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Blade Brake (view source)

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Bonus points if the movement is not stopped abruptly and long sparkly "skid marks" occur. The weapon may carve a long gash in the surface until its wielder comes to a halt.
 
A variation is when the character slows his fall by stabbing his blade into a tall banner (or, on a sailing ship, the sail). The "stab the sail" version shows up in a bunch of old pirate movies and was busted by the ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]''.
 
If the weapon is later used as a perch, to swing back up into battle, or to climb off of, it's a [[Stepping Stone Sword]]. Not to be confused with [[Break Blade (Manga)|Break Blade]], or with [[Breakable Weapons|literally breaking a sword]].
{{examples}}
 
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* Maka, from ''[[Soul Eater]]'', loves to do this with Soul. She once tries to do it to prevent the [[Big Bad]] escaping from an underground prison. The Absurdly Sharp Blade of Soul's must have gotten pretty battered being dragged through the earth like that.
* A horizontal version in the anime adaptation of ''[[Claymore]]'': Clare has gained [[Super Speed]] but [[Too Fast to Stop|can't control it]], so she slows herself down by stabbing the ground.
* Kanbei does this with his katana early in ''[[Samurai 7]]''.
* Lancer of Fate/Stay Night stops himself from dying [[They Killed Kenny|again]] in ''[[Carnival Phantasm]]'' by assissting his dragster brake with stabbing the floor of the car and the ground using Gae Bolg. He still crashes, but survives this time around.
* Chane Laforet of ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano!]]!'' uses a pair of daggers to stop her fall off of a ''moving train''.
* Kamina did this in the ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Anime)|Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' OVA.
* An interesting variation in the ''[[Ranma ½ (Manga)|Ranma One Half]]'' manga where, in order to save his mother (and himself) from splattering all over the rocks at the foot of a cliff, Ranma tosses the Saotome family katana (scabbard and all) at the cliff-face, driving it forcefully into the rock so it provides a small, but adequate, foothold on his tiptoes.
* Subverted when Zoro does this is the 7th ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' movie after being dropped off a tower. Turns out his sword is ''so sharp'' it [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|cuts straight through the tower]] and barely slows him down!
* Guts of ''[[Berserk]]'' does this during The Eclipse, right before Griffith {{spoiler|accepts the call to sacrifice and becomes Femto}}.
* ''[[Bleach (Manga)|Bleach]]''
** Kenpachi stabs his [[Empathic Weapon|zanpakutou]] into a wall once after Ichigo knocks him back.
** ''Bleach'' loves this trope. A few times characters have done a blade break [[Rule of Cool|IN MID-AIR]].
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== Comic Books ==
* [[Wolverine]] occasionally does this with his claws as well.
* ''[[Runaways (Comic Book)|Runaways]]'' used a variant, in that Old Lace used her ''claws'' to slow Chase's fall. Amazingly, Molly predicted this.
 
 
== Films -- Animation ==
* Used by Cloud in the climactic battle of ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]: [[Advent Children]]''.
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin and the King of Thieves]]'': Aladdin slows a fall down a cliff face using his father's knife. His opponent gives chase using [[Wolverine Claws]].
 
 
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* Batman uses his gauntlets for this effect while rescuing Ducard in ''[[Batman Begins]]''.
* [[James Bond (Filmfilm)|James Bond]] uses the stab-the-banner variation in ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies (Film)|Tomorrow Never Dies]]''.
* The "stab the sail" technique orginated in the 1924 silent movie ''[[The Sea Hawk]]'' starring Douglas Fairbanks.
* Will turner uses this in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' when the Kraken attacks.
* Also used in ''[[The Goonies (Film)|The Goonies]]''.
* ''[[Star Wars]]'': Jango Fett has retractable blades in his gauntlets, apparently for exactly this purpose (they're too short and oddly-shaped to be much good for anything else).
* ''[[X-Men (Filmfilm)|X-Men]]''
** Wolverine averts a fall off the Statue of Liberty in the [[X -Men 1 (Film)|first film]] by hooking one of the points of the statue's crown, then spinning around it to land on top. The point falls off only after he's done.
** ''[[X Men Origins: Wolverine (Film)|X Men Origins Wolverine]]'' has the title hero do this to make a hard turn on a motorcycle. Interestingly it's one of the rare times his claws don't just go clean through.
* ''[[Transformers Dark of the Moon (Film)|Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]'' has Sentinel Prime do something like this to descend the side of a ''building''.
** Though he wasn't trying to stop, just slide down to ground-level safely.
* A "stab the flag" variant appears in the French movie ''Papy fait de [[La Résistance|la Résistance]]'', where the Super-Résistant moves down a Nazi flag with a dagger. Slightly parodied in that he lands a bit faster than expected and [[Agony of the Feet|hurts himself]].
 
 
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== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]'' tested the pirate movie version of this, where one uses a blade to slide down a sail. Myth busted. Specifically, too sharp a knife cuts too well to slow a person down, and no matter how sharp the knife was, hitting the seams in the sail caused the knife to jump out of the sail no matter how prepared the holder was. Also, as one of the historians pointed out, the guy who spent weeks ''making'' the sail would murder you when he found out.
* In ''[[Kamen Rider OOO]]'', Eiji henshins midfall from a skyscrapper and proceeds to embed his Tora Claws in the building to slow his fall.
* [[MacGyver]] once got down from a catwalk by sticking his pocket knife through his wallet (as a guard) and then that through a curtain.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'' Monks are [http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm#slowFall implied to do this] with their ''fists'' (said fists are strong enough to pierce an iron golem's body at that point, though) in their ability to stop any fall with a wall at level 20 (20 being the normal level cap). The first edition said "as long as they are close enough to touch", implying they would grab the wall to slow their fall to non-lethal speeds. [[Useless Useful Spell|The cheapest infinite use magic items in core does this without the need for the wall]].
* Stabbing the sail (referred to in-game as "Ride the Sail") is one of the tricks that the Rogers swordsman school teaches in ''[[Seventh7th Sea]]''.
 
