though, No, you mean Hugh Jackman, what is it, Chuck Stradomas, I don't know something like that. I make one lucky casting call predict, one sexual predator and one bad Lifetime movie or what what was shark Nato sci fi sci fi movie? Three Little Things? That's all. That doesn't make me Nuxtra Domans haven't won the lottery yet. I think of all the things I have said that didn't come true right way more. Yeah, I guess that's true. You know, yeah, whatever writes in and well that didn't happen, right, you really got that. Actually, they do right in to tell us we got stuff wrong a lot. That's so we're gonna take this seriously because we want you ten year olds out there who want to get your parents to let you do this, to to see that you're taking this seriously by listening to this podcast. First. Okay, that's right. So what we're talking about specifically is known as uh somewhat ironically as an impalement act um, which is really weird thing to call it. It's well, it's um, yeah, it really is. I think it's a little tongue in cheek, you think, because the point is to not right, The point is to not impale somebody with this kind of thing, right, that's right. And and impalement acts are an umbrella term that cover not just knife throwing but bull whip cracking, oh, shoot, sharp shooting, archery, William tell kind of thing. All of those fall under the the umbrella term of impalement acts. Jerry's undressing over there to our left, she got very hot in the fire drop. Um. All right, so this goes back if we can get back on the way back machine, Um, all the way back to the late nineteenth century. We to go back here further than that. Are you gonna go like to ancient times? No? No, We'll still will just go to the nineteenth century because I'm sure Chinese people in ancient times through stuff that's stuck in walls. Well, I looked at I looked up the oldest knife and started everything. Apparently they did. Apparently they found the oldest knife five thousand years ago. Oh, the oldest knife knife. So we've been using knives longer than there have been modern humans, yeah, for sure. And then we at some point, probably about four hundred and ninety nine thousand years ago, we started throwing knives because it's stabbing is okay, but throwing a knife is when you really can come to appreciate what a knife does, okay, And there was nothing better in it, like an eighties movie. Then when like James Bond through a knife and I got a guy or American ninja. That's what I was trained on. Um. All right, so wild uh wild West shows, Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Shows travel throughout the United States, throughout Europe. Um knife throwing became a big spectacle at things like this, as well as obviously sharp shooting and ye probably archery. They probably did all the impalement arts. They definitely did um and they really brought it to the world, um to the to the point where you can just basically say that's where it started, was Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Yeah. And this is one of those things where, through a modern lens, it it is incredibly misogynistic to think about the fact that you say, hey, let me take a scantily clad woman, a target girl, yeah that's what they call him, a target girl, and throw knives at her. Yeah, just stand there, throw knives near her. It's always a lady. She's always got on like a bikini or something. She's just like almost like wild West steampunk renaissance fair thing, right, you know, just to cover all of the all of the geek boys dreams and desires. Right, But when you look at it to the modern lens, it's like, man, that that is totally misogynistic to Uh, that is the act. Um, it's got a burlesque thing going on. Yeah sure, I mean you can see what they're trying to do is is toillate to the young boys in the audience. They're trying to sell tickets, and it probably wouldn't have sold as many tickets if they just had build a farmhand with a balloon in his mouth getting popped, you know. I mean, it's still pretty cool. You're still seeing the same thing. But yeah, it's just basically tradition and customed to have a scantily clad woman as your target girl. Again, that's what they call him, is the target girl, and that is the one of the two people involved in this impalement act. That's right. Um, we mentioned the balloon in the mouth. That was one of the big tricks. There was a German husband and wife named the Gibsons who introduced the very famous wheel of death in at the Ringling Brothers show at in Madison Square Garden. Have you seen this? Oh yeah, okay, So I had seen stuff like with knife throwing before, and I thought Flee Circus was another one. Do you remember our Flee Circus episode where it turns out that Flee Circus has actually involved real fleas. That was the best of the circus arts, and everybody thought it was like, no, it's magnets or just your imagination power of suggestion, and that's just not the case. The same thing applies to knife throwing impalement acts. Like I always thought, did you really? Yeah? I thought I think there was like a Happy Days or something like that where somebody gets volunteered. There's definitely an I Love Lucy with a knife act where she's the target