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Announcer [00:00:03]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your host, Bob the knife junkie DeMarco

Bob DeMarco [00:00:15]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. I'm your host, Bob DeMarco. On this edition of the show, I'm speaking with Al Salvitti of Regiment Blades. You probably know Regiments Blades from their famous low vis design. It's a dedicated self defense knife that, in many ways, resembles a gun. It's got a blade to handle angle that looks kinda like a revolver, and it features a retention ring where you would find a trigger guard. Al is an expert in the Filipino martial arts and has been training people who really need to know how to fight with a knife since the early 2000.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:50]:
He is no stranger to the dark realities of knife violence and any glorified notions of knife fighting you might have will go right out the window when you scroll through his Instagram page. We'll meet Al and discuss Regiment Blades, but first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, download the show to your favorite podcast app, and share it with a friend. And in the meantime, if you wanna help support the show, you can do so by going to the knifejunkie.com /patreon. Again, that's the knifejunkie.com/patreon.

Advertisement Announcer [00:01:24]:
Do you use terms like handle to blade ratio, walk and talk, hair popping sharp, or tank like? Then you are a dork and a knife junkie.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:33]:
Al, welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, sir. It's great to see you.

Al Salvitti [00:01:36]:
Thanks, man. Great to be here.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:38]:
My pleasure. Well, I said a lot in your intro there, but you've been training in knife combatives and knife fighting and KALI and all sorts of Filipino martial arts and other stuff for quite a while, but how did you get into this stuff?

Al Salvitti [00:01:53]:
Alright. So I've been training for 51 years, December 10th. I know that because I have a certificate. But So I I started, trading. Of course, like everybody in the seventies after a Bruce Lee movie, everybody wanted to be Bruce Lee. And then I started trading in 1973, it's old style, take on, turned into taekwondo, to your old style. So at 19, I got a black belt in that style. And, from there Al 21, I started bouncing.

Al Salvitti [00:02:26]:
Michael had a club. And I was a black belt, and I fought all over. I fought Master's Club Guardian and, you know, all that stuff, but it was all mostly point stuff. Okay? Like Joe Rogan did. He did a lot of point stuff once he get younger. So I get into working nightclubs, and I'm working in Hainesville, New Jersey. Bruce Willis used to come in all the time at that time, but nobody knew him before he moved to New York, and it was a little wild. But office is so great.

Al Salvitti [00:02:56]:
So, anyway, so I get there, and I'm up to me a pretty well trained black belt. I mean, I train with a Korean guy 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. You know? I thought I was this shit. So I get in there in in the first night. Everybody's laughing at me. I'm 5, 7, I'm recording. Right? Nobody's really and they're all monsters. The bouncers are monsters.

Al Salvitti [00:03:25]:
So I get in there and the first night, nothing's happening. They're introducing me as, you know, this is her nephew. He's gonna he's gonna work the door. Okay. Something's gonna happen. You know? So, anyway, the end of the night, something happens, and, I pulled up Bruce Lee, which I shouldn't have done back then, but I was young, 19 21. And, the head bouncer, who was the meanest person I ever met in my life, he's just the meanest person. Anyway, he has somebody up against the wall, and I kicked a guy in the face over his shoulder.

Al Salvitti [00:03:59]:
They won't go, oh, we'll we'll do that. So so that when I was in, right, was but it was Bruce Lee stuff. Shouldn't do that. But after that, I found out that most of the stuff I learned doesn't work. It doesn't work because they didn't first of all, they didn't know I was a black belt, so nobody had respect for me. Like, it's not like you go into the school and you're black belts, so, yeah, no, no, no one cared. The best move was a 2 handed choke and bang their head bang their head on the door frame. That that's it.

Al Salvitti [00:04:27]:
And just start slugging it out. So there's one guy that worked there who was a navy boxer, and he was knocking people out so fast. So so much quicker than I would even attempt to do because when you're in a bar with 800 people, you can't get seats too close. So you had to use your hands a lot. So I started boxing in, let's say, about 22. And I started going into Philadelphia, which is a fight down back then. You're talking 81. K? So, let's go to Marty Feldman's game.

Al Salvitti [00:05:03]:
And, the guy that has the Blades knuckle event, David Feldman, that's his father. So he he was there, and I know him. And, you know, everybody's tight knit in Philadelphia. But we're in West Philadelphia where the signs on the door, trespassers will be killed. I mean, it was just looking under the Al. You know? And it's a tough neighborhood. 2nd floor gym where you had to, like, watch where you walked. You will fall through the floor.

Al Salvitti [00:05:29]:
It wasn't a real razzle dazzle place. Right? Being one of the only 2 white guys in there, big beat the hell out of you. And being a black belt too, I'm fucking, yeah, I can handle it. No way. Not boxing. Not at that time. So I saw his farm with Johnny Carter. He was a a professional fighter at the farm, but they didn't tell me that at first.

Al Salvitti [00:05:53]:
They're like, hey, kid. How how much you weigh? Oh, I don't know, 140? He's like, you're a smart guy. He weighs a £117. I'm like, £117? My sister weighs that. Yeah. Okay. I'll get in there. This dude beat me like a drunk.

Al Salvitti [00:06:13]:
£117, I couldn't touch him. I mean, I couldn't if I hit that, he would just fade away. He was like a ghost, and it was a light it's life changing. Because after all that training and all that black belt, even some screen fighting, he was so smooth. Boy, he's number 1 contender in the world, but he didn't tell me that. They they left that out because nobody's gonna possibly. So I sparred with him for 6 months. I learned more from him by getting beat up than any trainer that I ever got anyway.

Al Salvitti [00:06:45]:
He would hit me so much that you could swear there's somebody else in the ring. But after a while, I was able to hit him because only because I knew him. You know, you get the feel of the person. He was a great dude. You know? And I used to drive him home, so so we got friends. So but after you know somebody for a while, you know what they're gonna do. You're gonna do it. But everybody else has sparred, I'd beat the hell out of because of him.

Al Salvitti [00:07:10]:
So sometimes I couldn't leave the gym for an hour. I have to sit down and my head would I couldn't drive. I mean, there was no holding back in the boxing field. So that's the difference between the karate school and the boxing thing.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:26]:
Well, I was gonna ask you. In terms in terms of technique, what are the kind of things that were lacking in your, you kept calling it Bruce Lee stuff, but, you know, we're talking, kicking and punching and all the sort of Asian martial artsy things that we think of. What was lacking in that that, boxing had? Was it just grit?

Al Salvitti [00:07:46]:
Well, a lot of it's grit for getting punched. See, it's always how much you can take. It's really not how much you can give. It's really how much you can take. So in boxing, you had to take a lot. So the movement, that was huge, feeling like I was never close enough to him to hit him. And then when I would step forward, he was gone, and then I was getting hit from the side. I even could see it after a while.

