One of my more dangerous past-times involved knife throwing contests with my buddies, you know, drinking beer and sticking throwing knives into the wall at one of my apartments. Although I don't think the beer drinking helped my technique all that much, I did get some sorely needed 'throw time' in during those drunken Saturday afternoons. Half the battle of learning anything is rote practice, and that's just what the doctor ordered when it comes to throwing a knife. It's really difficult to show or tell 'how' you throw a knife, the best way to learn is to actually throw the damn thing.
First things first, you can't snatch a butter knife out of the kitchen drawer and start heaving the thing around. You'll get nowhere fast and you'll also piss someone off - make sure you bend up a fork and spoon while you're at it, and you can claim that some delinquent ruined a set of your Mother's best flatware. So, if you're not down with the butter knife action, you'll need to go and get yourself a knife that's balanced and crafted for throwing. You can spend anywhere from $20 to $2000, so just get a small knife to start out with and you can always go drop the big bucks when you're ready to upgrade to a better blade.
Once you've got a knife, throw it. Well, try not to stick it into your leg or another person - find a nice soft wood (pine) target to throw at. Stand back about 10 feet and you use almost the same stance as if you were pitching a baseball. You'll swing the blade above your head and release just as the blade is pointed at your target. If you're doing it right, the blade will stick into the target - if you're doing it wrong, you'll know it - you'll hear the clang-bang as the blade bounces on the floor. Pick it up and throw it again. You'll get that pig to stick straight up... after a few successful sticks, you'll get into the groove of throwing.
Let's begin with the stance: your right foot is the back one (toes at distance mark), your left foot is in front, the gap between the two is about two feet (your actual foot, not the measure). The heels are on a line. The two feet form a 45° angel (left 12 o`clock, right 13:30 o`clock position) or wider. Both knees are bent, especially the front one. The weight rests primarily on the ball of your back foot (behind your toes).
Both arms are straight and point to the target, which is in the height of the chest. The right arm now makes a round and smooth swing to the back, the knife is even behind the head. Then it swings forward towards the target, like you wanted to chop off some branch between you and the target. While swinging forward, the weight is shifted to rest on the front foot, the chest follows this movement. The right shoulder does not move, it remains in a (tilted) line with the left. As the knife arm is about in line with the left one and points exactly to the target, quickly let the knife go and snap your fingers back together. Do not stop the swing of the knife throw, go on with the movement. This is called follow throughand considered very important for a good stick.
First things first, you can't snatch a butter knife out of the kitchen drawer and start heaving the thing around. You'll get nowhere fast and you'll also piss someone off - make sure you bend up a fork and spoon while you're at it, and you can claim that some delinquent ruined a set of your Mother's best flatware. So, if you're not down with the butter knife action, you'll need to go and get yourself a knife that's balanced and crafted for throwing. You can spend anywhere from $20 to $2000, so just get a small knife to start out with and you can always go drop the big bucks when you're ready to upgrade to a better blade.
Once you've got a knife, throw it. Well, try not to stick it into your leg or another person - find a nice soft wood (pine) target to throw at. Stand back about 10 feet and you use almost the same stance as if you were pitching a baseball. You'll swing the blade above your head and release just as the blade is pointed at your target. If you're doing it right, the blade will stick into the target - if you're doing it wrong, you'll know it - you'll hear the clang-bang as the blade bounces on the floor. Pick it up and throw it again. You'll get that pig to stick straight up... after a few successful sticks, you'll get into the groove of throwing.
Let's begin with the stance: your right foot is the back one (toes at distance mark), your left foot is in front, the gap between the two is about two feet (your actual foot, not the measure). The heels are on a line. The two feet form a 45° angel (left 12 o`clock, right 13:30 o`clock position) or wider. Both knees are bent, especially the front one. The weight rests primarily on the ball of your back foot (behind your toes).
Both arms are straight and point to the target, which is in the height of the chest. The right arm now makes a round and smooth swing to the back, the knife is even behind the head. Then it swings forward towards the target, like you wanted to chop off some branch between you and the target. While swinging forward, the weight is shifted to rest on the front foot, the chest follows this movement. The right shoulder does not move, it remains in a (tilted) line with the left. As the knife arm is about in line with the left one and points exactly to the target, quickly let the knife go and snap your fingers back together. Do not stop the swing of the knife throw, go on with the movement. This is called follow throughand considered very important for a good stick.