In the time when people can succesfully argue for only using the hammer grip - the vice like grip - the Cancer grip is the complete opposite. There are some FMA teachers that have innocently replicated that grip and movement and passed on on and aon, like a germ, like cancer - which is were I started the nickname in the 1990s...about 1994. It spread worldwide with my first knife book.
It is when someone hold's the knife:
- in a saber grip
- with their thumb up and,
- the ball of their thumb up off the knife handle and backstrap.
This means that you are only holding the knife only with your four, lower cupped fingers. The knife can come easily free.
You can't knife fight like this. You can't spar or duel:
- you may lose your knife in the simple, accidental contact.
- you can't stab as the knife with raise up and come free.
- you can't gut a deer like this.
- you can't carve a Thanksgiving turkey like this
- if you sneeze on your knife, it might fly from your hand
Of course you have never seen or heard of this Lakersportsfan. You have not been corrupted by aspects of the Filipino Martial Arts! You have not tried to move and look smooth and cool as a major, end goal.
I was in Euorpe and talked about this and some of the FMA people were shocked. A year later one came back (from a Pekiti group by the way) and confronted me...
"I went back to my people and they told me...'what Hock doesn't understand is that when we actually stab? We put the thumb back on the knife."
So I said, "you mean when you are sparring or knife ground fighting (they almost never do, if ever) you can hold the knife in this dangerous manner, despite the fact that there will be accidental, jarring contact and you cold loose the knife?"
Of course there can be no answer for them. Just excuses to cover great, great grandmasters mistakes. One slim, reason is that the raised thumb can be used to hook the oponent's wrist. A odd, lrare move. Okay, but does that mean a student should spend 40% or even 20% of their time holding a knife like that? Some FMAs use it 100% of the time. 100%! They are 99.7% wrong-headed, unpractical and untactical.
This term has given me grief. People around the world have said I have insulted Dan Inosanto. Oh? Don't recall ever using his name back then? Kelly Warden called me complaining that I personally insulted him. Two wit, I explained that I have only seen about ten minutes of an old stick video of his and had zero idea about ANY knife grip he used. Then we realized some middleman knucklehead was just trying to cause trouble between. I still don't know if Kelly ever did, but I'll bet he doesn't.
I could probably scratch together a long list all the hassles I have had since I used the term. But of you are using that grip to shadowbox, etc...re-consider.
The open pinky thing? That is even worse. Add the up and raised thumb with ipen and dropped pinky and you have some knife of lost mind disease.
Looking cool for cool's sake. A fighter should not train or try to look smooth, graceful or cool. A fighter should look disgusting. A fighter, in action, should turn heads away in shock. When you are in action, people should say,
"Oh my God!"
and not
"isn't he graceful."
If you look good while fighting? It should be an accident. Not a goal.
Hock
