What’s A Butterfly Knife?
For those of you who don’t know what a butterfly knife is, it’s a pocket knife that, when closed, the blade is concealed between the handles. The design of the butterfly knife allows the handles to counter-rotate around its tang so that the blade can be deployed quickly. In addition to being an effective cutting tool like any other knife, it also lends itself to performing flipping tricks.
Learning to flip a butterfly knife quickly takes practice and patience. If you don’t start slowly to get the motion right before you just go at it, you’ll be sorry. Remember, this is still a sharp, bladed instrument. 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.
As I said above, you need to remember that a butterfly knife is still a sharp bladed pocket knife, and you will cut yourself if you’re not careful. The guaranteed way to avoid this is to start out with a butterfly trainer first.
What’s A Butterfly Trainer?
Learn and master your skills with a trainer, which looks and feels just like a real butterfly knife, allowing you to safely practice and hone your flipping skills. Butterfly trainers have non-sharp, display edges on their blades or the blades are completely rounded. In every other way, though, it has the exact same construction with the blade concealed between two handles that will counter-rotate around the tang.
Top Five Butterfly Trainers
Butterfly trainers come in as many colors and design themes as their sharp brothers. They’ve come a long way from the plain trainers of the past since martial arts students started using them in competition performances. Some martial artists never make the jump to an actual butterfly knife since they are only interested in performing tricks and not actually having a cutting tool. In fact, you’ll find that the trainers tend to be more colorful and flashier than traditional butterfly knives. Here are the top five butterfly trainers of the year.
Black Legion Rainbow Trainer
There’s nothing flashier than a rainbow titanium finish, which will catch and reflect the light as you’re flipping and spinning in front of an audience. Iridescent, eye-catching style is exactly what the
Black Legion Rainbow Trainer offers. It has an all stainless steel construction with the colorful titanium finish that’s highlighted by a leaf design, also providing a secure grip. The trainer is 8 3/4” overall and the blade features thru-holes that reduces the overall weight.
Shark Bomber Trainer
Now, this is my absolute favorite butterfly trainer! The WWII Flying Tigers style artwork on the blade of the
Shark Bomber Trainer, offset by the bright, white handles, makes it visually powerful. The photograph-quality, water transfer toothy shark artwork pops off a black stainless steel, clip point blade and the comfortably curved handles are also stainless steel and have black resin inserts. The awesome butterfly trainer is an impressive 9 1/2” in overall length and it has a secure handle locking mechanism.
Bear & Son Black Trainer
The
Bear & Son Black Trainer is a traditional style butterfly trainer, perfect for daily practice. It’s built light and durable, making it suitable for beginners, especially, since dropping it when first learning flipping tricks is par for the course. The blade is high carbon steel with circle thru-holes and the steel handles are black, epoxy powder-coated with thru-slots. With its perfect balance, this made in the USA, lightweight trainer is a perfect fit for everyone!
Viper-Tec Balihoo Trainer
The Viper-Tec Balihoo Trainer is another high-quality trainer that’s built for the abuse of learning and perfecting flipping tricks. The textured handles are high-grade aluminum, and the blade is stainless steel with two, weight-reducing slots that run its length. This 10” trainer really is lightweight at only 5 ozs in overall weight. The icing on the cake for this perfectly balanced butterfly trainer is the lifetime manufacturer’s warranty.
Black Legion Black Galaxy Trainer
Excellent for martial arts performances the Black Galaxy Trainer has the striking visual uniqueness that you can count on from Black Legion. The stainless steel trainer blade has a photograph-quality, water transfer design of cosmic proportions and the black handles are stainless steel with resin inserts to match the blade. The colorful butterfly trainer is 9 1/2” in overall length and it has a secure handle locking mechanism.
