I even did the Foraged in Fire 30deg. bend test and it returned to true. 
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I walk with a cane a lot anymore because of sun serious leg issues and knee to but I have many canes but the two I use have sun real head crackers for the handles, one has āBig Bubba Stickā burnt into it and it has a big brass like door knob for the handle and a 4ā brass toung of an affair that it bolts on to it. Tween a head cracken cane, folder w/tanto tip and pepper spray and a .380 in the pocket I feel pretty safe wherever I may go and thatās mostly nowhere. I canāt remember the last time Iāve been out after dark anymore. A total turn around from how I used to be. Iām not well anymore and have a bad liver that almost had to have a transplant and I canāt hardly fist fight anymore because when ur liver is shot you are shot from head to toe and all in between and itās getting really dangerous around here anymore and if I get into a situation anymore I used to just kick the sh** out of someone but now I will have to end it in a way I wonāt mention but like I said I canāt slug it out anymore unless itās over in two seconds. Gosh I been babbling so long I forgot what I initially started typing for lol, sorry lol!
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When I was younger and a whole bunch more willing to throw hands. I had a guy catch me by surprise with a knife, while I was sitting in my car outside of a restaurant I managed. He got to dialoguing and not paying enough attention and I bailed out of the other side of my truck, when he went and stabbed the side of my trucks door, to punctuate his dialogue.
So I have a small 2 door Toyota pick up between us. He comes running around the truck and Iām digging behind the truck seat for my tire iron. I canāt find it and the only thing I can grab is, I sh*t you not, a Wilson Tennis Racquet. As he is coming around the truck, he throws the knife at me and I swat it away with the racquet head. I hit him, with the side of the racquet using a full power swing down the left side of his face into his left collar bone, which shattered. He kept coming, and since I didnāt know whether he had another weapon, and the racquet was pretty much a crunchyish destroyed mess being held together by the springs and the racquet head cover. I lit into him. I finally got him down and subdued. I call the Police and get them to come out. Itās 0 dark thirty, and Iām trying to find the knife cause I am starting to realize I hurt this guy pretty badly, in self defense granted, but if I canāt find the knife it may get ugly.
I didnāt know it at the time but one of my closing servers had seen it all while waiting for their ride. I did have a security camera that I knew had a view of it all in the parking lot but it was the early 90ās and those cameraās didnāt have the greatest focus and pixelated would be a kind description. So Iāve got the guy subdued and sitting on the bumper/bed of my truck. When the Police show up, I make my report and the server makes themselves known and tells them what they saw. They didnāt see the knife but the knife had punctured the door (never found the knife) so the LEO believed me. They take him in and let me go home and tell me to come to the Police Station the next day.
So I go home and I go to the station the next day make another report and then they take me to see the D.A. I am actually starting to get scared because Iāve never been taken to see a D.A. before. The D.A. has my tennis racquet and has me go through everything again, start to finish. He hands me the tennis racket to demonstrate the swing, and in retrospect, I probably should have had a lawyer there. But for someone whose life has been as hard as mine was. Iāve always trusted LEO. When we finish up he says āyeah, that matches up to the video and the witness reports, so it seems a pretty straight forward case of self defenseā.
He asks me to sit down and sayās he needs his secretary to type up something. His secretary comes in and he tells her to type up up a memo for the Police Department he basically says he wants all of the officers on the force to turn in their batons and tonfaās, by close of business and they will all be issuedā¦ wait for it because itās funny as he//ā¦ Wilson Tennis Racquets. I finally start to unpucker and he asks me āwhy the tennis racquetā? I told him I was reaching for my tire iron and that was all I had, and I really hadnāt wanted to get into range for a knife fight. He took the cover of the tennis racquet off and showed me how the racquet had deformed and looked like a Looney Tunes deal as it had deformed around the shape of his head before the shaft snapped. It was a terrible injury and I realized I would have probably gotten tuned up by him if I hadnāt gotten that shot in. He was a decent sized, good ole, Collard greens eating, hamboned country boy. His left eye orbital, his left cheek bone, his left jaw, and his left collarbone were either fractured, broken or crushed and he was still coming at me. So if I had not gotten that in. He would have probably stomped a mud hole in my azz, and walked it dry.
Cool story bro, but why? Every little bit of distance where you can keep enough distance between you and the attacker, matters because you may be able to get a disabling strike in before it can turn into a furball and I had definitely needed that strike. I considered myself pretty hardcore down to my DNA 
but dude took the best shot I had to give and kept coming.
The scariest part of it to me was I still have 0 idea of the why of it. I truly believe that dude was geeked on something, but I survived for another day.
