How To Use A Butterfly Knife

What's A Butterfly Knife

The butterfly knife has been around in popular culture for generations, so, I'm confident that most of you are familiar with it. However, just in case, you have never heard of this type of knife or want to learn more, I'm going to give a brief history and description of it.

It's generally thought that the butterfly knife originated in the Philippines, although, there's some debate about it. American soldiers returning from the Philippines after W.W.II helped it gain popularity in the mainstream. The basic design of a butterfly knife is that the blade is concealed between two handles that counter-rotate around the blade's tang so that it can be deployed quickly. Because of this design, the knife is built perfectly to perform tricks, known as "flipping", which is basically opening and closing the knife quickly using the inherent spinning capability of the handles.

Starting Out Safely

As with anything worth learning, flipping a butterfly knife with speed takes practice and patience. You have to start slowly to get the motion right because, remember, this is still a sharp, bladed instrument. It will cut you if you're not sure of the movements that you're performing. A guaranteed way to avoid getting cut is to start out with a butterfly trainer like the Viper-Tec Balihoo Trainer, which is specifically built to take the abuse of learning and perfecting flipping tricks. A butterfly trainer looks and feels just like a real butterfly knife except that it has a non-sharp, display-edged blade or a blade that is completely rounded. This allows you to safely practice and hone your flipping skills.

How Do I Flip A Butterfly Knife?

The basic concept of maneuvering the knife is to let the flipping motion of one handle and the blade, plus, the twist of your wrist, actually spin the handle you’re holding. Here are the basic tricks that you need to learn first.

The Flick Opening

The flick opening is the very first trick that you need to learn. Hold the butterfly knife with the “bite handle” facing away from you. This is the handle where the blade is stored, and the other handle is called the “safe handle”. Flick your wrist allowing the bite handle to push out and the blade to come out and away from it. Then, spin the safe handle making the bit handle and the blade meet at the back of your hand. Now, flick your wrist back allowing the handles to close together in your hand with blade in the open position.

The Flick Closing

The flick closing is pretty much the reverse of what you did above and starts with the knife in the open position. The essential thing is that you flick up the bite handle and into your open palm so that both of the handles end up back in the closed position in your hand, with the blade securely closed between the handles.

The Basic Fan

The basic fan is one of the simplest and safest tricks to learn. Hold the butterfly knife by the safe handle and just move your hand in a circular motion, allowing the bite handle and blade to spin freely like a ceiling fan.

Final Note

The butterfly knife is also just a great alternative folding pocket knife that you can count on to perform any of the tasks that you ask of it on a daily basis. When you flip out a butterfly knife, when someone asks if you have a pocket knife to cut something with, it looks impressive. Take a look at the variety of Butterfly Knives we have.