Machete 101

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I always thought that I was extremely knowledgeable and competent with using a machete, from use in Vietnam and in the many decades since, hacking my way through stubborn brush and bush.  Alas, I have been but a rank amateur.  I only learned to properly use the machete blade just this last week.  I had been trying to cut a path through brush to connect to a hiking trail.

I had always relied on  brute strength, chopping as if with an axe.  But this week I lacked the strength because of a bad injury to my left arm and elbow (possibly because of machete work the week before or from manhandling heavy boxes of books and gear in my sister’s attic or from both).  And my right arm was not strong anymore, so I had to operate from weakness.

I sharpened the machete blade extra well, and I took the sharpening stone along for constant re-honing.  I found that I had to use “wrist English” to cut through the grasses, brush and briers, flicking the blade in a slicing motion rather than a chopping one.

I cut smaller swathes with patience, like my father taught me to do with the long scythe and the short sickle.  My lack of strength let me discover how to exploit the machete’s ingenious design, from letting the blade’s slicing swing lead from the handle end to allow slicing progressively toward the blade’s point end, with a finishing flick of the wrist utilizing the blade's wide-curved tip end.

Re-sharpening every five minutes and pacing myself to the long job, I now understood the philosophy of the machete for the first time.  Enlightened menial labor.  I get it!

-Zenwind.
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