 
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* Lady does this with a bayonet in ''[[Devil May Cry]] 3''. How she managed to then get it ''out'' of the wall and get down the rest of the way safely is a mystery. Dante's done it at least once, but he usually doesn't have to thanks to his inherent gravity-defying skills.
* In ''GunZ'', this is an available move for swords and daggers. It's one of the most basic ways to scale a wall or save yourself from falling into a [[Bottomless Pit]] if you haven't mastered a more advanced technique.
* Subverted in ''[[Tales of Hearts (Video Game)|Tales of Hearts]]'' when Shing tries to use his sword to avoid being sucked into the maw of a [[Cosmic Horror]]. He then stabs through his foot, which works better.
* Hotsuma in ''[[Shinobi]]'' doesn't feel like using a parachute to leap off a helicopter, and instead uses his sword like this on a skyscraper to get to ground level.
* Ittosai {{spoiler|saves Sayori from the fall off the watchtower}} by jamming his nodachi into the wall, essentially destroying both sword and wall, in his [[Multiple Endings|Good Ending]] in ''[[Yo-Jin-Bo]]''.
* All playable characters can do this in ''[[Sonic and The Black Knight]]'', but they can also climb back up the wall and go left and right. Sonic jumps up while his sword's in the wall, then pulls it out and thrusts it back in, Lancelot does the same, Gawain alternates stabbing the wall with his dual swords and Percival just runs.
* Terra from ''[[Birth By Sleep]]'' attempts to do this with his Keyblade in the secret Final Mix II video as well as in-game, and ends up taking a section of the cliff down. A whole spinning tornado of Keyblades slamming into him kind of knocks him completely off the cliff though.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]'', Lightning does this to regain her balance after a Behemoth knocks her away, and naturally since she's a [[Badass]], it works.
* In ''[[Tales of Monkey Island (Video Game)|Tales of Monkey Island]]: Rise of the Pirate God'', Guybrush uses his {{spoiler|[[Hook Hand]]}} to cut through a ship's sails, while sliding down them.
* Featured in a ''[[Lineage 2]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm19W1PKMFQ&fmt=35 trailer-movie] where you don't ''just'' get the screeching, sparking skid-gash in the rock face, - it's also used to ''[[Stepping Stone Sword|leap back up]]'' for an attack. Extra points for [[Dual-Wielding|dual-wielded]] [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|Absurdly Sharp Blades]]s
 
 
== Web Animation ==
* Used by the Meta in ''[[Red vs. Blue]]: Revelation'' to make his way back up to the top of an ice sheet after the portion he was standing on got blown apart and started falling into the abyss below. To elaborate: the Meta saw his gun falling in the open air along with him, lunged off the falling ice block to grab the weapon, and ''stabbed the pointy end into the main ice sheet'' before falling again. {{spoiler|Grif later uses a similar technique (though unseen) when the Meta pulls him over the edge in a [[Taking You Withwith Me]] maneuver.}}
 
 
== Web Comics ==
* Done after a cliffhanger in ''[[The Dreamland Chronicles]]''.
* [[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Fighter]] uses this trope to prevent the Light Warriors from dying after a long fall. How? [[Beyond the Impossible|He blocked the ground with his sword.]]
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''
** Azula does "stab the sail" once in "The Southern Raiders", using a hairpin.
** Sokka tries to do this too using his sword, but this demonstrates why an [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]] should not be used for such.
* The new version of ''[[He-Man and Thethe Masters of The Universe (Animation)|He-Man and The Masters of Thethe Universe]]'' has He-Man doing this. He [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress|jumps down a cliff to catch the king who had fallen.]] "He-Man....you can fly?!" "Uh... no." (The funny thing is he didn't think of the Blade Brake until ''after'' he caught the king.)
* ''[[Code Lyoko (Animation)|Code Lyoko]]''
** In the first episode, "TeddyGozilla", Odd jumps down to catch a falling Aelita, and then slows them both by using his claws on the side of a cliff in the Desert sector.
** Ulrich does a Blade Brake in episode "Bad Connection", by thrusting his katana into a cliff of the Mountain Sector -- andSector—and then catching Yumi -- beforeYumi—before they'd fall in the Digital Sea.
* Tahu does this with his sword while falling down a rock wall in ''[[Bionicle]]: the Mask Of Light''.
* Kevin does this on a collapsing space station in the ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force (Animation)|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' episode "Vendetta".
* The "stab the sail" version is altered in ''[[Duck Dodgers]]'', episode "Shiver Me Dodgers", when the Cadet ([[Porky Pig]]) is doing it with a [[Laser Blade]] on the metal sail of a [[Space Sailing|space pirate ship]].
* ''[[Samurai Jack]]''
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Sword Tropes Examined By the Mythbusters]]
[[Category:I Like Swords]]▼
[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
[[Category:BladeTropes BrakeExamined by the Mythbusters]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
▲[[Category:I Like Swords{{PAGENAME}}]]
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