Editing Karambit (section)

==Technique==
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=== As a tool ===
The karambit was originally an agricultural implement designed to rake roots, gather [[threshing]] and plant [[rice]] in most of island Southeast Asia. 

It's a smaller variant of the Southeast Asian [[sickle]]s (Indonesian ''[[celurit]]'', ''arit'', or ''sabit''; Filipino ''garab'' and ''karit''; and Malaysian ''sabit''). 

It still possesses many efficient uses for the modern laborer, allowing use of the blade for utility work, with the finger ring eliminating the need to put the knife down between operations, if use of the fingers to manipulate the object to be worked on is required (such as the action of cutting and opening a shipping box, or removing plastic wrap from shipments, in two very basic examples). 

The finger ring also provides an added degree of protection against dropping the knife during use, which is particularly essential in work environments that include heavy machinery, into which dropping a handheld, metal tool of any kind can cause massive damage to the equipment and those around it, especially if the tool is ejected at high velocity from rotating components. 

=== As a weapon ===
The karambit is held with the blade pointing downward from the bottom of the fist, usually curving forwards. 

While it is primarily used in a slashing or hooking motion, karambit with a finger ring are also used in a punching motion, hitting the opponent with the finger ring. 

Some karambit are designed to be used in a hammering motion. This flexibility of striking methods is what makes it useful in self-defense situations. 

The finger guard makes it difficult to disarm and allows the knife to be maneuvered in the fingers without losing one's grip.<ref name="Tarani">{{cite book |last=Tarani |first=Steve |title=Karambit: Exotic Weapon of the Indonesian Archipelago |publisher=Unique Publications |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-86568-206-1 |pages=15–22}}</ref>

The short [[Filipino people|Filipino]] karambit has found some favor in [[Western culture|the West]] because such proponents allege the [[biomechanics]] of the weapon allow for more powerful cutting strokes and painful "ripping" wounds, and because its usability is hypothesized as more intuitive, but more difficult to master than a classic knife.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}

=== In martial arts ===
The karambit is one of the [[Weapons of pencak silat|weapons]] commonly used in [[pencak silat]] and [[Filipino martial arts]].<ref name="Tarani" /><ref name="Farrer2009">{{cite book |last=Farrer |first=D. S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5H2pjzRD8RAC |title=Shadows of the Prophet: Martial Arts and Sufi Mysticism |date=5 June 2009 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-1-4020-9356-2 |page=91}}</ref>