Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My name is John Taylor, I am the organiser of the knife, axe and tomahawk throwing association of the UK
It was formed about five years ago after I came back from throwing in an international tournament over in Texas.
The idea is, before we go any further, I have to explain, Please don’t try any of this at home now.
I have been throwing now for about seven/eight years something like that and its taken me a lot of hours practice to get to the stage I’m at today.
My nickname is Little John because the first time I went over there to Texas, everybody has some sort of throwing nickname.
They already had a Big John, I mean I’m 6’4 tall – I should have been called Big John but because I’m from England, the home of Robin Hood,
they said ‘ok here’s your nickname, you are now Little John’ as such I was asked to get down on one knee,
someone grabbed hold of a knife, they then knighted me ‘Little John’ and the name has stuck.
Knife throwing has always been in me, its something I have really been interested in over the years but I never had spare time
until about eight/nine years ago when I actually retired from work so now I’ve had spare time to take it up.
I have always been interested in accuracy sports, rifle shooting, archery, darts – knife throwing is just a big game of darts with knives.
It’s just something that I absolutely enjoy. About eight/nine years now I have been throwing, continually entering tournaments in the USA and Europe,
meeting others, learning from them and just improving all the time. I have yet to fail to teach anybody within quarter of an hour to stick any knife.
t’s just an easy technique, first of all, you have to have the right stance, the right hold on the knife,
and then you wind up over your shoulder and then follow through.
Wild West week at the Royal Armouries – if you go back to the 1800’s, over in the USA, there were what you would call Mountain men,
they used to go out, trapping beavers for fur, they would then bring them back every year end
and meet up in what was called a rendezvous. All they would have with them is a working knife, a working axe,
invariably they started to throw them into pieces of wood, all round their camps, then they would start to do little tournaments themselves
of who is the most accurate, throw from the furthest away to stick anything into a piece of wood.
That’s how it all started over there, its now moved on to proper organised tournaments in the USA and Europe where we actually throw at targets
– these should have bullseyes on them but we just haven’t had time yet to actually paint them on.
The whole idea is to throw accurately at a target and stick it in the bullseye every time from varying distances.
Knife throwing tuition to the stars is something that just happened to me by pure accident,
someone saw an article on me in the Guardian newspaper, from that, I was then asked to teach an actor to throw knives live on stage.
As far as I’m aware, a raw actor has never been asked to do this before, I was very pleased to help out
– it was an easy task. The person I actually had to teach was unexpectedly to me, Lenny Henry.
He actually performed about 80 shows or something and then took the show to the west end and I’m happy to say,
that every knife stuck where it should.
My favourite thing to throw – I don’t really know because I would just try and pick up anything, nails, screwdrivers, crowbars
and make them stick into a target. There’s just something very satisfying to me about picking something
up and making it stick into that target and I just make it go ‘thunk’.
What I enjoy most about knife throwing, is that over the past three/four years I have been able to go into the USA and Europe,
meet a lot of other people, like-minded people, in organised tournaments.
I have taken one or two first prizes, while I’ve been there and it’s just the joy of being there with others who have also taken up this sport of knife throwing.
I’ll be at the Royal Armouries from 15 – 23 February, showing people the basics of how to throw a knife, tomahawk and an axe.