Anybody Got a Knife?

Old joke in the silat class -- ask if anybody has a knife, and the sudden clicking of tactical folders opening, or fixed-blades rasping out of Kydex sheathing, will be loud enough to drown out a marching band ...

Silat, being a blade-based art, the practitioners tend to carry knives. Our philosophy is this: We are not apes, we use tools. Quite legally, of course, observing the local laws about blade-length and concealment or belts or whatever.

Well. There are players who carry knives that might be -- how shall we put this? -- a tad over what is considered proper for concealed carry. (You can haul a two-foot-long bowie around in a sheath if it is not concealed, in this state, and a couple of its neighbors, but generally speaking, "ordinary" pocket knives bear four-inch blades or shorter. Until 9/11, you could take those on commercial aircraft.

I confess that I know some folks whose concealed folders are, when opened, sufficient to clear a path through jungle vines in a Tarzan movie or to stab an elephant -- and reach his heart. It's quite impressive to be talking to one of these fellows and to have them go zanshin and all of a sudden you are looking at a wicked knife the length of your forearm in their hand, backed by a equally-wicked grin.

Those guys, you shoot at a distance and have done with it. 

Some players carry more than one knife. There is the primary, then a back-up. Sometimes they carry more than two.

Personally, I think more than three is paranoid. Well, okay, maybe four.

"How many knives you have on you?"

"Three. But ... uh, well, they're ... small ..." (And you don't count those on the key rings, which are teeny-tiny and part of those pliers/screwdriver/nail file things, the blades are only an inch or so long,  so it's really not five ...)

Accompanied here also by a less-wicked, shit-eating grin.

So the latest toy, which would be considered a back-up, is a stubby little thing from Boker, the Subcom F. With a blade under two inches long, and almost that wide, it's an itty-bitty sucker.

It's not an expensive knife -- you can get one for around twenty-six bucks; nor is the steel the stuff of legends, AUS-8; still, it is surprisingly comfortable in one's hand, given the short handle -- open, the whole knife it's only a tad longer than four inches, and at two-and-a-half-ounces, light enough that you could carry it in a shirt pocket. Opens with a thumb-stud, no springs. You can get them plain or partially-serrated, with bead-blast natural or a blackened steel. Frame-lock, Steel on one side, FRN handle (fiberglass reinforced nylon) on the other, in assorted colors. Black. Sissy-green, like that.

Small enough so if you didn't want to use the reversible clip, you could hide it entirely in the watch pocket of a pair of blue jeans. (I have an ambiguous relationship with pocket clips on folding knives. On the one hand, they position the knife so it is exactly where you want it and you don't have to fish around in your pocket looking for it; on the other hand, anybody who looks can see the clip and assume -- rightly so -- there is a knife attached to it. If you hide it under a shirt, or jacket, then you have to clear those to get the thing into play. Plus I don't like the way a clip feels under my grip.)