2021-047 | THE PERFECT KNIFE

WISDOM TRAILS: There is no "Perfect Knife". A knife could not do all things safely even if it has a very skillful owner. You need a certain knife for a certain kind of work and vice versa.

First seen in Facebook

September 24, 2018

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I TRIED MY BEST TO HAVE the perfect knife in my whole life, the one knife that could do it all, but I simply could not hold on to it (as a teaching model) and I failed. Despite the skills learned the hard way, it was not enough. I may succeed but I may double my effort if in case I was cutting a large branch with a folding knife or lose my poise if I was carving something delicately small with a machete. 

However, I have seen local mountain kids with their bolos, longer than their femur bones, who effortlessly used these as if they were handling a small blade. I watched Tata Kasoy, the venerable elder of the Pastolan Aeta, who nonchalantly whistled and talked in broken English while deftly creating things out of bamboos with his long panabas as if it was an extension of his arm.

The skills with a blade are earned. You may achieve something but at a cost of breaking the blade somewhere along the way or ruining your project. There should be blades dedicated for brute force and blades for delicate jobs and then the blades in between. George Washington Sears have solved that by creating a system to handle different works. People later called it the “Nessmuk Triumvirate” in his honor.

Quite practical and this system ensures that you would not break your one and only blade. The system creates a redundancy favored now by modern bushcraft enthusiasts which is fail-safe. That idea of the perfect knife disappears and replaced by a perfect mental state where you have an almost unlimited option to approach each problem with a different blade. 

In Philippine bushcraft, the best big blades to use are those that are made locally. They are tested by time and the most frequent materials used against it are the wiry types of vegetation like cane grass, vines and the very deceptive bamboo. These type of blades could chop any wood found in the tropics like Tata Kasoy’s panabas. These blades are valued by their owners and most of them are heirlooms.

Nessmuk was referring about his pocket knife as the least component of his system. Quite clearly, by its build and make, it was used for light work like peeling fruits, slicing thin strips of meat, and smoothing out the rough edges of wood that his bigger blades missed. When it came to pocket knives, or folding knives, we choose the imported ones and, many, come with so many extras.   

The blade in between the big and the small, could be any make. Local and imported blades compete for the attention of our local bushcraft enthusiasts here. The real guys, those that go out regularly doing dirt-time, prefer those that were made by here or carry the cheap imported types. Why? They are not there to impress but to develop their craft.  

Since outdoors activity now are more leisurely, bushcraft here shunned the large blade and replaced it with a folding saw, thus lessening the weight you pack. We gave more teeth to the saw by increasing the size of the pocket knife with a bigger Victorinox which has a tiny saw. Compensating for the loss of the big blade are two medium-sized blades and a baton stick foraged for the occasion. 

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions. 

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.

Image Nr 1 courtesy of City Sports Club Cebu

2021-008 | RITE OF PASSAGE

WISDOM TRAILS: There was a time when a knife was given as a gift. It was the happiest moment in a boy’s life, for, in his eyes, he is accepted as an adult. It happened because the giver knows the recipient is ripe enough how to use, keep and care of the knife. It is a rite of passage. It is not anymore. We live in a different world with changing values. The old ways are discarded for something politically correct, metrosexual and superficial

You simply cannot earn your first knife if your hands are soft and lazy. A child must be taught how to use the knife as a tool and he practices it on his spare time until such time his confidence would increase his level of skill. In much the same way, a child skilled in making a fire prepares himself or herself to the business of simple life skills of cooking and eating. The child becomes self-reliant and how self-reliance is now a rare commodity, is it not?

First seen in Facebook

January 1, 2018

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POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, MOST of the time, turn a harmless thing, gesture or ritual, into something offensive and harmful. The more people becoming very sophisticated in their lifestyles and in their living environment, the more they distanced themselves from their past or their origins. Comfort almost always discards the archaic models of living a life. Protectiveness is an instinct but, now, it is magnified as opportunities of economic gains, like a lawsuit.

 

In my time, I bruised and bloodied both hands and lower legs for tasks like splitting the firewood. I used many bolos, a cleaver, an axe and wood wedges to accomplish my work when I became nine years old up to the time that I became 25. Wood splinters would be found under my skin; small pieces of wood bounced at me, hitting my shins, knees, face and arms; blades would separate from handles and became missiles that rebound back at you when it hit a concrete wall. 

If some parent today would have their kid do the tasks that I did, that father or mother would surely be summoned to appear in a police station to answer for a complaint of cruelty to children or child labour. Am I right? Yes, Virginia. You can even broadcast it in Facebook Live and tag all the police stations that is in your friends list. Today’s society is an effeminate society. I watch it with contempt and I disdained to walk in its superficial ground.