Al Salvitti [00:08:14]:
And it was more of a win manipulation because it still is a sport. And, you know, I felt like if I got him in the corner, maybe kick him in the legs a few times, yeah, maybe. But to get to that corner, I would have to eat a lot of punches. And at a £117, you can't imagine how hard that someone could hit like that because I'm thinking there's I mean, he never knocked me out or down, but I was out on my feet a couple of wait a few times. And I can never go more than 7 rounds with him. So and that's a full on pro. I mean, he's the number one contender, and the pace was amazing. So that's another thing.

Al Salvitti [00:08:50]:
The pace of boxing is amazing. In 3 minutes, you can say, I'm so tired with my feet. I can't look I can't even raise my arm.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:57]:
Yeah. And you got 14 more rounds to go, boy.

Al Salvitti [00:08:59]:
14 more. I mean, it's amazing.

Bob DeMarco [00:09:02]:
So how did how did knives come into this for you?

Al Salvitti [00:09:05]:
Okay. So I've been for 15 years. Right? So who bounces for 15 years? Well, I was there to fight. Okay? So after I got the boxing down and I'm stranded, I'm there to fight. It's it's like going to a training school. I mean, the bar I worked at, we we wrapped our hands. So imagine going into a barber shop, just Al wrapped our hands. That's how many fights that I would be in a night.

Al Salvitti [00:09:29]:
Okay? I mean, it's crazy. So I had a kid, 90. When he was 10, I started well, he's been training all his life, but when he get him formal training, he goes, I'm not big on formal training, but hence he just sent a kid. So it's going to be me. But then we got involved with Sayoc when he was 10, and that was the Sayoc dudes were they were just my type of people. I was like

Bob DeMarco [00:10:00]:
So for people who don't know, who's what's Sayoc?

Al Salvitti [00:10:03]:
So Chris Sayoc, Art of the Blade, Chris Sayak, Tom Keyer, Filipino colleague, man. Filipino martial arts. Okay. High level like Nikita. It's practically the same, Okay? They had their own system, but it was more since so what people don't get about the night training culture is, say, OC was a state of mind more than the Blades or more than the, you know, they do the transition drills and they do, you know, the angle attacks and that is that's not it. If you are thinking like boxing and knife breaking this, is this and not this, well then you're reading the wrong book, okay? It's not about that. It's about being able to control yourself. If you can't control yourself, how are you going to control anybody else? This is the basic thing.

Al Salvitti [00:11:01]:
So with SAOC, you were pressed a lot. Training modifiers, what they call it, end user, but you were getting flogged, you were getting darts thrown at you, you were getting this crazy stuff and I loved it And that that was these are my kind of people. So we started training with Blades, and, STG is, hard to say at that time, but we trained military. So I I went with the military because my specialty started going in power hitting and how to hit hard in a small space, and that's the people that I trained here. And I would train SEOP guys too. So, after the first initial, one they brought me, JD Potinski is Northern my guy. He was going for selection, and they would bring people over in this training area. It doesn't look like this.

Al Salvitti [00:11:58]:
The hell it usually looks. And before they would go to some selection, they would go through some stuff that they think that they would need more so. So they wanted to find it. It's like, take them through a box and work out. And I was like, well, I don't really do boxing work. Kind of a power thing on how to hit hard in in a small space because it's all about power. If you don't have any power, it's it doesn't go fast. You need to hurt people quickly.

Al Salvitti [00:12:30]:
Okay? So this is what I developed. So anyway, after that, they would take me on the trips to the military because they had the contracts for Navy SEAL, delta 4th, the rangers. And, I would do my block, and my block was the open hand, pallet, and it's called the plumber slap through that community because I'm a plumber by trade, and that's just a hell of a nickname. So but we did the blade with them too. So, we were my son and I moved up the ranks of they would have associate instructors, but then to be full instructor, that's a 10 year gig. So it really took a long time. They were great with Nas. I mean, I couldn't touch these guys.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:16]:
You're talking about the the SCIOC guys still.

Al Salvitti [00:13:18]:
Right? SCIOC guys. And Phil, you know, and the same with the computer guys. It just it was amazing when you don't know, and then you somebody in front of you will move the knife, and then on magically, they're they're touching you with this, and it's just you really know how much you don't know. But when I started doing my thing of the the punching in the power pump, they they couldn't touch me because we were trained on 2 different things. I had the 20 years experience of the brutality of street fighting, boxing, and getting beat up most of the time, and they had been raised with knives all their life. And they concentrated their little neck. So when we sort of Blades, if you wanna call it, I couldn't touch them. But then when that knife was gone, they couldn't handle it.

Al Salvitti [00:14:09]:
So after a while, I I would go on these military trips. Right? And I would see these guys, and they'd have these big Blades strapped to the chest, you know, and all their gear. Big. Pretty big. Man, this guys, all you guys got big knives, man. I got them together when I went on my own. I'm like, you guys are picking your knives like you're picking your dicks. I mean, you wanna get it I want the biggest one I can, you know, and give me too many black.

Al Salvitti [00:14:39]:
And I said, none of you know how to use it. Right? They're, not really. I just wanted to scare people. I'm like, oh, okay. So it needs to be smaller because, the 2 hun Chris was the head of Zayo. I was his plumber. That was like being his doctor. Okay? He needed more plumber and work than than anyone.

Al Salvitti [00:14:57]:
Now he had passed maybe 8, 10 years ago. But before that, I was at his house all the time and I talked to him for hours, you know, during the week. And the man was brilliant. The man could sit there and teach a class and not even get up. He he didn't even get up and everybody and I watched them. Man, he could transfer information like nobody that I ever met. There was only one guy in SAAP that was able to do that after that with Empire. The method that they had to transfer information into my head is without getting up, they just explained it to me.

Al Salvitti [00:15:38]:
It's amazing, and I'm doing that. I haven't met anybody like that since. So I said, look. We we we need the the make a blade they can punch with. Because when when I went to, damn that, all the the the fight move was incredible. They're all punching and kicking, punching and kicking, and then, he would do the blade stuff. And then my block was the power hitting and the Regiment, you know, stuff like that. And I would help out with blade and, only because I was living for 5 or 8 years doing that.

Al Salvitti [00:16:11]:
I confuse more people. I could see I'm confusing these people more than anything. And it's really not getting it. It's just me. I you know? But but Blades trade's hard. I mean, you gotta remember stuff except for, you know, just before the end goes in him. It's just a lot different. And I would see at the end of the week, the guys that I would train, but just throw their trainers down and just start punching each other in the face.

