Machete 101 with Joe Flowers

Joe Flowers for Red Dirt Survival is here today to introduce you to using a

machete

, its camping application, bushcraft and tips, tricks and techniques. Now the first thing we're going to go over is the pinch grip and I'm going to talk. about this real quick, it's actually very difficult for a Latin American to teach this because it's like you go up to another guy and say hey, how do I use a hammer? It's a really very simple thing that most Central and South American people know, and even the

machete

and big sword users of Malaysia and the South Pacific know it, but many of us North Americans don't know it and we end up with blisters. in all of our hands because we're sitting there trying to really, really use a gun. big knife or something really hard because we like to grab the machete and take it out and use it with this crazy hard death grip ice pick, there's a lot of words right there too, but you don't have to do that with the machete What most people who use a machete adapt a lot is something called a pinch grip and that's pretty much pinching with just your hand like that and holding it now you might want to try using a lanyard, they personally might not do that.

I use a lanyard by tying a rope to my hand because I've never seen anyone in Central and South America do it and when the thing falls over, the big blade swings like that towards your nether regions and I don't like that. no cord for me personally, you can have your own opinion of course, and your dad will do it with a squeeze, you take the machete and have a loose grip and let that movement take the cut, not just sitting there like that and cutting, but getting a quick Move it all the way now that it's a very, very hard piece of dogwood.

This is much more applicable to light vegetation and green vegetation rather than a piece of dead wood. Now you can still use that hard grip. You can use it for harder. also cut thick, dry wood, and it may help a little, but you might want to try this and see how much deeper you can penetrate it. Let's give you some examples because I don't want to just sit there and talk about machetes all day in front of things, let's cut something right now before we start cutting things like crazy, we should talk a little bit about safety, of course you can wear gloves If you don't want to get blisters, I suggest hex. armor gloves that have a lot of cut resistance, they won't stop a machete from actually cutting you, but it's there, you can wear gloves if you want, especially if you're working around brambles, we'll talk about that later when you're cutting you'll want to look around and make sure there's nothing up here that can catch him and make him fall so you'll want to look around maybe do this real quick make sure this happened to me a while ago. a lot, it doesn't cut or get tangled when you do it on the upstroke.

Now, a very important rule is that you have to be at least ten feet away, five or ten feet away, while someone else is using a machete in front of you. I personally saw it. people get cut when people fall back and throw their machete. I've seen a kid cut himself like that before. I've seen people fall backwards and throw the machete back. It's not fun to watch this man walk right back in your face Stewart Gorman from the UK. who does many expeditions in Borneo recommends walking like this with your parang a machete that way when you fall you throw it out of the way when you fall there are two people who cut themselves the beginners and the experts I made a big cut on my foot here to avoid that you are safe, which comes to another important thing: good footwear.

Try not to do this barefoot or in sandals. You may have seen on television or are traveling internationally people using machetes while barefoot or wearing sandals. Well, there's a very good reason for that. They're better than you at it. They've been using these machetes all their lives. I've met five-year-olds who can swing the machete much better than I hope I ever could. grayish in their way of life, each day more familiar with the machete than you are with your cell phone, that's why they are using it where footwear is another level of protection. I said it, if you are going to cut, use something that is heavy, cutting like that is also not a good option if you want to keep walking, I think you should change your stance, maybe put it that way that it's not in the way and you have an open arch that you can cut like this.

Sometimes you may find yourself cutting, but try to be careful with that. Sometimes I even go all the way with my hip so that this comes back all the way when I'm cutting. I don't want to just cut straight. like this cutting flat you know that parallel to something is a good way to not cut it you always want to cut at an angle at an angle now there is a tulip poplar over here this is a sapling I'm not afraid to cut this tulip poplar because there are a lot of trees around it and it's going to drown, it's already starting to drown when it comes to a competition and I'll use it for another tool later called Googlebot and we'll do it. goes into that, but when I come through here I'm not just going to cut like this if I want to get to my path, now I'm going to cut at angles.

There is a big green tree, okay, cut it, you can cut the thin things. so sometimes just cutting it straight like this but it's much easier to cut at an angle like that 45 degrees okay this way I'm going to play in the middle this way everything goes all the way down pretty simple pretty simple now this is something like that It's funny, It's not funny if you're a vampire because this could kill you, it would hurt if you're a human, although anyway you have something this big sticking out of the ground and if it's your camp, people might have a tendency to fall into it and they are staked and it's bigger than Splinter and the hospital visits below, so you might want to cut lower, maybe two cuts, one up there and one further down.

Still, machetes have a low Rockwell like fifty to fifty-one so they don't hit a rock on the ground, you'll have a nice taste when you have a good machete, unless it's not tapered, we'll talk about that later, but if you miss and you hit a rock on the ground, it should have a It's kind of a dent that you can get over and we'll show you how to fix it later too, so down here because we're being good stewards, maybe you just come here and cut it out that way. Anyway, that's not the piece I want.

We see how we're cutting angles here, you can still cut on both sides too four saplings and stuff, maybe cut here and then cut here at an angle instead of just cutting it all the way through, but you always want to try. and go at angles, okay, we're about to do what's been more or less called an excess robot and that's a little trick to help get a bunch of these nasty brambles out of the way. For this situation, I don't have gloves or good eye protection, so I want to be as far away from the brambles as possible, and sometimes this ogre robot also helps to cut very close to the ground.

Now I'm not going to try to defoliate this entire tree. I just found a good fork here, now I'm going to try to use it, watching my hand, here too, there we go, there's Agri bot, a sauce fork or a hook that looks like a hook to hook the brambles and the path so you can cut them better. now you see how to use the tie now let me show you a video of someone who actually knows how to do it now you will find that shorter machetes are easier to use because they are not unwieldy you can usually start with small machetes if you are trying to become a crazy about the machete and start working on much longer machetes.

I think this one is 26 inches now, when you use a longer machete you will find that there is a lot more flex in the way you want to bend guys who have used long machetes like this for a while, they tend to lead with the elbow a little more , so once again, use the pinch grip and lead with the elbow a little more to get the movement all the way. via clicky clicky this is more of the typical style of machete sheath that you will find in Costa Rica and Central America South America when you put them on generally don't put your hand on that side if you can help it a little bit of a bridle here I took off the frog that goes on the side of your hip because I don't normally use it like that.

I just use this leather tie here to stick it on my belt like this and let it hang on the back. Like, that's one way to carry your machete, of course, you can carry it with a strap under here, like this, or in your backpack in other ways, or you may not have a sheath, you can carry it bareback, right now. Let's go over some machete crafting tips and tricks. Here is a tulip poplar stick. I guess you don't need to use a machete for this, but it sure is fun. Here's the thick stuff you can get out of this. but you can, if you come here and look, just the back edge, you can get some super fine material, you can get it out, of course, with your hands, but what you might not know is that you can get a lot of tinder.

Just by doing this simple little step here, I have a few more gathered here and like you, sharpen and all of this is also just with the back of the machete, yeah, because those are good points that should not be confused with this technique that we does, of course. a great fuzz stick setup, okay, you're trying to get small pieces here for your fire, you start cutting them up, they just hit someone like the camera, they throw all over the place, so how do you make sure you don't hit important things? things like the camera or having to walk around Kansai collecting all this shrapnel you just made today.

You got an introduction to using machetes with some crafting tips and tricks. I'm Joe,

flowers

here to survive in the red earth. Stay tuned for part 2 about using a machete and also kukri craftsmanship and using an introduction to Malaysian couples where you have to learn interesting things like the pistol grip. Stay tuned.