girl. But there's some show where maybe Laverne and surely not I think about it. Anyway, the guys throwing them and like the knives are coming out of the backboard around them, So it's all an illusion, right, That is not true. In knife acts, you're if you're the target girl, a dude is throwing twelve inch long, extremely sharp, pointy knives right at your head and it's trying to get his close as possible to you without hitting you. And again it's not just that's just the profile where they're throwing knives around you and making like a chalk outline of your of your body. That's the profile. But there's other ones, like holding a cigarette in your mouth and knocking the ash off with a knife, or you're holding a flower in your mouth and they slowly like cut the stem off piece by piece. There's some some pretty interesting things that people have done with knife acts. Yeah, sometimes, and this is the riskiest of all moves. Riskier even more so than the Wheel of death is when they do the and they covered the target over with paper. Yeah, the veiled wheel of death, so you can't even see that spinning who is behind there? You just have to have it timed completely perfectly right. But if you take a step back and think about this, there is nothing about that act that should allow you to say, oh, if I throw like this, I will I will miss the person because they're spinning, so you have to know where their body is at every second. But you've taken away how you know that, which is your vision because they're behind a big sheet of paper that you're throwing knives through. And there's this guy who will talk about it a little further. His name is the Great throw Denie. I love this guy. Uh he he has done something. It's probably the most dangerous, most impressive knife throwing act anyone's ever done. He did the veiled wheel of death with two target girls on it. So he has two girls strapped to a board, spinning behind a big piece of paper that he can't see them through, and he's throwing knives at them. Yes, very fast. The guy threw him on an average of a knife every point five nine seconds, UM, and he didn't hit either one of them. Amazing. It is amazing. It's so amazing. I think we should take a break and re regroup. We're back. We just watched uh one hour of grade thirteen even videos. Uh. He apparently caught on like in its fifties. Yeah. I was like, hey, I'm pretty good at this. Back in just I guess somebody was like, maybe have you tried throwing knives? And he said no, I haven't, And they were like, well, tried throwing knives and he said, well, fine, I will. A couple of weeks later, he tried throwing knives and he said I really like this. Um. He said it felt natural and right. So he started throwing knives and entered competitions and UM started winning. I think he became world champion. With him like two years he beat the other four people. Uh, and then he said, you know what, this is fun and all like these competitions, but I think I want to try and act like an old throwback impalement act. So we started one when by tuxedo and basically bought his wife Barbara target girl. Get up that his uh target girl one of them. Yeah, I think she may have been the original one. Uh. Taught her to smoke cigarettes so he could knock the ash off of the end of him. And there you go. Impalement act achieved. But not only that, Chuck like the guy is like legitimately the best knife thrower on the planet. Well, he's one of them. He holds a record for fastest. But boy, you go down a YouTube rabbit hole and to like people like Ralph Thorne and better than Great Thordini. Huh, well Great Thordini does the impalement act as in the Circus art. Ralph Thorn is like, if you're running through the woods chasing somebody, I haven't seen this guy and this is well that's the Thorn style. We'll get into those styles later, okay, but um yeah, he will like bunch himself off of a tree stump in the air and throwing behind his back. And see now that's basically the training I was. Yeah, yeah, like martial arts, real world, suburban neighborhood dangers. There's a raccoon. Oh no, no, no, no, you're not throwing a raccoons. Um, alright, so the raccoon comes at me. Well sure, okay, Um, here's what you need if you if you're gonna throw a knife, you need a throwing knife. Throwing knife. Like I said, it's not a steak knife. It is very much made to be thrown. It is balanced so that you throw it. And we'll talk about the different ways that they're balanced. But one thing they're not is sharp on the sides. Yeah they're very pointy, but um they're dull on the edges because you're gonna a lot of times to be throwing it by that blade. Um, so get a knife for throwing. The old saying, Um, sharp of point, sharper point is the point, sharp of edge? It doesn't It does you no good? That old Yeah, that's a great thing. Like that should go on a T shirt. You should so. Um, yeah, you want a sharp point. But there's there's nothing about a sharp edge that's going to help you in any way, shape or form, because the whole point again is the point that's gonna stick into that end of whatever that target is, which is usually a block of wood. Right. So, um, depending on where how you're going to throw it, you want to