Part 1 of 4 I spent the last three days with the Emerson family of Emerson Knives.We were able to tour their production facility and get an inside view of what makes their knives the premier tactical folding knife on the market today (see our pictures on Sealed Mindset’s Facebook page).  Spending this time around knives has reminded me how much I rely on knives for defense, thus the next series of posts will concentrate on knives. AS HUMANS, WE ARE LIMITED. If you take a close look at a human being, it becomes pretty evident that we are not the most robust species out there.  We do not boast sharp claws, fangs, or even a tough hide for defense. There are two reasons that we are at the top of the food chain: opposable thumbs and an incredible intellect.  Having opposable thumbs gives us the unique ability to make and hold tools.  Our intellect gives us not only the ability to learn, but also more impressively the ability to invent; the ability to bring into existence something that never was. Ernest Emerson and the family of Emerson Knives have put their opposable thumbs and creative intellect into excellent use by creating the best tactical folding knives available in the market today. Anne and I have had the pleasure of being good friends of the Emerson family for a number of years now.  That is not something a Navy SEAL takes lightly.  Emerson knives hold a special place in the battle-hardened hearts of most special operators.  I still remember fondly the first time I held an Emerson blade in my hand.  There I was standing in my room at the United States Naval Academy . . . Before I made it into SEAL training I prepared myself both mentally and physically by relentlessly pushing myself.  That self imposed torture came in many forms: refusing to run in anything but a T-shirt and shorts no matter what the weather (nasty Pittsburgh weather be damned) or reading every word published on Navy SEALs. It was in Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior series in which I was introduced to the lethal efficiency of Emerson steel.  In his books, “Demo Dick” Marcinko clearly stated that the Emerson CQC-6 was the epitome of combat folders. My mind was made up: if the CQC-6 was THE knife of choice for Navy SEALs, I had to have one and I had to know how to use it.  Getting one would be much more difficult as at the time there was a 5 year waiting list.  I figured the best course of action would be to start saving my money and begin learning the art of knife fighting. Spring break was coming up during my 2nd Class (junior) year at the Naval Academy; therefore common sense held that it was time to go somewhere warm with beautiful women. Not being one to follow the herd, and not understanding how chasing women in Jamaica helped me become a better warrior, I hatched a different plan.  I found a close friend, classmate and eventual co-founder of Sealed Mindset and proposed that we go to the back alleys of Pittsburgh to train with an infamous martial artist, Kevin Pegnato, instead of going to a beach. We asked Kevin to put together a weeklong offensive and defensive knife-fighting course, and he asked us if we liked unbroken fingers. Undeterred, we packed up the car and drove through the night to Pittsburgh.  He also made the strange request that we each bring a 12” x 2” x 1” piece of hardwood. We spent the night before class awake with scenes of silently dispatching the enemies of our country with fixed blade fighting knives playing though our minds.  When we arrived at the dojo early in the morning, blocks of wood in our hands, our reality was nothing like our dreams. The first lesson we learned was the most important: You will get cut in a knife fight. You readers should feel lucky to have received this most crucial lesson so easily.  Our Instructor was more inclined to provide physical lessons, usually accompanied with pain.  He stood in one corner of the dojo with a beautifully carved wooden knife in his hand.  He asked me to pick a distance away from him where I thought I wouldn’t get cut, when I looked quizzically to his wooden knife he pointed to my block of wood on the floor by my lunch. I picked up my wood block and stood about 12’ away from him.  He laid the ground rules that he would make one attack and if I was able to parry or move away from his attack the test was over.  I nodded my head in understanding.  Before I could register his movement he made one giant step forward, but I could instantly tell that there was no way he would be close enough to touch my body with his knife.  I responded by stepping back quickly to increase my distance. At the last instant, his wrist snapped out and the last two inches of his knife struck the index and ring fingers of my knife hand.  The wooden block instantly dropped from my hand.  Then came my favorite lesson concerning knife fighting: “Not many people want to continue a knife fight when their fingers are laying on the ground in front of them.” Now I understood his question about my attachment to my fingers.  I also had a whole new understanding of 10 wonderful additional targets.  He explained that the hands were usually the furthest point away from the body and also were critical in our ability to mount an effective offense or defense. After proving these points, he told us what we could expect for the next 5 days.  This would become our third lesson: “Anyone with a knife can cut another, it takes a truly skilled warrior not to get cut.” Unarmed defense against a knife is one of the most difficult skills to learn, and that is what he said we would spend the majority of our time on.  We started with learning how to assume a fighting stance and how to move quickly with balance.  The techniques and lessons I learned in that dojo in 1997 became the foundation of my shooting and fighting career. As we were leaving that first day, we received our homework assignment.  The instructor told us that he expected our blocks of wood to have the start of a handle by the next morning.  He added that he would not be happy if he saw any signs of power tools on our blocks.  He pointed to the simple Gerber pocket knives that we both had in our pockets and added, “Have fun and don’t put any rings on tonight, your fingers are going to swell.” Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more! Larry Yatch Part 2 to “Learning to Knife Fight with a Navy SEAL” arrives on Tuesday!