Al Salvitti [00:16:38]:
Well, why do you do that? Well, it's gotta get in the way. And again, you're right. A blade is is a hindrance or it's an asset. There's a fine line for you to make it a hindrance or an asset because if you wanna take everybody's skill away, boxing skills, wrestling skills, jujitsu skills, give them a knife. It's all gone. Because now it's just a knife. They forget everything about you can't box with it or or they're not gonna do it immediately. You can't wrestle with it, Did you jujitsu with them? They're gonna help yourself.

Al Salvitti [00:17:13]:
Yeah. This is a hindrance. So when I started designing a Blades for me because it was a hindrance to me too as far as being self stat issues. The things are going a 100 miles an hour. And I've been in enough fights to know that things would go a 100 miles an hour, and you do stuff that you're not even aware that you've done. So I'm gonna keep some of my skills, but I still want to ever use a knife because I made it for me. I'm getting older. I need that because I'm no match for the Filipino guys, and they were no match for the punching skill that I had if they weren't used to it.

Al Salvitti [00:17:51]:
So that's where this Blades comes into. And we exactly. And I keep that. So when I do that, knives are about grip, grip, and about the sheets. So this pinky holds the blade in place, and all the rest wrap. Now if you hold it like this without your finger in the hole, do you feel that? You feel how good that feels? Yeah. Okay. This finger doesn't mean anything.

Al Salvitti [00:18:25]:
Right? It's more for retention, but you don't need to put that finger in to use it. Some people, I don't really put my finger in a finger guard. Okay? That's fine. But you really don't. It's really there to pull it out. That is what my first envision was to get it out because once this blade goes in, sometimes it is hard to get out. And I see people leave blades in targets because they have nothing to you know, it just slips out. Because most knives that are made are ductile knives.

Al Salvitti [00:18:53]:
The hands are too slippery. I've ridden that blade all the way up and cut my fingers. Mhmm. The the sheet is is too bulky. It's no good. I gotta make it where I'm not gonna ride the blade, and the sheath is good like a pistol that I can carry on. So that's where the concept comes of this. I have to draw it's the same as pistol.

Al Salvitti [00:19:17]:
And we made it for shooters because the up and out is the same as a gun. Pick it up, straight out into the car. They already have that. Okay? So I'm already halfway there. Because once you go to people that are trained in one area, but then you try to change things and say, okay. Well, now you're gonna do this. So now we have a straight blade, and it's drawn like this. And now we go number 1, number 2, and 3, 4, 5, and then okay.

Al Salvitti [00:19:47]:
Well, that offsets everything because and, again, this is the first day again every day. It's like, okay. Now I guess I have to do something different. So now we have to be, okay, the shooter now and the overhead Blades guy now. Now we're doing this, and then we're gonna do a punching gun. Now we're gonna do that. So you gotta be too many things Al far as your training. Now cops were the perfect example.

Al Salvitti [00:20:12]:
They don't have any time to train. They need to know now. Military dude, they don't they don't have time to train. They need to know before I deploy how to use a Blades. Okay? Well, that's easy for me. Can you punch a little bit? Yeah. I can punch. Okay.

Al Salvitti [00:20:29]:
Get that in the hand. You just 1, 2, 1, 2. You don't have to do it. I teach women like this straight on straight, or you don't have to do it. The self stab issues are not there. Because if I'm gonna hold something in a straight blade like this, I can't I can't possibly. I can't. Alright.

Al Salvitti [00:20:45]:
So now alright. So I got a reverse grip. Well, once I do this, I wanna do this. Mhmm. Okay? And then when I wanna do that, now it's gonna change me again. K? I want something that I can just, boom, 12, 12, 12, grab, 12. You know, for Kita, they got drills. Right? Ten count drill.

Al Salvitti [00:21:04]:
There. Here's 10 count Regiment drill. That's it.

Bob DeMarco [00:21:08]:
Okay. So for those who are who are listening, we're holding up the Regiment Blades low vis model. It's the it's the knife I described in the intro. It's it's got a almost a 90 degree arc to it. It it it presents a lot like a pistol. It's even got a hole where the trigger guard would be. And, I am I am not someone who daily carries a pistol, but I have found that carrying this, it's very easy to draw, very intuitive, and, the blade, presents to the angle of your wrist in such a way you don't have to change your wrist at all Right. To get that point where you want it to go.

Bob DeMarco [00:21:46]:
So, so, yeah, I I just want people to know who are only listening that, this is something that gets the blade right where it needs to be intuitively without having to relearn, something. I have a spatula here. Sorry. I've got a table full of knives. But you don't have to, like, turn your wrist and figure out how you're gonna get that point there. And in a moment of truth, you don't have to rejigger your reflexes to get, the the point online.

Al Salvitti [00:22:18]:
Yep. So, for me, it's like stab their everything. You know? I let my old Korean instructors say, like, how how hard do you wanna hit? Break their everything. I'm like, yeah. That's pretty good. So whatever they put up, you can you can just stab it. Okay? You go right through it, straight ahead, straight ahead, straight ahead. Instead of me trying to go around all these defenses, you just go straight through it.

Al Salvitti [00:22:44]:
Because once I point this, you have to get around it. And, you know, number 1, oh, we are. He didn't. Number 2, oh, yeah. That's when they enter, but you're gonna have to enter off this enough. Right? Entering on a off the point is gonna be hard for you because it's just gonna be sewing machine.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:03]:
It's also harder to see. It's harder to perceive with your eyes when something's coming straight in.

Al Salvitti [00:23:08]:
Because how does a guy catch arrows? When some guy catches arrows, he catches them off to the side all the time. He'll stand there, and he'll catch him here. But when you point it here, it's right here, it becomes 2, and your depth perception is way off. So the angles are there are no angles. It's straight on. I changed them to the neck and face because this is what I want because naturally, when you do it somebody's eyes, what do they do? They lean back. They have to lean back. So the jab is straight up right at the eyes, the head goes back, and then another hand comes in, and we're back to this again.

Al Salvitti [00:23:46]:
And everybody can do this. Toddlers can do this. K? It's so easy. But get this this this this again, but cutting up, well, that's hard again. Now and and and you know with heavy clothes on, cutting is not well, here's the contest. We'll have a a contest. I'm gonna stab, and you're gonna cut. Okay? So we'll put heavy clothes on, and you get to cut me off the chest with a 2 inch Blades.

Al Salvitti [00:24:14]:
This is rig is just a 3 inch, but I'll stab. But who's gonna take that? No one. Because cutting is almost superficial with heavy clothes on. Yeah. So to try to get my point across with people that cutting yes. It is good with a bare arm and no drop a knife. Maybe you can get that at something. But you cut your family.

