In 25 Basic Knots, his DVD companion to his Working Rope Series of books, Brion Toss simplifies knot-tying. He tells which knots he values and which classics (square knots and bowlines, for example) are overrated. Not to worry. If he lowers your estimation of one knot, he’ll replace it with another two that are just as easy to tie and far more secure. Master rigger Brion Toss is certainly a consummate knot guy.
One thing he does, to help those of us with two left hands, is to film the knot-tying process over his shoulder so we can see his hands oriented in the same way that we’re looking at our own paws with a couple of hunks of line in them. He even shows how to tie a left-handed version as well as a right-handed version of most knots and notes that the situation is not always set up as you’d find it in the classroom. So he shows alternative situations for each knot. And, smooth talker that he is, Brion soothes your stress while talking you out of your fear of knots. Besides, you can play and replay this DVD until you get it. No one will know how many times you’ve been through a section. Don’t ask me how I know.
The list includes the Figure 8, which he uses as an example to show how to think of tying a knot as a fluid action. Don’t even think about “this part through here and that part through there.” Just do it. Don’t pause to consider and it will come naturally. Others included in the DVD’s list of 25 knots are: loop knots such as the butterfly and bowline; bends such as Ashley’s knot, the double sheet bend, and the double becket bend; slipknots such as the slipped becket bend and the cavalry hitch; hitches including the buntline hitch, a round turn and two half hitches, several rolling hitches, the icicle hitch, the pilingspike hitch, and the carabiner hitch; binding knots (several variations on the constrictor knot), belays such as the capstan hitch, belaying pin hitch, and cleat hitch; and a few extras just to bring the total to 25: lashings, square knot, and good luck knot.
Good luck to you, too, if you can tie all these. But now you have a pocket Brion Toss on disc. You can refer to the master and his examples as often as you wish. No one can do it all at once. The gray in Brion’s hair attests to the fact that he wasn’t born with this knowledge either. He picked these knots up one at a time, tried them out, and is passing them along to the rest of us in a useful way. So during the off season, order the DVD, get out a couple of lengths of rope and a pole to tie practice knots around, and get busy . . . one knot at a time.
25 Basic Knots by Brion Toss (Western Media Products, www.media-products.com, 2009; 80 Min.)