throw the heavy end first. And there's a reason for this. The reason is is that, if you want to get technical about it, velocity equals um distance divided by time, right. And when you're throwing a knife, especially the heavy end first, the heavy end has traveled a further distance in the same amount of time than the lighter end. This friends creates something very parting a knife throwing, although not fundamental, which is spin. Okay, And so if you throw the throw the knife, you're gonna throw it either blade end or handle end. And the end regards what you're holding when you throw it. And if you're holding say a knife handle, and you're throwing it from the handle end, you're the front of the knife. The point is going to be weighted. It's going to be heavier so that that starts the spin. If you're throwing it blade first, the handle itself will be heavier so that will start the spin. And there's a couple of different depending on which way you're throwing. There's a the spin is going to take place over this the course of um a very short distance actually, and so let me let me just back up a second here. There's there's some factors involved. Okay. They are distanced to target, length of NiFe, weight and balance and then knife type. Right, So the distance the target is going to is going to tell you what type of throw you want. That's right. Um, the kind of knife. Uh, they say, for every good rule of thumb here, just throw it out. But they do mention a rule of thumb regardless. That says a blade that weighs about one ounce per inch, so in this per inch of your the whole knife. Yeah, so um, they shouldn't. Well, you can throw it ever you want, but ten to sixteen ounces is a good starter knife, uh, you know, and about that long or maybe twelve to four fourteen inches and about that many ounces is where you want to start off as a beginner. And all kinds of shapes too, Like some of them are like little spears. Uh, some have multiple points more like throwing stars. Uh. They really run the gamut right and the um. So depending on how you're gonna throw, whether it's a handle throw or a blade throw. The weight of the knife is going to be either in the handle or the blade. It's going to be the opposite of where you're holding the knife. Um. And if you throw holding the blade, you're going to throw a half turn. It's a half turn throw right. And the reason they call it that is because the knife only makes one half turn. The blade straightens out from your hand toward the target, and then that's the only turn it makes. Yeah, it's not like in the movies a lot of times you'll see you go right and turn like nine times and stick the guy in the forehead. That's really not what you're doing with knife throwing. No, it's basically if you if you're throwing it by the blade, it's gonna make one half turn and that's it. So you if your blade throwing, you would stand closest to the target, right, So if some guys coming at you dressed as a raccoon and you know he's gonna hurt you and you can throw a knife and he's real close, you would throw by the blade. That's right. Uh. And in fact, I don't even know if it's possible bowl to throw a knife like they do in the movies that I don't think so just tumbles because every video I saw there, like you try and prevent tumbling as much as you can, Like that's the whole game. It's too because physics says that a revolving object that suddenly breaks free will continue to move in a straight line tangential to the point at which it's released. In other words, that release points a little tricky. You know, you gotta dial that in. But we'll get to that too. And on the actual throwing right, um, so the uh. The next the next furthest away from the target is if you're holding the the knife by the handle and you're throwing it, it's going to make that's a full turn, full spin uh, to where the blade goes from facing the target, facing away from the target, and back to facing the target in time to stick into that target and not embarrassing he bounce off because it hit the blade or the handle first. But it's very humiliating, so humility. Uh. And then the last one is the furthest thrown away And it's about the most you would ever want a blade to turn, which is two times. That's about thirty ft or about ten meters away from your target. You could possibly get it to spin twice, but usually you just wanted to spin once or half and that's it. Yeah, And uh, did you say a half turns about seven or eight feet. I don't think I did. I just said it was the closest. Yeah, about seven or eight feet. It depends full spin about twelve to fifteen And like you said, the the great throw Dni double Bondini double twist is up to Yeah. Although one of these other throws that we're gonna get into, this thorn throw. One of the benefits is you can throw from anywhere, supposedly. So we're gonna take one more break and then we're gonna come back and teach you a little bit about throwing and then, uh, what to look for in a good knife. Okay, so you've got you know about how close you want to stay into the target, depending on whether you're holding the knife by the blade or the handle. The good thing is is there are a couple of different grips, but they're very