The Texas Experience 2006

By John Taylor

Well, I suppose this holiday started about 45 years ago when I was a young boy and started to throw knives at trees and played knife games with the other boys.

This pastime laid dormant in me over the years, except for one or two brief occasions. As I progressed through my 30 year Police career I suppose knife throwing was not one of those things a Policeman did but it was always in me, as I also took up similar hobbies of darts, shooting and archery.

However on leaving the Police 5 years ago I took up another shooting pastime and became a paintball marshal, which I still enjoy. Last year though I saw a need for something to entertain players who arrived early and from all those years ago my interest in knife throwing finally surfaced.

I painted some targets on wooden planks and nailed them to a plank fence at the paintball site. I had no knives so I made some spikes out of some stainless steel ¼ ’ rod I had in the garage. This progressed into buying some knives on the internet, by this time I was well and truly hooked on the very satisfying “THUNK” the knife makes when it hits the target.

Knife throwing then became a passion for me and I had some knives made for me, searched the internet and found various sites and was spending hours each day throwing. On the net I found The International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame based in Austin, Texas and decided to adopt their rules, targets and distances of throwing. It was through the IKTHOF that I met, via email, Dr. Mike Bainton and a custom knifemaker, Joe Darrah both who inspired me into a greater passion for the sport. Yes, by this time it was a sport to me and not a pastime. The problem was I had no-one else to throw against in England. This frustrated me as I wanted to get better and learn more from others.

So, about three months ago. I realised there was an IKTHOF throw in Austin Texas at the start of September 2006 and thought

“ Go for it, You only live once”

It was with a lot of trepidation that I booked my flights.

I flew off to a land I had never been to before, to meet people I had only conversed with on emails and without my favourite knives (as I thought the English Customs would take them off me!)

When I arrived I was greeted by Joe Darrah, who had kindly made some knives for me, to my design and they were waiting for me.

That was the start of my holiday in which, for 10 days, I ate, breathed and slept knife and tomahawk throwing.

I was welcomed with open arms by people who are now my firm friends and who I feel I have known for years.

I stayed with Dr. Mike at his studio and I am very grateful for his generous hospitality, some nights I didn’t know where I was sleeping but that didn’t matter as I was there living my dream.

When we got down to practising quite a few people could not believe I had been throwing for such a short time as I have such a smooth style.

I explained this was due to years of throwing darts.

The bombshell came when Mike insisted I was good enough to throw against some former and current world champions in The Gold Cup.

So I learned everything I could before hand as I had never thrown against anyone.

The day of the Gold Cup came and I could not believe how calm I was, this was reflected in my throwing and I made the top 12, out of 18, before bowing out to much better throwers.

The next day I took part in a competition, over a hundred knives and various distances. I’m not sure where I came in that competition as that was not important as I was just enjoying taking part.

The following day was the Mountain Man contest, when you only use one knife and one tomahawk and throw at 2 distances, as the old pioneers did.

I had never thrown that type of competition before and was literally practising them a quarter of an hour before I threw.

Once the 3 day tournament ended I was able to do some sightseeing and I actually visited the Alamo. What an emotional experience that was.

Finally I had to leave Texas and that was not without a lot of regret, and some apprehension, as I had been given lots of knives and tomahawks to bring home and I was dreading Customs.

On arrival at Manchester I declared what I had in my cases and to my great relief the customs man was more interested in how I had done in the tournament and I was waved through, without inspection!

I have brought back with me a greater passion for knife throwing but also a lot of memories of my now very good friends, my brother and sisters of the knife. It has inspired me to find as many throwers as I can in Britain, so I can possibly pass on some of the friendship I found in Texas.

There is only one word for my holiday__________”BRILLIANT”.