One sharp man

Lemberg is not a bad person. If fact, he is good. Really good. The 47-year-old former stockbroker turned rare map dealer is a world champion knife thrower and a member of the International Knife Throwers’ Hall of Fame.

"I never hit anyone. If I ever hurt anyone I would retire,” Lemberg said. That is not going to happen. The man began throwing knives as a kid. Although he put down the hobby most of his life to focus on magic and juggling, he picked up the art of knife throwing seriously in the mid 1990s.

This weekend marked his 100th impalement — the art of throwing knives around a human target. He showed off his skills Sunday at a Jewish sports event hosted by the Congregation Beth Israel-Judea in San Francisco.

A Sunnyvale native, Lemberg grew up with a number of domesticated, well-trained, rabbits for household pets. He quickly realized the quirky fact that his rabbits liked the sound of knives hitting a target.

The rabbits would stand right in front of the target, Lemberg said. His first volunteers were really not volunteers at all, Lemberg said. It was good practice because he was not "about to kill our household pets,” Lemberg said.

Years later, as a stockbroker for Smith Barney living in a Sunset District home in San Francisco, Lemberg picked up knife throwing as a way to pass time in his backyard.

He was good, he found a teacher and soon began competing. He got a little bit of press and the invites for national competitions started pouring in, Lemberg said. As a stockbroker, Lemberg was required to get special clearance from his company for the weekend activity, he said. Lemberg did not wear the work suit on the weekends, but he still didn’t fit in with the usual knife throwing crowd of "civil war enthusiasts and circus performers."

Lemberg still questions if he fits in — whether at the competitions or Montara, where he’s lived for approximately a decade. If he feels like an outsider, Lemberg surely does not perform like one. He almost always hits the mark and that’s not easy to do from eight, 12 or 30 feet away.

The targets are 16 inch, 8 inch and 4 inch bulls eyes. Then there is Lemberg’s favorite - the speed competition. He has been known to throw 34 knives in 20 seconds, a record not recorded in a sanctioned event, he said. He also likes the obstacle course in which a competitor is timed as he or she runs through a course rigged with challenges such as throwing a knife through a 2-inch hole to ring a bell on the other side.

Lemberg, who hesitates to call himself a perfectionist, sees no end in sight to his knife-throwing career. "You cannot master the whole art, there is always another step. Here I am 47 and I feel I’m only half way there,” Lemberg said.

He’s currently practicing the art of throwing multiple knives - up to 6 - at a time while taking on students and maintaining his rare map business.

Anyone interested in lessons can reach Lemberg at 563-9450 or raremapman@gmail.com

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.