similar. So if you're like, I want to get into blade throwing first because that looks pretty cool, you're going to basically pinch the blade of the knife and remember these are not sharp edges, so you should be fine if you do. If you I saw, if you are using a sharp edge knife, you want to hold the blunt end. But you don't want to do that. You don't even want to do that, so so it doesn't really matter which way you're holding it. But if you if it is sharp on what edge, hold the other edge and you're just basically pinching it between your your thumb and your first three fingers just a little pitch. Yeah, it's just just a teeny pinch. Maybe stick your pinky out for effecture, all right, and that that's the blade throw. Yeah, and you've already got your target. By the way, at this point, I know you mentioned a block of wood, but they recommend um aims small. What does it start? Small? Aim small? Yeah, which is don't don't You don't need a tree trunk um sliced up and put on a wall like you just need, like whatever, a little twelve inch by twelve inch block of wood. Or maybe if you want to screw a bunch of wood together and then draw a target on there, that's fine too. Yeah, you should probably glue though, because the screws might your your knife might bounce off of them. Yeah, you know if you're using metal screws, okay, as opposed to the traditional wooden dell right, so umptail joint right, So the the that's the what did I say, that's the blade throw? Right, yeah, you did blade throw. There's a handle throw too, and this one is called a hatchet throw or hammer throw or the handle throw you could call it to and everybody all know what you're talking about. Yeah, and you stand, uh, you're a little further back for this one because you've got your your full turn going uh, and then you just grip it like a baseball beat and swing away right right, close your eyes, and you hope for the best, say ninja strike, right yeah yeah. So um. The cool thing is what you were saying about starting small, aiming small, is that when you when you figure out that there's actually just a few mechanics going on here, you'll be able to tell what part of your throw is actually off, whether it's distance, whether it's when you're releasing, whether it's um how you're gripping it. The problems are, the issues with your throw will show up, and you'll be able to read based on how the knife is landing or sticking? What's wrong with your throw? Yeah? Like if you are throwing I think blade first and it sticks, but it's sticking at a really hard angle where the where the handle is pointing down. Then they say, maybe just move back six inches with your stance, is it? Yeah, you're right, You're right, and then try it again. Yeah, because that means that you're the knife didn't get its full rotation right. You wanted to basically be sticking straight out perpendicular to the target. Yeah, that's a correct throw or as you're as you're learning to do this. Yeah. And did you say that it's generally your opposite leg of your throwing hand forward? Oh yeah, so so yeah, so the stance, yeah, I mean generally. But then again I also saw this Russian guy that through with his throwing leg or the same leg as a throwing hand forward, and he was like, you know it all works basically. Was this thing good? I knew you had the Italian thing going on, but Russian was good. Oh yeah, I can I can do that. So let's get into of the throw them. Okay, so the stance, I should say, So with the with the stance, you're standing with your Um, you're you're throwing arm. The leg opposite you're throwing arm is closest to the target, kind of like you're throwing a dart, you know. Um, yes, okay, like that. Well, actually that's not quite true when I throw it. When you throw a dart, your you're the leg that is, the foot that is on the line, is the same side as your throwing hand, is it. Yeah, okay, well this is the opposite of that. Maybe I've been throwing darts wrong all this time. So the so the the leg opposite you're throwing arm is the one you want closest to the target traditionally, right, Traditionally your weight is on your back leg, though, is you're throwing, and what you're doing is you're gripping the knife however you want to blade or handle either way. You line it up right with your eye against the target, bring your arm back behind your head, and then keeping your wrists straight. You don't want to flip your wrist or anything like it. You bring it in an arc in front of you, and you finish like you are shaking somebody's hand. If you're going, hey, how are you right? But I got a knife? Right? The thing is here's the thing. You're gonna want to release at that handshake part when your hand is straight out in front of you, and you're gonna find nothing but heartache trying to throw a knife like that. Oh, if you release it right at the end. Oh no, it goes it'll go straight down, right, it'll go down in front of you. Because when you release an object that's going in an arc, it wants to go straight in a tangential line from the the the top of the arc. Right, that's right. So you want to release it at the top of the arc. So that is I was practicing just in the air, trying to to make my brain release it at the