MONODEXTROUS

In my column on knives intended for personal defense, I referenced the idea that fixed blades were best for the purpose and that folding knives had a couple of big deficiencies if they were going to be used for that task.

The first is that a folding knife is inherently less sturdy than a fixed-blade. As noted, several trainers with more wit than yours truly refer to tactical folders as “pre-broken” knives, and it’s not entirely wrong.

The most important consideration for a folding knife carried for use in an entangled situation, especially for purposes of firearm retention, is that it deploys automagically on being pulled out of a pocket or waistband, without any of the sort of hand-jive juggling that could cause the knife to be dropped or the blade to open to something less than a fully locked-open condition.

The first really commercially available implementation of this was a feature called the “wave” from Emerson Knives that appeared back in the Nineties. The wave was simply a hook-shaped structure on the spine of the blade of a folding knife carried tip up in a pocket or waistband.

As the folder was yanked abruptly from its pocket or IWB carry nest, that hook would snag fabric in passing, and the blade would get yanked around its pivot and pop into a locked-open position, propelled by inertia.

Ironically, the original purpose of the “wave” on custom Emerson folders back in the Desert Storm years was to serve as a parrying guard on custom CQC folders. Never let it be said that even our nation’s elite fighters can’t make strange requests of manufacturers.

I first encountered the Emerson Wave when I was running a gun store in exurban north Georgia back in the late 1990s. At the time, I thought one of the young deputies who was a regular customer had mastered some sort of ninja knife-fu for opening a pocket knife as he retrieved it from his pocket. When I got my own Emerson Commander a few years later, it was like learning a card trick.

For years, the wave was limited to very expensive Emerson folders, although a clever workaround was discovered by Spyderco fans. If a classic Spyderco folder were carried in a tip-up fashion in a pocket and a zip tie were run through the “Spydie Hole” and clipped short, the stubby plastic loop served as a jackleg wave.

It was probably unsurprising that Spyderco would license the Wave from Emerson, and you could buy factory Delicas, Dragonflies, and Enduras with the Wave feature.

Still, Spydercos are spendy for people on a budget…

Fortunately, Kershaw has come out with a wide range of Emerson collabs with the wave feature, in a few sizes. Even more importantly, Kershaw sells training drones… blunt knives with blue scales … of their knives.  These are invaluable if you want good force-on-force training involving edged weapons, and doubly so if you are intending to deploy a folding knife for defense in an entangled situation.