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So, my question has lots of sides to it. What exactly DOES Krav Maga have to say about civilians using weapons to defend themselves? Is there value in training with improvised weapons? As far as such training would go, do the three categories (knife, stick, gun) still apply as a working categorization? Does anything about the non-weapon techniques change if, for instance, one hand is taken up by a weapon?
This question was inspired by GiantKiller’s thread about axe and pickaxe. My mind started going places like…\”under what circumstances would I use an axe, if it were handy, to defend myself? And how could I make sure that, given the assumption I WOULD use it, to make sure I used it effectively? What about a less weaponized object…a chair? An ashtray? A tire-iron?\” Just so you know where my mind was when I thought about the question
I can’t address much of this, but I’ll take a stab (haha) at the gun part. If you’re not an officer and you’re defending yoiurself with a gun, the goal is to maintain distance. Distance is your friend. Keep them away. Far away. Of course you want to get out of the situation without shooting. It’s not your job to apprehend suspects. Just keep your distance and get away safely. Usually, when you draw, they will turn and run. Just let them go.
Hey, I inspired KravMDjeff! 😀
I think training with improvised weapons can be very important. Also to train how to defend against them. For example, we say ax is similar to stick, but if you have never done the defense against an ax, you might be stumped at the moment of attack and don’t know what to do against that kind of weapon. Same with a chair, or a lamp or anything else that may be similar to stick. Or broken bottles or glass, which may be similar to knife. If you have never been attacked with it in training, you may not be able to recognize which defense would be the correct one to do in that type of situation.
We always encourage people to use common objects, so to use them in class, even if lightly, just to see what it feels like, would be great.
Also, you are right, some things would probably change if you held a weapon, even an improvised one in your hand. For example if you have a knife in one hand and are attacked with a stick, you could redirect the stick, but instead of punching, you could use the knife to stab the attacker. You couldn’t really take the stick away as long as you are holding the knife, but you are in close, so you could continue to stab him, even cut his throat if necessary. But if you only practice to do the regular defense, you may not even think of that.
There is some knife against knife and stick against stick in higher levels, but so far I don’t think we have ever actually worked with improvised weapons. I’d love to do it, though. John, if you are going to be teaching LV 5 on Wednesdays, can we do some cool stuff like that? 😀
I have always been taught in KM to use whatever you can as a weapon if you are defending yourself. As far as the law is concerned, if you use a chair leg or lamp or your elbow to crush a windpipe, the results will be the same……. If you have a gun or a knife though, that is not really an improvised weapon…..
JC
I can’t speak to the Krav Maga side of this since Iím a new guy but, with my background I feel that I’m qualified to speak in the general sense about knives and guns.
First, a knife should be considered an extension of your hand. If you were fighting someone and you had a knife in your hand, nothing really changes. Instead of throwing a jab/cross, you might throw a jab/thrust with knife or perhaps a block with the free hand and counter with a knife instead of an elbow. This applies in just about every situation you might encounter. Of course, once you’re swinging a broom handle or rolling pin this no longer has the same affect.
As for firearms and civilians, let me say this. If you have to draw a firearm in defense you only have ONE choice, fire the weapon until the bad guy stops whatever action made you draw the weapon in the first place. Someone earlier had mention distance being your friend. This might be true, even more so if you’re in a combat situation, but in a civilian encounter, if you’re drawing a firearm then distance is no longer an option. Obviously at this point your situation awareness has failed to keep you out of a bad situation and now you’re depending on this weapon to save you from death or serious bodily harm. Once you draw, you better be justified in firing. And if you are justified, then you’re only option is to fire. Just my $.02
-WaltTalking about using improvised weapons in class, a cool thing to do might be to get some breakaway objects from a motion picture store and then use them to attack each other in class. You know, those items that look real, but are made with a soft, safe material, the stuff they use for bar fights in the movies. They have bottles, too, so one could simulate broken glass or a broken bottle. Or a chair or lamp, you name it. Could be a safe way to train with improvised weapons.
ooooorrrrr, you could take kali. Improvised weapons are covered, but we train with the real thing not hollywood breakaways. Couldn’t resist 😈 . Profuse apologies 😳 .