top, and that is really difficult to do because you think initially that the nicest gonna go shooting up into the air. It's not. It's gonna go straight. That's right. Pretty neat stuff, that's right. And this is just I don't even know what the traditional throw was called to you, I know, I didn't see a name for it. Well, there are some other throws which I might as well go ahead and mention I've teased. One is the aforementioned thorn style from Ralph Thorne. Okay, that's named after a dude is named after a dude. Either way, it sounds cool. Yeah this one, Um, did you see this one at all? Inline? I didn't see that one. I kind of had an idea of what they were talking about based on the article. Yeah, they say that it resembles spear throwing. The action, Um, I guess, and that you're you're not taking the knife like behind your ear. You're sort of just extending your whole arm and doing a big almost like you're throwing a baseball pitch. Sure, that's what I imagine. Yeah, that's what. It sort of looked like, a side arm, sort of like a bunch of people were doing it different. And then this guy's jumping all over behind his back like Thorne style seems to be two just do whatever you want. Okay, that's not true. Thorne's probably just like so angry right now. He's like, yeah, come out. Uh. Then there was the Russian style and this look it's a very compact um, the elbow is in near the body, you hold the knife behind the ear. Uh. And this I saw it was a little bit more like, you know, like that kind of thing. So that seems to me like depending on how close you're holding your elbow to your body like you're gonna chop the top of your ear off. Well you want to avoid that, but it's it's more like you're pushing it out rather than throwing it like a tomahawk. So that's what I thought, Um Moon you on style was like where you're basically like shoving the knife forward. Well what I saw with that style, And again, all these videos were different, so I don't know if these people are just I mean, it is YouTube making it. It's not like they're like, I'm an accredited thornist. But the MoMu In style looks like they were having the knife like in their hand, like kind of in their palm and would throw it. But I don't know if that was because of the knife, because the guy on there was like, this is a bo bo shurrikan spike which is thrown in the Momuen style. And that's what this article said to people really get into this online online though, right, That's what I did discover. So the three the three things, those three types thorn style, Momuan and Russian style, those are all styles of knife throwing that involved no spin. That's what the common thread that they all have yeah, which is pretty cool. It is cool, And there's a couple of reasons you want to do this. The most knife throwers say that's really tough on the joints after a while. Yeah, that's what they say. And um, the reason why is because it involves like doing crazy like snapping motions with your elbow and your wrist and stuff. Whereas with knife throwing, it's just a smooth arc you're making it. Almost all of the motion is in your shoulder and your elbow, Your wrist stays straight, and you just areally generally releasing your grasp on the NiFe. Right, do this into his ages all day long? Right? Yeah? That with the no spin styles, it is, it's just tougher. It's more of a snapping motion. That's like you're gonna get tennis elbow after a while. The reason the advantage that these have is like, if you're trying to throw a knife through a hole, you can't have a twelve inch knife spinning making this twenty four inch arc basically or or circle. Um, you just want to send it straight like a missile through that hole into some dude's leg, into his calf, and then you you pounce on him. Put your hand over his mouth and nose until he falls asleep, and then you can advance further towards the castle. Well, the Russian I saw was talking about the first thing you do is find the balance point. So he held out his finger and put the knife on it until, you know, like a little until I found the exact point. And he's like, there's a balance point. So once you find out where that is, that will teach you exactly how to hold it, um in any in any scenario. Basically, I know where the balance point is though, So whatever you're doing, though, if if this sounds like something you want to do, whether it's spin throwing or no spin throwing techniques, the key to knife throwing of any kind is practice, practice, practice, And this article actually gives a really good piece of advice. It says, get a little set of throwing knives, the best you can afford, because the more expensive they are, typically with them, the better the more well made they are. And um, get some, get like I said, of three or five or whatever, because you're you're going to have to practice rep eatedly. And if you have one knife and you're standing fifteen feet away you throw it, you have to go get it. You throw it again, go get it. That's not nearly as fun as trying to throw like five quickly in a row. So you're number one, you're going to be more entertained. Um. But also if you do, no matter how many knives you have, if you start to lose focus, if you start to get