navaja has been reduced to a science, which has its regular school of instruction. The teachers give lessons with wooden knives, and the most noted among them have their private strokes, which are kept secret for cases of emergency. The arts of the most accomplished swordsman are worthless, when opposed to those of an expert with the navaja. With his cloak or jacket wrapped about his left arm, his formidable weapon glittering in his right hand, and his lithe body poised for a spring, he is an interesting study for the spectator, as well as for his antagonist. The thumb is pressed tightly along the back of the blade, that every advantage may be taken of the flexibility of the wrist, in a struggle where the space of an inch is often a matter of life and death. The postures and guards are changed with bewildering rapidity, and, should the right hand be disabled, the cloak and knife are shifted in the twinkling of an eye, and the duel proceeds, until one or both the combatants are killed. The firmly established knife fighting tradition with the navaja in Andalusian Spain would later spread to other Spanish-speaking countries, from Argentina<ref>de Rementeria y Fica, Manual of the Baratero, pp 5-6, 9, 12: The esgrima de criolla ("Creole fencing school") method of knife fighting employed by the gaucho and his facón in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, using clothing to protect the weaponless arm, is derived directly from el legado andalusí aka el legado Andaluz - the Andalusian legacy or tradition).</ref> to Puerto Rico to the Philippines as part of el legado andalusí (the Andalusian legacy, or tradition). Used as a fighting knife, the navaja typically featured a blade length of 400 mm (15 inches) or longer,Peterson, Harold L., Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, (2001), p. 68 and knives with 300 mm (12-inch) to 500 mm (19-inch) blades were common. The large-bladed fighting navaja or santólio was eventually refined into a pattern named the navaja sevillana, after the region in which it saw much use. The navaja sevillana was a fighting knife characterized by a ratcheted locking mechanism, a long and slender blade with a prominent clip, a needle-sharp point, and a finely honed, razor-sharp cutting edge. During the 18th and most of the 19th century, large navajas were traditionally worn pushed into a belt or sash,