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Glad your tennis skills and racquet kept you safe in that situation! Goes to show that just about any tool is better than no tool. Especially if it can help you maintain some distance from a person swinging a knife or their fists. Random, unprovoked attacks with unidentifiable motives have to be one of the hardest challenges we can face.
I havenāt played tennis in quite some time so donāt have a racquet in my vehicle anymore. I do keep a machete in the back with my folding bow saw and hatchet. They all come in handy for clearing small downed trees and brush from forest service roads and for making kindling for the camp fire. But with the 18ā blade the machete provides some pretty good reach if I ever needed to use it as an improvised self defense tool.
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I am no knife expert by any stretch of the imagination but have taken a couple of online self defense courses to supplement my in person Krav Maga training. One of those courses was by a guy who trains LEOs for some 3 letter agencies. In his basic knife defense section he emphasized going for some of the same targets on the arm that you mentioned. He calls it defanging the snake. Attacking the attackers arm muscles and ligaments helps to keep your body outside of the range of their attacks and if you hit those targets effectively they canāt hold or swing their weapon anymore.
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Iāve mentioned I have a fair amount of martial arts training from a cousin who was a combat artist before the UFC mainstreamed it, I played around with Kendo quite a bit. So it was more of a high to low sword strike, than anything tennis related. But it got it done 
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I really like the look of Damascus steel. But when I see knives being sold with it they often donāt mention which steels are used to make it.
Until recently I have only purchased relatively inexpensive knives mostly made with lower grade steels. But I made the mistake of purchasing a folder on a really good sale that was made with one of the fancy new steels. After seeing how well it held an edge while still being fairly easy to sharpen I have gone on a little bit of knife upgrading spree.
Just got this:
https://www.buckknives.com/product/663-alpha-guide-elite-knife/
Not for everyday carry but for camping and hunting. Itās nothing fancy but definitely the most I have ever spent on a knife even though I got it on a very good sale.
The MagnaCut steel seems like a really good blend of toughness, edge retention, corrosion resistance and ease of sharpening. The only other fancy steel knife I had was made with S30v steel. It held its edge for a good while but was a pain to resharpen if I let it get dull.
What steels do folks here prefer in there EDC and other blades?
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My God Shamrock what an ordeal! I was thinking that dude musta been tweeked because nine times out of ten when the collar bone gets broken the fight is over! Itās never happened to me but my brother was on the high school football team and the first game of the season he got his broken and we heard a ā snapā in the bleachers at the 50 yard line about ten rows up.! And it gave him trouble for years. But what you described is exactly how things happen, usually no rhyme or reason just one minute youāre minding your own binnus and a few seconds later youāre dodging a knife that can easilly kill you.
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Fortunately for me that was @Zavier_D ās ordeal and not mine.
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Im a mechanic. I always have a knife. Manly? if me using it to start the lawnmower makes me manly, then i guess so lol
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I got this a bit back but because itās such a new/different design I wanted to test it for a while to assure no problems before I posted it. Itās not the fastest opening knife I own but damn, this is a pleasure to carry around.
It literally weights ounces but still very solid designs. You wonāt be using this as a pry bar but itās always there when I want a knife and has become one of my most carried blades.
Wicked sharp and easy to sharpen when needed. They are not super cheap but very high quality and not out of line with other quality blades. I can even throw this in a pocket or clip it IWB and take it to places where even a normal folder would be frowned upon and you just canāt tell I have a knife on me. And one feature I LOVE about the knife, you can train yourself to safely open it one handed, slowly, while concealed and itās QUIET and by that I mean silent!!! This would be a BAD surprise to anyone assuming you are unarmed and a great escape tool if one is ever needed.
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That is a sharp looking Knife brother @Enzo_T
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Iāve got a little Gerber like that my son gave me for a b day present 20 years ago, one side is the belt clip and the other side is a single grind blade, mine probably not but a 1 1/2ā overall closed.
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I wish I knew how to post pictures on here.
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thats a beautifully simple little piece. very nice. I have been carrying the same couple of knife designs for years. i have several CRKT Hissatsu folders, several Kershaw needs work sheepsfoot blades, and several of the older ken onion folders, the blur and another one i cant remember the name of. Was sad when he parted ways with kershaw and they started selling chinese nonsense at walmart. My CRKT that is currently clamped in the knife sharpener has countless arc marks across the spine from me shorting the starter terminals to start it because i dont feel like wiring out the seat switch thats faulty 
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IDK WTF Iām doing but youāve probably figured that out lols
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Man I love a Krambit, real fighting knives, I have a couple of them and my best one is a camo Buck folding one but itās not half as nice as those ones. They are very nice fighting knives.
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