I’m actually surprised to hear the question. Like ffdo my krav maga instructor always encouraged the use of improvised weapons. Use of the handgun was not an addon, it was part of the krav maga curriculum. He also demonstrated Israeli stick fighting and knife fighting, but would not teach it to any of us. He said it was part of the original krav maga curriculum, but had fallen into disuse when Israel could finally afford hot weapons.
As far as a knife being an extension of the arm, there are things you can do with a knife that are very effective but do not translate well to unarmed work, mainly pertaining to large or specialized knives. For example a vertical whip, backhand thrust, assisted cut, lunge or rake (sometimes called a tear) are not really done unarmed, but they can be useful with certain knives. If you were going to structure a knife platform to be the same as unarmed fighting, various small knives lend themseives well while larger ones are not the same as unarmed. These use mechanics similar to unarmed moves:
Fred Perrin La Griffe (this guy makes a lot of gnarly little knives)
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/2292/grifferev.htm
Spyderco SPOT:
http://www.1sks.com/store/spyderco-spot.html
various push daggers:
http://www.coldsteel.com/samase.html
http://www.coldsteel.com/urbanpal.html
http://www.lapolicegear.com/mese.html
Any knives by Shivworks:
http://www.shivworks.com/products.aspAs a side note, I just ordered a bag of goodies consisting of a bunch of hand held self defense tools to try out. Here’s a few:
http://www.selfdefensegear.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=selfdefensegear&Product_Code=CIA3
http://www.selfdefensegear.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=selfdefensegear&Product_Code=91K
http://www.selfdefensegear.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=selfdefensegear&Product_Code=STGRCLR&Category_Code=3Wow, thats a lot of links.
Tehillim…there’s a big difference between \”encouraged the use of (I kind of assumed that was the case)\” and \”trained to be effective with\”
\”As far as a knife being an extension of the arm, there are things you can do with a knife that are very effective but do not translate well to unarmed work, mainly pertaining to large or specialized knives.\”
This is true but I was speaking more in a general sense. If you study knife fighting then there are allot of other things that can be accomplished, especially with a specilized knife as you mentioned. However, for those who are looking for basic uses of a knife without having any official training, it’s best to keep it simple.
I’m all for using the real thing instead of breakaways. Whatever works, just doing it at all would be cool. 😀
CLFMak,
Those are some weird weapons. What does the CIA ice scraper do? Scrape the skin off the opponent? 😯 😉
The push daggers are interesting. Looks like it would be hard if not impossible to do a takeaway against those. Same with the knives that have a hole in the handle for the index finger to be put through.
That reminds me, in the same SWAT magazine that had the KM article, there was an article about the Karambit knife. It’s relatively small, but the blade is curved and it also has holes in the handle for the fingers, making it hard to be taken away.
I was wondering if our 360 defense would work against such a knife. Because the blade is curved, one would probably get cut trying to do a 360 defense wrist to wrist. So, should one do a 360 defense a little lower on the attacker’s arm, to avoid the blade? This might make the defense harder and potentially less effective, but it seems as though that would be safer. That’s a pretty sharp blade and if it cuts the wrist it would probably cause a lot of damage.KravMDjeff good point. There is a big difference between encouraged and trained to be effective. In krav maga we always heard use whats close at hand but we never actually trained to \”be effective with\” improvised weapons. But, watching my krav maga instructor demonstrate double stick fighting inspired me to pursue kali after he shut down his school. Now I am learning to be effective with a whole range of blunt and edged weapons. The other day I was doing my spear fighting drills using my daughter’s keyboard stand in its folded position. Folded keyboard stand is a potent weapon. It lends itself to blunt force as well as hooking action.8)
John W. any chance KMWW will introduce the Israeli stick and knife fighting to civilians? It would be a great help against cannabalistic pickaxe wielding mutants. It also improves footwork and speed.
The ice scraper works like a push dagger with a straight edge rather than a point.
A 360 defense would work against a karambit the same way. The blade protrudes from the bottom of the fist and arcs away from the wrist anyway. The difference is mostly that the karambit sort of hacks while a straight blade will stab like an icepick. The tricky part is that cutting is usually done with the elbow 90 degrees like a hook- which doesn’t lend itself to the 360 defense (at least what I know of it).
I found a very interesting page of knives and such. Some very innovative designs, but I probably won’t buy any- too expensive for me.
http://www.szaboinc.com/index1.html
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