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Pinch Grip and Claw Grip

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Or How to Keep Blood Out of your Vegetables

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Hello, my name is Helen Rennie,

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I'm the founder of Helen's Kitchen Cooking School

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and today we're going to talk about

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cutting vegetables without cutting your fingers.

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To do that safely, you'll need to master

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a pinch grip on your knife hand

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and a claw grip on your guiding hand.

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To hold my chef's knife, I'm pinching the blade

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with my thumb and index finger,

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and wrapping my third, fourth, and fifth fingers

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around the handle.

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This handhold gives me a lot more stability

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than holding the knife just by the handle

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or placing an index finger on top,

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the way you'd eat a steak.

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You never want the knife to jump around the board.

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You want it to rock.

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Lift the back of the knife,

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and glide it forward on your board.

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If you just touch the knife to the board, like this,

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your pieces might not separate completely,

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and the herbs will get bruised.

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Now let's talk about your guiding hand.

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Its purpose is to hold the vegetable in place,

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and to position the blade of the knife

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to give you precision.

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It will need to get very close and personal with the knife!

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To do that safely, you'll need to use a claw grip.

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Imagine you're holding a small ball,

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so that your palm and all your fingers

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are in complete contact with it.

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See how my hand is nice and round?

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Now, any time one of my fingertips

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decides to leave the ball, SNICK! bad things happen.

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So do not let your fingers do that.

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By the way, lemons and limes

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make perfect balls for proper practice,

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depending on the size of your hand.

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Now stick the elbow out,

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so that the guiding hand meets your knife head on.

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With the knuckles on your second and third fingers,

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that's the first knuckles after the nails,

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glued to your knife in the widest part, like this.

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The reason you want to be here

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is because you'll need to lift your knife very little,

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versus here, where you'll need to lift your knife a lot.

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Not only is it slower, but more dangerous

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because you might nick your knuckles.

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You don't have that much blade, to place them here.

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Now let's talk about what moves,

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the knife or the vegetable.

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It is always the knife.

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The knife pushes against the knuckles of your guiding hand,

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and the guiding hand gradually crawls back

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on the vegetable.

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And the knife follows it

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by zig-zagging on the cutting board.

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Of course, if you are slicing a celery stick,

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you can just move the celery stick forward

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instead of moving the knife back.

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But try that with a diced celery stick

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and it does not work too well,

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because all those french-fry pieces of celery

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move at a different pace.

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People often complain that when they use this handhold,

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they cannot see what they are doing,

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because their hands are so close together.

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Well, you don't need to see what you're doing,

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you need to feel what you're doing.

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If you rely on your eyes to tell you

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where to place the knife,

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you will never be able to get really small pieces

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or gain any speed.

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By the time the signal travels

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from your eyes to your brain to your hands

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to tell them to move,

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you've already cut yourself.

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Here's some common mistakes that I see

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with claw grip in my classes.

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Problem 1: Collapsed claw grip

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where your fingertips are lying on the board or vegetable.

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Holding the vegetable with your knuckles

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is very ineffective.

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You should hold it with your fingertips.

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Problem 2: Flat claw grip

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Very tense; you won't last long in this position.

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Round up.

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Problem 3: Raised wrist

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Gets tiring very quickly!

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Lower that wrist and relax your shoulder.

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Problem 4: Elbow against the body

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I realise that this position is not very comfy at first,

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but a chopped-off thumb is not very comfy either.

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Problem 5: Fear of the blade

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Great fear of touching the knife blade

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with your guiding hand.

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That's like being afraid of touching a ruler with a pencil

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while trying to draw a straight line.

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It doesn't work too well, does it?

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The only way you'll have an effective guide

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is if you're smack against it.

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If you want, practise with a pastry-scraper tool

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on an empty board.

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It's dull; there is no way to cut yourself.

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Last but not least, is go slow.

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Nobody is born with a perfect claw grip.

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It takes lots of practice and feels awkward at first.

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But when you've been doing it with perfect technique

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for about a week, you can pick up speed.

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From Helen's Kitchen in Boston,

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happy cooking and baking to you.

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Produced by Helen Rennie. Music by Django Reinhardt.

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Copyright (C) 2011 by Helen Rennie. All Rights Reserved.

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More techniques at beyondsalmon.com