There’s an old thread by blade enthusiasts and a very short thread on throwing knives, but nothing addresses this question: how do I learn to do silly knife tricks like what the chefs at Japanese teppanyaki places (like Benihana) do? I mean, flipping knives around, catching them out of the air, etc. I want to terrify my wife and amaze my friends.
At first I guessed that the Benihana chefs trained with a stick of the appropriate size, but it would be hard to match the balance of a knife. Do they practice with a really dull knife and hope they only knick themselves instead of losing a finger? And how do I, a non-chef layman, learn to do these things? Is there an institute of Silly Knife Tricks I can order a correspondence course from?
You need to disarm the knife. If you’re willing to lay out some cash, simply buy another knife and grind off the edge and point. If not, you can tape some tubing or leather on the slicy parts without changing the balance much. What the chefs do is akin to juggling. After you master knives, you can work your way up to chain saws. Here’s hoping you won’t become known as Stubby.
You are not a real carpenter until you run a finger through the band saw. If you run too many fingers through the band saw, you are not a real carpenter.
PublicBlast, this may not be the kind of knifethrowing you’re looking for, but I recently learned about The Great Throwdini. (He is a new customer for the e-commerce site I work for.) His website has some instructional stuff that might be useful for you.
Good luck!