Al Salvitti [00:24:35]:
Everybody else gets stabbed. Oh, there you go. Because cutting's not that bad because there's timers and switches. The timers are okay. Cut the vein.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:47]:
Wait. Wait. Explain explain that concept, timers and switches.

Al Salvitti [00:24:50]:
Timers and switches. So the timers are for when you're cutting, you'll cut a vein. You'll cut it even on the neck. And maybe depending on what you cut, there's 5 to 10 seconds or the guy's gonna bleed out. He can still draw a gun, draw a blade. He can still kill people. Switches are when you stab into the arm and turn it off or you stab into the neck deep and rip out. You got 3 seconds.

Al Salvitti [00:25:21]:
If you hit the aortic arch right here that goes from your heart and the vein goes behind your stomach, that's 2 and a half seconds if you sever that. Okay? But I can't get to that by cutting it. I need to get to that by stabbing it. Okay? So that's the concept of Thomas's switches. So if you cut someone and then you squeeze them and then the blood shoots out, you okay. Maybe it'll be fast. But just because you cut someone doesn't mean they're gonna stop automatically because they'll and as soon as the adrenaline that gets in, everything tightens up in you anyway. Okay? From bleeding.

Al Salvitti [00:25:59]:
Now you see people that get cut online cut, and it just it's not bleeding that much. Right? It's because you're adrenalized, and all your tendons, all your veins seem to just tighten up where you don't bleed as much. It's built into us. So we gotta go right to the switches where if I stick a blade in the nerve up here, the arm doesn't work anymore. Okay? So that's the and that's the SEI timers and switches. You can look that up online, and they'll explain it. Maybe not a lot of better than me, but this is good. So when you're in this situation, things happen so fast.

Al Salvitti [00:26:39]:
You need to be able to get your feet around and get it into play pretty quick. You don't have to fast draw because if you're fast draw, you're already behind the concept there. If you need the fast draw, you've done something wrong already. You should've known already that something is in the works. You have to see the future. Now just how I had it. How do you see the future? Well, when you're driving down the street and you see a guy in your neighborhood obviously lost. Right? You're like, oh, he's lost.

Al Salvitti [00:27:09]:
He don't know where he's going. Oh, or this guy, you can see he's angry. He's well, the guy's in a car, and you were able to tell what he's feeling. We're able to see this dude's gonna turn. I see he's gonna turn. He asked me to turn and say, but you already know.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:22]:
Yeah.

Al Salvitti [00:27:23]:
Well, don't tell me you're not in a room full of humans and you don't know what's gonna happen in a little bit when someone gets the hard eyes or Now, I'm a little I'm more experienced than that because when I was working at the bar, I would cruise the bar and see what's gonna happen. Okay? When I would look for that in the telltale signs, they call it hard eyes or, you know, just their body movement. I saw a guy walk by me at the door. He had a bottle in his hand in a certain way, and the guy next to me, I say, follow that guy. He's gonna hit him with that bottle. And he looked at me like me a bright shirt. He cracked his dude right in the face with a bottle cut up from here. I said, how'd you know that? I said, well, he told me by walking by me that way.

Al Salvitti [00:28:03]:
I could see him. He was b run on this guy. He had the bottle upside down. He had it was so didn't see him. He was, like, screaming at everyone. I'm gonna hit this dude with a bottle.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:14]:
That's that, your driving analogy is perfect because, yeah, we we all know when we're driving down the road, down the highway, we can, even if we're not thinking about it, we know what people are gonna do by their micro movements Exactly. With their with their car. That's that's the perfect, analogy.

Al Salvitti [00:28:33]:
Not know when that was gonna happen. Right? I mean, I've seen so much in bars and the people that you're like, you're not psychic. People tell you exactly how they are. You just have to pay attention. Alright. Paid attention is the biggest thing.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:47]:
Let's talk about the low biz. We talked about the design, influence. It's it's basically punching. Can you punch can you get your fist on something? Well, then you can you can land your blade. But you've you've done this. You've you've done this auto, not automatic, but this folding version.

Al Salvitti [00:29:04]:
Folder. Okay. Now the folder, of course, is modeled after this. Uh-huh. We wanna make this into a folder because I wanna be able to carry it, more concealed or in a pocket. Well, let's face it. Folders, they're broken. The knives are broken, so it needs a good lock.

Al Salvitti [00:29:22]:
Right? Mhmm. So we had the the first design, and I sent you videos on that. They just fucking working for me because the button's in the wrong place. You're squeezing the button on the first ones.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:38]:
You're talking about the button lock. Yeah? Oh, there it is. Yeah.

Al Salvitti [00:29:41]:
Well, the button lock, when I get a full grip on here, my finger is on the button. When I get focused, so I say, alright. I don't get my finger locked. I put my thumb down. It's on the button. Okay? Lefties. I can feel the button. Well, here's the problem with the button.

Al Salvitti [00:29:59]:
That is that that just got ready to close. I don't know how to do my button. I can see.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:05]:
Yeah. No. You could see that. Yeah. You could see that. Finger or thumb is always on the button one way or another. We all know button lock.

Al Salvitti [00:30:12]:
Oh, that's the tap. Right? Well, that's closing. Now I could say this because my name was on this blade. I'm not bashing anybody. I'm not saying this that this is a bad design because once I squeeze you squeeze it out of it, and now it's ready to close. Okay? So using a blade that has a button lock on it that I'm squeezing while I'm using it is not what I want. And it took the then you you saw with it closing on my finger and almost cutting it off to prove it, before they put a lock on there. Now if you're going fast, not that everybody has a draw fast, you forget to put the lock on, you could still squeeze the button.

Al Salvitti [00:30:50]:
So we we we redesigned it where there's a double lock on it, and that lock automatically goes on. Okay? Now I don't flip it. I smack it to open. Okay? So what what it is, there's a lock on one side, and a button here. And this button goes down, and this button goes in to close it. So it's a 2 handed operation. Yeah. When I do that, this button goes down, and this button goes in.

Al Salvitti [00:31:22]:
I get 2 hands to close it. So it's less likely to close on my hand because there's 2 actions involved. It's out of the way, so we don't even touch it. Yep. K? And that's the idea because broken knives will close, and the liner lock's the worst because it jumps. Now you can say, oh, they step. But when it hits something hard, it jumps and it closes on your hand. And this, old style, is a liner lock, and the button button just pushes it to the knot.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:51]:
Okay. So it's a a button actuated liner lock that's kind of a hot

Al Salvitti [00:31:55]:
new brand then. On the button, you're pushing on the liner. So what's you know? They're made by people that don't use knives. They just make knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:04]:
Was that Fox? Fox Knives? You made that knives.