bored or frustrated, stop because if there's one thing about knife throwing, it's meant to be fun. And if you're practicing with your friends, uh, don't they don't stand to the side of the target. They don't stand directly behind you. Um, I would recommend they stand well behind you and well to one side of you. I've got one even better. Don't even don't even let your friends anywhere near you. You you have to be alone while you're practicing throwing knives, but you have to be in text or phone contact with your parents who are watching you from a safe distance, streaming it to your parents. Maybe. So, Uh, you should go and look at some of these Ralph Thorn videos because the funniest, the funniest part is uh the almost um not angry, but just his trudge towards the target afterward is very like I don't know, it's weird. He'll jump up in the air and throw a few and then he's just like do do do and then walks over and undoes it from the log like, I don't know. All the pizzazz leaves as soon as he's thrown. Yeah, that's when you need. The pizzazz is during the throwing. The rest is just wasted energy. Yeah, but you don't see throw Denie. That's the difference between an impalement act in a dude in his backyard on YouTube. Well, throw Denie has the smarts to hire an editor to edit that part out. Yeah, you know, it's a good point. I don't know if we said the great throw Denie's name. His name is David ed Amovitch and he's a neat guy. Great name. So if you want to know more about the great throw Denie or what's what's Thorne's first name, Jesse Thorn and the other thing Ralph Thorne, Ralph Thorn, or any kind of nice throw and go go check out some videos. Again, do not do this unless your parents say it's okay, and do it safely. Don't be stupid, and never ever throw any living thing ever of any kind ever or Josh and Chu are going to be so mad at you. Ah. And in the meantime, let's listen to some listener. Man. All right, I'm gonna call this, oh, welcome back to the fold. This just delighted me. I like this one too. You know in April it's gonna be ten years, which is just nutty, nutty, nutty. No one ever thought we'd be doing this so long. Jerry has an age today, now she hasn't, but she's taken up more clothes as the podcasts. Uh, she's getting ready for her a gig as a target girl. Um all right, guys, um and Jerry, whoever, whoever else that Stuff you should Know might actually be reading this. I don't know how fam will work. This is what she says, this is how it works. Yeah, we read it. I realized, Um, that the most I'm realistically going to achieve by stating this. It's making you feel old. But when I was eleven years old in two thousand eleven, Stuff you Should Know was my favorite podcast and listen to every episode. Kept on listening for a couple of years until I was thirteen, when I stopped listening to it because that's what we lose them is when they get too cool for school. That's right. So for those those were your teenagers who have kept listening through your teen years, we think you're cool. You're doing it right. Your peers probably don't, but we do. I have no idea why I stopped guys up until today. I actually figured you guys must have stopped making it, and I never bothered to go back and check until today. Isn't that funny to think back? To think that someone can think back like, oh, remember those guys? Like I wonder how long are last? Daily weekly life? So funny. I'm not sure how to properly put how I feel into words, though, Uh, because not a lot else from when I was that age till exist. I grew up with the Internet. But poking around Google and looking for old sites I used to just uh, it reveals a trail of deleted accounts and domain names that no longer resolve. What does she find an old computer or something? I don't know. Maybe she's definitely taking a trip down memory lane. I know, man, I've moved countries, so most of my physical stuff was either given away or thrown into a landfill across the Atlantic. To fact, the stuff you should know still exist and it's still making episodes that are just as good as I remember them being as incredible. Very nice. Wow, this is crazy. This is from Hazel. She has to We have a po box as you can send some Jaffa cakes. Oh, this is nice. I don't remember if I gave Hazel or address. Well please do. But Hazel, if you're right back, we'll give you our address and we can get some choppy cakes. Thanks for coming back. Yeah, we appreciate that. We're glad to have kept the home fires burning for you there, Hazel. I'd like to hear from Sarah. Sarah Sparrow, the amazing ninety year old fan. Yeah's eleven years old. I think she was at the time. No, she was like was she like eight or nine? Yeah, I can't remember when she started. Yeah, but she was really young. Yeah, she became a cool teenage, she definitely did. But maybe she'll become an actually cool college student and come back. Yeah. Well thanks a lot, Hazel. Uh, if you left us and came back and thought it was as good as ever, we can hear that stuff all day long. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff You Should Know You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, and has always joined us at her home on the web, Stuff You Snow dot com