I use the "snap cut" a lot in knife/dagger play. I use that term for lack of a better word; the idea is to deliver a cut with the last inch or two of the blade by extending the elbow and snapping the wrist. It's a forward-grip/hammer-grip type of technique. It's like a jab--a quick, controlled, low commitment strike with the blade tip, targeted almost exclusively to the back of the hand, fingers, or other vulnerable targets (I like the top of the forehead, right about where the hairline is (on people who have hair
to create bleeding and distraction). I've noticed, though, that some individuals in sparring tend to ignore this cut completely when it lands, particularly on the back of the hands or the fingers. In one case, one of my partners took five or six shots in a row this way (hand, thumb, pinky, etc) and simply ignored it before launching his own attack.
Personally, I don't think this is a good practice. I understand ignoring light "tags," but these aren't tags. They hit solidly. Perhaps it's not a death blow, but you certainly don't want to stand there and let somebody hammer away at the back of your hand with the tip of a dagger, because (assuming no armor, of course) each hit is going to tear open the skin, cause bleeding, and possibly even break the bones (especially in the case of the heavier-bladed daggers)--which might even be an issue with leather gloves on.
So as an experiment, I tried a little basic test cutting. I used two different knives; one was a crappy Pakistani-made dagger I picked up at the Scottish Festival. It's not very sharp, and it got dropped once, so it's got a flattened tip. The other one was my Cold Steel Ti-Lite, which is pretty high-quality and ridiculously sharp, but quite a bit lighter. Oddly, I managed to bend the tip on this one a while back, too, so its point is also not very sharp, but its edge is fine.
Unfortunately, I only had a limited array of targets, so I used the following:
16-oz plastics bottles, filled with water
apple
banana, medium ripe
Each of the targets was simply set on top of a trash can, so it had very little resistance to toppling over; I wanted to simulate the fact that most targets give a bit in real life--e.g., your opponent's hand isn't usually bolted down. I didn't cover anything with cloth or leather, mainly because I didn't think of it. Next time I'll try that.
Here's the results (I have photos but haven't uploaded them to my computer yet--I'll try to post them when I can):
Cuts of this type to the water bottle opened up about a four-inch slash in the side of it. This is without any draw through the target, just the elbow/wrist-snap motion I described earlier. With the dagger, it was a bit more pronounced, in spite of the dullness of the blade. With the Ti-Lite, the cut was still quite wide, maybe three inches, and the blade may have sunk deeper instead of tearing further (but there's no way for me to tell, of course).
With the dagger, the cuts shaved off fine slices of the apple, and a centrally placed cut split it in two effortlessly through the core.
The banana was cleaved pretty much completele through with each impact, though it seemed that the bottom skin usually held a bit--which might just have been the distance the cut traveled. This worked pretty much the same with both knives.
I'm posting all this for two reasons. 1) Though I know fruit and plastic bottles aren't flesh, the results of the cuts seem to support the view of this cut as damaging enough to be used against bare skin, especially on hands, and enough threat to not ignore completely for cut after cut. I'd like to hear opinions from others with knife experience--Jay, I'd really like to hear what you have to say on this topic.
2) My next step is to try the same cut on a more flesh-like material. I was hoping to find some kind of meat or meat by-product that I could use to at least resemble the human hand somewhat, but the fact that most hands are primarily skin and bones makes that a touch tricky. Does anybody have a suggestion, or better yet, a solution that they have used for similar experiments? I'd like to do more complete research on this topic if possible, and in the process get some experience actually cutting realistic materials with a dagger--since I don't have my first sharp sword yet.
Any thoughts would be welcomed and appreciated.
Jason