Al Salvitti [00:32:07]:
And that's the Lock is Air Design, and we broke with with them and, like, the old sales partners with them, but they still sell that. Okay? And my name's off of it. Don't want any parts of it. Now a lot of people closed their hands on it and called me until that's where you're gonna jump in the dumpster and punch this thing Yeah. To, bring that in. Like, yeah. You're right. It it's not it's not gonna be 1.

Al Salvitti [00:32:31]:
Put the other lock on there, and you said one of them that the lock doesn't work after a while. So it's just a utility knife. But this was actually engineered by engineers, real engineers. There's a stop on the blade right there. That's not for opening the blade. That's for when I do this, it locks right in here and takes the pressure off of the lock, so it doesn't wear as much. For me, manhandling this thing and open it. So I open it hard.

Al Salvitti [00:33:01]:
Alright? It could 10,000 times, okay, every time, k, before we test it. And I test everything. And you'll with the other podcast, you'll see all the blood and guts coming out of my hands from doing that. But they need to test their knives. Now the biggest thing we did for this is make it a 2 handed ordeal where I can get 2 fingers. So this script here

Bob DeMarco [00:33:29]:
That's a reverse script for those listening.

Al Salvitti [00:33:30]:
Reverse script. Now what I designed that for on the logos, and the other one is for people that don't have a lot of Blades experience. Okay? And they wanna do the Norman Bates thing. But mostly women because some women can punch. Okay? But most women say, you know what? They're gonna take that blade off of me. They're gonna use you. More likely than not, if you get a good grip on this, it's gonna be a lot harder to get this out of your hand than it was straight blade. Okay? So 2 fingers go in, and it's through here.

Al Salvitti [00:34:08]:
K? That's just for stabbing. Now you just still box a little with this, but more of a jab, and I show some of that on the Instagram thing. But this is more of like Al music clip here. We're hooking this way if I have to and going down. Okay? So that's what that's for. It's for people that don't have a lot of time to train, and if they wanna train, they need to hold it that way. My wife carries one all the time like that. She loves it.

Al Salvitti [00:34:33]:
Cut the handle. I had to cut the handle down for her, but the 2 finger grip, I get in all the time. Now I could shoot with this grip. I I could do a lot of things, but this grip is really hard. See, at night, you'll never see it. Okay? So if I go in and a guy comes up on me, I'm like, oh, man. I still have this Blades. It's pretty hard for him to see.

Al Salvitti [00:34:54]:
I can still hold on to it. And so, we made that so it's easy again. Or anything straight, the drive through, the self stab issues are really hard. This is still away from me. But when I stab, it's more in than down. Even when I go down, it's not or you can see it. Put one in your hand. Really, that blade's away from me.

Al Salvitti [00:35:19]:
Yeah. The blade is away from you here. K? I can't self stab here or under here. Right? But with the straight Blades, if someone's behind me and not one little move, one little move, it's hard.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. Say you have someone behind you choking, and you're gonna pull out your knife and stab them in the face.

Al Salvitti [00:35:39]:
Stick it in my neck. But this, I can get around it, and the blade's still there. I can get around. I can tap my so that's what it was all designed for that.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:48]:
Al, let me ask you, so I've seen this design before under the name Colonel Blades.

Al Salvitti [00:35:54]:
Colonel Blades. Okay. Well, we started all this Colonel Blade. So when we first started in 2013, I started Colonel Blades, yeah, in here with the guys. So we took on a partner. I had JD from Northern Red as a partner. Took on a banker. So he used to give me a call here.

Al Salvitti [00:36:12]:
We vetted him for for 4 years, so it's not like I picked somebody off the street. He was part of the group, and I don't know when he keyed it. If you guys trained as a group, you go out to eat together, you do a lot of things together, it just seals the bond between everybody that's training together. So after, I'd say 4 years, he came in. And after another 4 years with Colonel Blades, well, things got squirrelly. And, lie, cheating, stealing, and then we had to get rid of him. He was the sales guy. We had to get rid of him.

Al Salvitti [00:36:46]:
Big lawsuit, to try to get the company back, but he manipulated all the paperwork for it. I didn't know my own company. Yeah. I and that happened because I trust them. So my name not being on, I said, well, you gotta take some losses sometimes. You know, he's 5th in a row with people doing that kind of thing to me. But so we started over as Regiment Blades, and our partner was BCN, Bravo Company, Paul Buffoni, JD, Papinski, Northern Red. So we have the same people except him, but we I lost the name somehow through the paperwork.

Al Salvitti [00:37:29]:
Okay? So we started regular days. So they still make it. They're not they're still patented. They're not allowed, but you get involved in a patent lawsuit? It's patents are useless, number 1. Okay? So we do 5 minutes on patents. So patents are like having kids. You do a patent, you think about it all the time. You manipulate it, you turn it hard, I'm gonna do this.

Al Salvitti [00:37:53]:
And I'm gonna do that. You get a lawyer, you probably spend 10 to $20,000 to get a patent. You get a patent, you get it approved. So, after they hand you a patent, the patent office goes, see you, but we don't do anything. That if somebody, infringes on your patent, you have to go to court on your own. We don't testify. We don't do anything. The government just gives you a patent.

Al Salvitti [00:38:18]:
Oh, okay. So patent infringement means they're gonna make their product. You can only stop people from making your product. So if someone does, excuse me, and you go to court, the first thing they're gonna do is try to make your patent invalid. Now I didn't even know they could do that. Like, what do you mean? Oh, well, we just we'll just make the patent invalid. You know? I get a lawsuit after I complained to my ex sales guy and the lawyer, a poet, to send him a letter saying, hey. Did your your patent your intrusion on my patent.

Al Salvitti [00:38:53]:
That's it. Next thing I know, I'm in Philadelphia court in a lawsuit. They're trying to make my patent invalid. I didn't even know you could do that. I only complained. You mean I'm not allowed to complain? And my lord, like, no. You actually, you you can't even complain about it. Because if you complain, then they have the right to try to make your patent invalid.

Al Salvitti [00:39:15]:
Like, you're kidding. Right? He goes, nope. We already filed a lawsuit. So you look all this stuff up. Now everything I tell you about this is on the Internet. You look it up. Tell me. It's only defamatory if you lie about people, but I got everything backed up.

Al Salvitti [00:39:29]:
So, anyway, now you're in a patent for, invalidation lawsuit. And I said, well, what if I don't do anything for it? They have to prove it. Right? He goes, no. If you don't defend it, you're gonna lose the patent. Okay. How much is that to defend a patent, invalid or loss? Oh, it's probably like a half $1,000,000. Jeez. What? What? A half $1,000,000 to defend my patent that the government gave me.

