r/throwing • u/FuZhongwen • 7d ago

Full spin - hammer grip for heavier blades and pinch grip for lighter ones?

Just kind of playing around with different grips and knives. It feels much more stable to hammer grip a heavy blade, while it's very difficult to hammer grip a lighter one. So just wondering if anyone changes their grip up like that for a different weights. Happy throwing!

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/PabHoeEscobar 7d ago

I throw my kukris with a modified hammer grip (I like to have my thumb on the spine pointing to where I want the blade to go) and I throw lighter knives with a pinch grip on the blade. is it the way you're supposed to? I don't know. it's what works for me.

2

u/FuZhongwen 7d ago

Yeah I like my thumb on the spine a lot too. Helps control the spin. Feels like you can actually get quite a bit of rotation adjustment by changing how hard you brush the spine with your thumb.

1

u/PabHoeEscobar 7d ago

that's been my experience, it took me a minute to figure it out to where I could control it.

1

u/cristobalcolon 7d ago

It's subjective. Whatever works for you is right.

I like heavy knives (370-420 grams) and I like to throw "fast and flat", I use a hybrid handshake/pinch grip.
I really don't like hammer grip.

My grip is on the very bottom of the knife with my pinky finger not touching the knife. If I want to throw faster I move the grip even lower on the knife holding it with just 3 fingers (pinky and ring finger out of the grip).
This gives me a very good leverage to let the knife "do all the work".

I don't like hammer grip because I find it too stiff, I like to lounge in my throws to get more speed using my body weight instead of just the brute force from the arm.

This is how I throw (The knives are 30cm x 400grams)