 

Did you not know that handling edged tools early in my life have developed my earliest appreciation of the blade? It made my upper body strong and calloused the hands that gripped with sureness which helped me to go on a private pilgrimage of adventure and discovery. Most of all, it became the seed of what becomes now as the Knife Carry Rights and Ethics, which I taught in my bushcraft camp seminars and which I talked in speaking engagements. 

I earned my first knife when I was 15. My grandfather allowed me the use of his two OKAPI hunting knives which I carried everyday to school and home. When I was 21, my father gave me his own-made knife which I brought in my island-to-island tramping in a tugboat. Believe this or not, I owned my first Swiss Army Knife when I was already 49. You should be happy you have one while you are still young.

 

I grew up in a community where people used knives in their work and I get to know the many ways how they used it. All were responsible in their demeanors, even while drunk. Sure there were scruples and misunderstandings but, in spite of that edged environment, nobody died.  

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions.

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.

2021-001 | KNIFE CARRY & LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

WISDOM TRAILS: Only ignorant people fantasized of bringing a knife as a weapon. Good luck to them since I know what they will reply when questioned.

First seen in Facebook

December 23, 2017

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THE BLADE HAD SUFFERED so much of its reputation since the time it was used as an instrument of early warfare. It was invented by early man as a tool to aid him and his clan in processing their food and to make their existence tolerable. It took many eons and the forms changed from stones to bones-and-shells to copper to iron, until it was perfected in its present state as steel, which created a big industry globally. 

However, I changed people's perception about the knife here in the Philippines with proper education and dissemination of only the good information. From there, people I taught now know the law pertaining to the possession of a blade or their blades, their rights, the ethics of ownership, safety-carry and handling, the names of the most common shapes and the parts, field sharpening techniques and, altogether, removed ignorance and the wrong ideas.

 

There were no such formal education then in ownership rights, safety carry and the ethical use of blades here until I formulated the Knife Care and Safety in 2011 which I integrated as one of the subjects of the first Philippine Independence Bushcraft Camp. Participants began to appreciate the value of learning this as required in the PIBC and its other related training because bushcraft is labor intensive where the use of a blade takes most of the general work. 

Moving into another stage, I introduced the Knife Care and Safety to the younger generation when invited by schools, kiddie clubs and orphanages. I firmly believed that safety in handling a blade should start while young. I had that privilege since I lived and grew up among older people who worked with blades in the course of earning a living and who taught me the complexities of its use, handling and the ethics of possessing one.

When Armscor Global Arms, maker of the Rock Island line of firearms, gave me an opportunity to speak before a crowd during the 2018 Tactical Survival and Arms Expo held in SM, Cebu City, one of the three topics I talked about was Knife Carry Rights and Ethics. And which I gave a talk once more during the 2019 TACS Expo. My advocacy of knife-carry rights created an awareness on a bigger stage. 

By the way, possession of a knife here in the Philippines is not a right. Not even a privilege. It is more of CHANCE. You can only possess and travel with it if you have a permit, if you are in a lawful calling or if you are in a lawful activity. So far, the only known permit I know authorizing people to carry sharp instruments in the course of their work are municipal and city permits issued to butchers who worked in abattoirs and public markets.

In as much as we liked it, there are blades that can never fit in to the order of things for these can never be considered tools like a karambit, a Batangas knife, a push dagger, a dirk, a sword, a saber, a tres cantos or any traditional blades that are popularly-known and have served its use in conflicts and warfare. It is never a good idea to possess and travel with these in public unless you are in a lawful activity or a calling like cultural exhibits of traditional blades.

Aside from the lawful occupation of a butcher, lawful calling refers to a person engaged in work whose blade is a vital TOOL where it is always carried from residence to place of work and back. The best examples are farmers, fishermen, foresters, firemen, gardeners, bladesmiths, blacksmiths, hunters, fruit vendors, electricians, linemen, trail guides and, in a different classification because it is used as a weapon, are members of the military, and policemen who are in special tactical units.

Here in the Philippines, where blades may be used, displayed and carried in the pursuit of a lawful activity either as tools for labor, tools for education or tools for leisure are farming, fishing, collections and exhibitions, commerce and marketing, bladesmithing, hiking and camping, explorations and expeditions, gardening, sports, martial arts demonstrations and cultural celebrations and dances where it is used for symbolism as in the Bangsamoro, northern highlands and the indigenous peoples culture. 

All public places are off-limits to blades and those who travel with blades. You may only pass through provided you are in a lawful calling and is part of your baggage; in transit to and from a lawful activity. It is a gray area really and it depends how a law enforcer would interpret the law and how the owner would present himself. Most often there had been few problems with this, especially in airports and seaports. Never travel on MRT and the LRT nor go to a cemetery on a November 1 and 2 nor say “for self-defense only” in a checkpoint. 

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions. 

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.