Al Salvitti [00:39:57]:
They're trying to make it invalid so they can make it without consequence. Like, well, how do they how do they prove it's invalid? Well, they might have mailed it at a certain time. You didn't got this I or there was another one that they look up. And I said, well, does the patent office do big enough? Somebody or judges. I'm like, well, dude, I'm not gonna spend a half $1,000,000. You know, even the right thing. Who makes that kind of money off a knife that you're gonna defend it? That lawsuit but then the next infringement lawsuit is another half $1,000,000 on top of it or a million up there. So so you're telling me the patents are useless.

Al Salvitti [00:40:35]:
Right? Yeah. Because anybody can make your patent invalid. Now I would say, okay. Well, how often does that happen if they go through and they say, oh, your patent's invalid? They go, oh, 85%. 8 85%. Like, well, then it's definitely not worth it. It. It's ridiculous.

Al Salvitti [00:40:57]:
So I'd say 2,000,000 patents a year are filed, $672 each, and then they after they grant it, it's another $700, 50,000 a year granted, and 97% of the patents don't make any money off it. It's a big to me, it's a big scam. It's it's useless because you can't even say, hey. You're making my thing. Let's make this patent. Now what kind of person does that? I don't know. The guy the guy I saw was supposed to be a big Christian, and the other guy was he was nothing. But I I don't get it.

Al Salvitti [00:41:36]:
You're making my patent. I worked so hard for that patent. I did all that, and now you wanna make it so bad that you're gonna make all my work and be out with by a date where I didn't dot an I.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:47]:
Are you talking about the Warrior Poets Society guy?

Al Salvitti [00:41:50]:
Hell, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:51]:
No kidding. I thought he was, like, he he presents as a very stand

Al Salvitti [00:41:54]:
up fellow. But that's on that's online too. You can see all that. He's on there.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:59]:
Oh, man.

Al Salvitti [00:42:00]:
I'm saying, look. That guy, he used to sell the Colonel Blade way before that, and I videoed that. And then he hooks up with the former sales guy who I'm not saying basically stole everything, but brought the kernel blade company down. That's his partner because they both sued me to make my patent valid. Now it's a whole thing of, show me your friends or your business partners, and I'll tell you what kind of person you are. We called him and told him when it just started about the guy is we're getting rid of him and then because of this happened, that happened, the whole company's gone. There's no money and all that. And we told him, and he still went with them.

Al Salvitti [00:42:47]:
And the guy was selling knives on his private, PayPal account, but Mumble was buying all those knives from his private PayPal account because I have his PayPal account, and they were moving money back and forth since the lawsuit started. So I don't know what kind of Christian he's in he is.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:10]:
I do.

Al Salvitti [00:43:12]:
But I don't think Jesus would do that. You know? So that that's how that went. So now it's Regiment Blades. And there'll be a fake kernel Blades company out there still selling and plugging away with their bankers. I mean, these guys don't even get paper cuts. They've never been punched in the face. So anybody that's gonna deal with them are they're dealing with white collar bankers. I mean, you know?

Bob DeMarco [00:43:37]:
Man, that's disappointing because,

Al Salvitti [00:43:38]:
it is.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, not not only because you trusted the dude and he screwed you and then but also, you know, Warrior Poets Society. I I've watched a bunch of his videos, and I always thought,

Al Salvitti [00:43:52]:
you know? And I poo.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:55]:
Yeah. I mean but, well, anyway Yeah. So, you also do other stuff. I wanna show this off because, we

Al Salvitti [00:44:03]:
could we

Bob DeMarco [00:44:04]:
could talk for hours, but

Al Salvitti [00:44:06]:
Yeah. So this thing This is how this happened. Right? So you're going to court a lot. I went to court for 5 years with the counterparty stuff. And I had thought of this concept before, but I love the sock p. I love it.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:19]:
The sock p, that's that's a knife.

Al Salvitti [00:44:21]:
French made makes it, and Spartan Blades makes it. Now, Spartan made my first run of Colonel Blade. Okay? Oh. So I I you know, that's an old style. And to me, I had to cut the handle down. I just didn't I didn't like it. I was like, cut half of it off. But I love the soft pea only because ring retention.

Al Salvitti [00:44:39]:
I just love it. So I'm thinking, well, you know, it's illegal, number 1. It's a dagger. So that's the problem with a soft pick. Airbus Ned is a dagger. Now I don't have problem with carrying double edged knives or using them, but I can't get in the courthouse. I can't get on a Blades, and I can't get on the thing because it's out in the open circuit bag. So I'm like, you know what? Let's put a ring on a pen.

Al Salvitti [00:45:03]:
Okay? And I'll use it just like a soft pig. Now we made the pen shorter. Okay? So it's only 6 inches. And when I have this thing, I mean, I could work this like a soft peel like nobody's business. Okay? Women like it because it's easy to use. It just do business. There's nothing to learn, but I get in court houses with it. They get on Blades.

Al Salvitti [00:45:29]:
Now think of this, if we made it a pen, right, we made it a window breaker on one side and there's a pen on the other side. So when I go through court houses, I put the pen in the tray. Then when I get outside, I flip it over to the, you know, punctured steel window on the other side. So, basically, is you're carrying an arrow in your pocket with a ring on it. Okay? Because it's the same size as a 9 millimeter, and it has the arrow tip on it. I put this through coconuts. I mean, you see the videos on it then. So it it can be lethal, but it could also be nonlethal on how you use it.

Al Salvitti [00:46:08]:
If you wanna press on people, then you press on them and grab them from the back hole. And if you don't have to stack people in their face all the time, you don't have to cut people all the time because courts, it's gonna cost you money as much as you start going to courts for, you know, the assault with a deadly weapon. It was just a pen. It's, the ring don't make it illegal.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:33]:
That's what I really like about this pen is, how it switches roles here. Right. You just take it out and flip it around Al opposed to a, a pen where the where the ink cartridge, goes back into the Right. Into the barrel. Yeah. So with this glass breaker end and the and the ink is inside staying nice and wet and not drying out, but you have all this capability here. This would be great to have, you know, in a car. Get yourself out of the car if you have to.

Al Salvitti [00:47:05]:
In a plane, especially on planes. A lot of people send me pictures or they're looking through the ring at me. I got on a plane again, you know? Yep. Because it's it's an unmetable weapon. I mean, everything's a weapon. It just depends how you use it. But this is easier for me. Now I I keep it on the thing right here.

Al Salvitti [00:47:24]:
Right? Now that's a trainer I made for the for the pen. Okay? So I can actually stab stuff with it because if I really go hard on this pen well, I just cut a hole, real small hole, and I keep it right there all day. Okay? And that's where I draw. Either hand, I can get it with if I need to. So it's really Blades it easy to carry in a pocket. It's it's easy. If I'm at the gym, and you're it's so easy because let's face it. Unarmed and useless is say was Seox term.

