Combat Knife Throwing: A New Approach to Knife Throwing and Knife Fighting

Rating:
Summary: back cover blurb
Review: Conventional wisdom among knife-fighting experts has it that knife throwing is a pursuit best left to circus performers, hillbilly theme parks, and hobbyists and that it is useless for combat or other survival purposes. In this ground-breaking new book, Ralph Thorn differentiates between "circus" knife throwing and combat knife throwing, and reveals his style of knife throwing suitable for actual combat and knife fights.
The author, who has practiced his craft for decades, begins by showing you how to balance a knife for throwing -- and how to make your own throwing knives out of readily available materials. He shows you how to build targets (and what makes the best targets), and how to practice the various combat throwing techniques, with an emphasis on both safety and practicality. Ralph Thorn demonstrates the overhand, underhand, and sidearm throws, and discusses the situations where each style works best.
"One way of expressing the essential difference between circus-style and spear-style throwing is to say that in the former you try to make every throw as similar as possible and in the latter you can and should treat every throw differently. Circus-style throwing is a game of dexterity that requires a single, very specific skill; in this it is much like bowling or billiards. Spear-style throwing can be like this if you want to stand still and throw for accuracy alone, but it can also become a freestyle sport, more like martial arts or skateboarding than like circus throwing. And, of course, it can be used for self defense." A truly path-breaking book, Combat Knife Throwing should be read by every sportsman, knife aficionado, and anyone interested in self defense.

Rating:
Summary: No contest
Review: If you are serious about using a knife to protect yourself or even to hunt with, this is the book to get. You don't have to have a target stand in one place. In fact, this is a skill builder. You get better the more you work with this method. It really is completely different. No knife spinning through the air--more of an arrow or a spear kind of action. Especially if you are ever in a position to have to defend yourself or your home from intruders, this could be a very valuable weapon/skill to have in your arsenal. I went to the Loompanics page to see if they had any other books on knife fighting, but although they have a lot of self defense books, this is the best on knife fighting that is out there anywhere!
A Fighting Stance from Seattle

Rating:
Summary: Terrible book
Review: Poorly written, run on sentences and endless babbling. I could not get past his constant knocking of end over end knife throwing. He spent too much time on the short comings of end over end throwing and not enough time on the technique of his style. I guess he wanted to fill his book with pages so he ran on and on about irrelevant things. What was valuable in the book could have been written on 5 pages max.

Rating:
Summary: a revolutionary approach to knife throwing that really works
Review: This book, which contains numerous very helpful illustrations by the author himself, teaches a new style of knife throwing, one where the knives don't spin around as they fly through the air. This is a more versatile, mobile, powerful, and perhaps most importantly, EASIER way to throw knives. According to the publisher:
Conventional wisdom among knife-fighting experts has it that knife throwing is a pursuit best left to circus performers, hillbilly theme parks, and hobbyists and that it is useless for combat or other survival purposes. In this ground-breaking book, Ralph Thorn differentiates between "circus" knife throwing and combat knife throwing, and reveals his style of knife throwing suitable for actual combat and knife fights.
The author, who has practiced his craft for decades, begins by showing you how to balance a knife for throwing -- and how to make your own throwing knives out of readily available materials. He shows you how to build targets (and what makes the best targets), and how to practice the various combat throwing techniques, with an emphasis on both safety and practicality. Ralph Thorn demonstrates the overhand, underhand, and sidearm throws, and discusses the situations where each style works best.
"One way of expressing the essential difference between circus-style and spear-style throwing is to say that in the former you try to make every throw as similar as possible and in the latter you can and should treat every throw differently. Circus-style throwing is a game of dexterity that requires a single, very specific skill; in this it is much like bowling or billiards. Spear-style throwing can be like this if you want to stand still and throw for accuracy alone, but it can also become a freestyle sport, more like martial arts or skateboarding than like circus throwing. And, of course, it can be used for self defense." A truly path-breaking book, Combat Knife Throwing should be read by knife and primitive weapons enthusiasts, people into extreme sports, martial artists, and everyone interested in self defense.