I am using a good glove for starting the engine with and that seems to work pretty good. A chicken stick is much better, but I seem to have trouble using them. I might wind up with a broken finger or two, but they will still be attached to the hand.
The modern CDI ignition units are great in that they retard the timing so the engine seldom if ever kicks back on you. But before those came out it was a really risky operation to flip the prop to start a engine. Those "old" engines, with fixed timing oir magnetos, could really kick back on you sometimes really viciously too.