Al Salvitti [00:47:57]:
Unarmed useless. Like, yeah, you got it right. Unarmed and useless is the term that you should always have, and that'll help you when you leave the house without your phone, how do you feel? Okay? I feel that way when I leave my house unarmed. I don't want the dog armed, okay? And I don't live in a bad neighborhood, but it doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay? It's just for me to get used to it of carrying weapons with me all the time that, you know, I don't have to use them. You know, my mindset, and I got it from Seok, is de escalation is easier. Okay? I'm already escalated.

Al Salvitti [00:48:36]:
So when I would go and I would teach the border patrol let's go to border patrol. Al on the board is the escalation of force chart. That means he does this, you do that. He escalates to this, next weapon or punching your hit. This is what you're allowed to do. But if I start at the top, what what's the escalation is hard to do. Okay? So because you always have to follow what he's doing. You can't be the feeder.

Al Salvitti [00:49:08]:
It's a say up front. You can't be the feeder if you're following somebody to escalate higher. Oh, he brings a knife. You bring a gun. You bring a machete. You bring a bazooka. But but whatever. So escalation is like there's a guy at the top of the escalator with a gun, and you're coming up the escalator.

Al Salvitti [00:49:29]:
That bad spot. Right? Where do you wanna be? You wanna be Al the guy. He's already escalated. So when I go out and I leave the house, I'm already escalated. I'm ready to protect myself, whatever you wanna call it, kill people or whatever. I just don't do it. That's easier than starting at the bottom of the, I don't wanna be trouble. Oh, something's gonna happen.

Al Salvitti [00:49:56]:
I'm gonna have to do something. Yes. Okay? Be at the top already and just don't do it. I'm all ready. I'm ready now. Okay. I get home again. I didn't stack.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:06]:
That's that's what they say with actors. Like, if if an actor is already over the top with his with his performance, you can bring that down. But he if if he can't get up there in the first place

Al Salvitti [00:50:17]:
Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:18]:
There's no going there.

Al Salvitti [00:50:19]:
Right. So why would you go anywhere where they're teaching you escalation of force? Okay? You don't want any trouble. I don't, see, I don't like this faint they call this a faint in Europe. I I don't want any trouble? I I don't Thanks.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:33]:
That never worked for me.

Al Salvitti [00:50:35]:
You know what worked for me? Okay. Let's go. I'm ready. Come on. Let's go. And they're, oh, no. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Al Salvitti [00:50:42]:
This guy has his helmet on. Okay. I gotta tell you. So when I would tell these guys that would have a team, and who gets their strength from you would would be my speed. Right? I'm like, you're on a team, and you know there's 1 dude in there that is a ruthless killer. And everybody's glad that he is here. Mhmm. So they basically get their strength from him.

Al Salvitti [00:51:07]:
Okay? Or they help it along. Because if he wasn't there, they all be a little leery. Oh, man. But when big John shows up, like, oh, shit. Big John's here. Now we got it. Yeah. Gives them more confidence.

Al Salvitti [00:51:20]:
Right? So when I take their helmets on, is that the last thing before they go into battle is they put their helmet on. Now they're ready. They've done their gear. They packed their bag. They put their bullets in. They put their guns on. They put their things in. They got their helmet under their arm.

Al Salvitti [00:51:37]:
Before they hit that door, they put football. They put that helmet on, and they're ready to fight. So once I got my helmet on, I'm ready to fight. Okay? I'm not walking around without my helmet on. Right? So but it's easy to just take my helmet off if nothing happens. K? It's easy not to murder people all day long. That's easy. But it's hard when all of a sudden, the car in front of you gets out, the guy gets out, what do you do? Yep.

Al Salvitti [00:52:06]:
Well, I'm not a little bit old. There's a guy with when Al of a sudden right now they forget everything. See, that's the thing about training because they all think with all this training training, and then soon it happens right there, they blank out. It's like being in a speech in school and you forget everything. Yeah. You ever do that? Right? Or do that when somebody's in front of you with a blade. Nah. It's not time to

Bob DeMarco [00:52:27]:
do that. You better be able to to to improvise and

Al Salvitti [00:52:30]:
talk and have to be first.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:33]:
Yeah.

Al Salvitti [00:52:33]:
Right? And the reason and and going for now I preach going first all the time. And everybody thinks

Bob DeMarco [00:52:39]:
that I'm gonna

Al Salvitti [00:52:40]:
punch people in the face first, or I'm just gonna start lighting people up and move with knives. I'm no. No. No. No. Going first means, it's a state of mind, number 1. I'm gonna be trained. I'm gonna have my weapons.

Al Salvitti [00:52:55]:
I've already went first. My helmet is on. It's already on. So I went no matter what I do after that, you're gonna be second because I already went 1st. I have everything. I'm ready. That's what it is. I understand.

Al Salvitti [00:53:11]:
Okay? You can't get just in trouble, stab everybody. Oh, sorry. Again, it doesn't happen. You gotta go first by being prepared. So a lot of people misgrew that over the years until I explained it. It makes sense to be ready when you go out instead of trying to get ready very quickly.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:31]:
So in addition to the the tactical pen, which I think is brilliant, you also have a version of the low vis

Al Salvitti [00:53:39]:
Yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:39]:
That is a 100%, plastic, even including these very, metallic looking screws and bolts.

Al Salvitti [00:53:48]:
Oh, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:49]:
So tell me whoops. Tell me about this.

Al Salvitti [00:53:52]:
But what came with this is, same thing. I can't get this was before the pen. Right? Mhmm. So the the pen is in plain sight. Okay. I can bring that in place. When I wanted when I wanted to get into, say, baseball games, I'm gonna say, guys all put Blades in their shoes. Okay? And we get in, and then we go in the bathroom and take everything out.

Al Salvitti [00:54:11]:
You know? We're being first. Right? Because we have we have weapons. We're we're not going anywhere unarmed because that was the deal. Unarmed and useless. Okay. I feel like when I go out it's like when I leave my phone home, I feel naked. It feels crazy. So I wanna get in everywhere with this.

Al Salvitti [00:54:29]:
Okay? But we also had to make it where it's not it's gonna be useful as far as being able to drive this through, you know, sheet metal into 2 buckets at a time. I mean, listen. People realize how soft we are. It's incredible. These grays with this pink right here

Bob DeMarco [00:54:50]:
This is all g 10. Right?

Al Salvitti [00:54:52]:
This is all g 10. And I don't know if you see it on the Instagram. I put this through 2 buckets at a time. Or put it through the, sheet metal laundry tins. At times, it's a plastic knife. It'll go in a person. You just keep on the bare thing, their face and neck because nobody wears armor on their face and neck even if they have a bulletproof vest on. Yeah.

Al Salvitti [00:55:12]:
They still don't have it. So this gets in, passes the wand every time.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:17]:
Even even the sheath has no grommets on it.

Al Salvitti [00:55:19]:
Even this sheath's got nothing. It's just a it's a self clamping sheath.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:25]:
Al, we're we're getting close to wrap time, but I I wanna talk about something important. We've been talking all about, self defense and fighting with a knife and and and, but on your Instagram page, you feature a lot of videos that are, you know, they're they're horrible to look at, but you gotta look at them if you're interested in this kind of stuff or you carry a knife for self defense. How quickly can things escalate? How bad can things get when a knife is produced in a street fight?

Al Salvitti [00:55:53]:
It's so fast. Because here's what happens when when people, they see they haven't really seen violence in person. I've seen a lot, and you gotta get used to it. So when I started bouncing before all this, I didn't know what was gonna happen. Now I would pace back and forth, and they used to call me the tiger. You know how tiger goes in the cage? Mhmm. Because I was looking, you know, I'm really, really good. We're gonna get it.

Al Salvitti [00:56:19]:
We're gonna get it. And I'm like, okay. So after a while, I'd just be standing at the door and I'd be waiting because I know what's gonna happen because I made it happen. I am the one that control everything, the feeder concept of, say, I'm the feeder. I'm not the receiver. Okay? And once you get that mindset, it it changes your whole perspective. But as far as knives coming out in a second, and and then all of a sudden, you have to come up with a defense because you let it get that one. You need to be the one with the blade, the one that's aware.

Al Salvitti [00:56:56]:
You need to be first. You need to know. How many times do you think that it's just Al of a sudden there's somebody there with a knife? It really didn't it doesn't happen that much. What happens if people aren't paying attention All of a sudden and I send these videos, and they're brutally violent because you have to know, if people don't know that this goes on, they just walk around in something. This guy's crazy. He's over the top. This doesn't happen. It's like the government telling you, you know, believe this.

Al Salvitti [00:57:23]:
They they would never do that. Not my neighborhood, but this is not this is everybody's neighborhood. This is how fast it happens. You have to be aware. Awareness of what's going on around you is the key and to be able to focus on being the feeder, going first. No defenses for suckers. You can't block everything at all. It's like being a goalie in a hockey thing.

Al Salvitti [00:57:52]:
You're only on defense, but you're gonna let some are gonna get through. There's no way. You have to be the shooter. You miss with all the punches you don't throw. You miss with all the blade cuts you don't do If you just sit down and wait because it only takes 1 with the blade. It only if you miss 1, and then, yeah, things go downhill.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:13]:
There is one video on your Instagram feed that that really struck me. It was a a guy, fighting another guy with a knife. The the the guy who was unarmed seemed to have a lot of respect and was, you know, obviously was a fighter, but was respecting the knife. Another guy just strolls up like, hey. And he got hit in the neck, and he was Right. On the ground

Al Salvitti [00:58:34]:
Oh, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In an instant. It was terrible to see. I mean, those those kind of videos, I don't know what the situation is. I'm sure they're all bad people, but Yep. It's still terrible to see.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:44]:
It's another person, but how quickly? Oh, I'm made of the same stuff, and all you gotta do is hit me in the same place, and I'm done.

Al Salvitti [00:58:51]:
You're done.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:51]:
So, as we wrap here Al we wrap here, like, give give the listeners some sort of concept of how they should respect other crazy people and and the knife.

Al Salvitti [00:59:05]:
Okay. So when you're around crazy people, you you should know that something's gonna happen here in a little bit. We all have our instincts that, spider sense. Like, when there's something, I should not be here. Let's go. Forget the we're gonna make a stand. You don't have to make a stand. Firstly, if you're unarmed, you were you were in you're not in a good place because you can't stop somebody that just all of a sudden has somebody who starts targeting you.

Al Salvitti [00:59:32]:
Okay? Will that happen? We don't know. But for the person that it happens to, yeah, it happened to him. And then they just stand there and watch you. So the more you're accustomed of being aware when you go out look at who's carrying knives when you go out. I've been carrying an open blade lately because when I'm out, I see people in the stores. I mean, this dude's carrying an open blade right now. Okay. Things are changing.

Al Salvitti [00:59:57]:
Now when I see him when he has a a blade on his hip, like, okay. So now I've gotta give him a little more Regiment. And then I put one in there when they see me. Oh, okay. Maybe I might not mess with this dude. I I have to make people wanna not do things to me instead of trying to manipulate them while they're doing it. So I have to have my helmet on. I gotta be ready.

Al Salvitti [01:00:22]:
Here's a blade right here. You have to decide that that's a bad idea than what I'm about to do to describe because I'm probably gonna get stabbed. Okay? I want you to see the blade. I'm gonna show it to you and then it's gonna be gone because you're gonna know that, okay, this is not really what I'm bargaining for. They go to path of least resistance. Anybody that's gonna rob you, they go to the easy one. They don't go to the hard ones. If you look like or give the impression that this is not gonna be as easy as I thought, they will just move on.

Al Salvitti [01:00:57]:
So my thing is, like, make them quit even before they wanna get over to you. Yeah. Okay? Be ready. Show that pistol handle with your carry gun. Show them the Blades you need. I got that guy's probably armed. I don't wanna do this. So that's how the perception is everything.

Al Salvitti [01:01:14]:
Right? That's what I'm saying. Yeah. How I perceive is everything. If I perceive, I'm putting on my phone and I'm going, oh, well, there you go. That's pretty easy hit. Yeah. And it happens all the time. I mean, the wheel was spinning.

Al Salvitti [01:01:26]:
It just hasn't stopped on you yet. And when it stops on you, let's be prepared for it. Oh. But I don't have a martial art to dedicate my life to. I don't have that time anymore. That's why the blade that's why all these blades came into existence. K? There's no time to train. Let's face it.

Al Salvitti [01:01:45]:
I got you guys got 2 kids. You got this. Okay. It takes 5 minutes to learn. Let's just slug it up. I mean, that was easy. So that's my advice.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:56]:
Al, thank you so much for joining us on the Knife Junkie podcast. Not only are your knives, like, really, really cool and intuitive and, useful, but but your experience, especially for those of us who haven't had all that experience, it's really, really great to hear. So thank you so much for joining

Al Salvitti [01:02:14]:
us, sir. Thanks for having me.

Bob DeMarco [01:02:16]:
My pleasure. Take care, sir.

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Bob DeMarco [01:02:25]:
There he goes, ladies and gentlemen. Al Salvitti of Regiment Blades, and so much experience in, in knife fighting and training. I can't wait to talk to him more. If you're a patron, you can listen to more of this conversation coming up. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and, of course, join us on Thursday for Thursday night knives. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time. Don't take dull for an answer.

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