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I thought this was a good write-up on the subject of knife defenses and it’s effectiveness. I think any altercation involving a knife is going to get you cut one way or another. The only thing knife defense can do is to try to minimize damage to vital parts, get control of the weapon and get out.
quote :This is the title of a seminar that I’ve done a couple of times over the last few years and I recently read someone describing ‘safe and efficient’ knife disarms. It made me a little ill and a little scared that some people believe in this, believe it enough to teach it and can find students naive enough to swallow it.The class starts with some pictures I’ve collected of knife wounds, empasizing that one set was from a prison shank, just a piece of metal that had been scraped on a floor, not some custom fighting knife sharpened to a razor edge. The most gruesome was a single cut from a kitchen knife. Gives them a very basic idea of what the hell they are talking about. What the stakes are if they choos to gamble in this arena.
Then I ask for someone with no experience or training with a knife. I take the volunteer aside, hand her the training knife and whisper, “Keep the knife moving, get it in to them any way you can. Cut anything they stick out, if someone grabs your hand switch hands and keep stabbing and slashing. Got it?”
I then turn back to the students and say, “This person now has less than thirty seconds of knife training. Who in here teaches knife defense?”
At this point, with the put up or shut up time, there are no volunteers. I pick somebody.
The first time I did this drill (for those who don’t recognize it, it is Tony Blauer’s Manson Drill) the volunteer was a sixteen-year old female green belt in Uech-ryu karate with no knife training. The expert (and, honestly, the Uechi guys didn’t need to be picked, they did volunteer- they have consistantly been both braver and humbler than most martial artists, in my experience) was a sixth-dan and 20 year veteran police officer. He only got hit twelve times. ( We count the stabs and usually end it at twenty, which is just a few seconds).In a big diverse group, it quickly becomes clear that almost nothing works against a fast moving, aggressive knife. The guys who have spent years with knives get slaughtered just as fast as people who have never tried it before- faster, if they really believe it works- they practically jump on the blade.
Then we talk about how knives are actually used. I demonstrate some prison shanking techniques and some mexican gang assassination techniques and the one Japanese tanto kata I know and they all have a lot in common- very close, from surprise and using the other hand to freeze the target before the knife come into view. Are those the attacks you train against? If not, too bad, because those are the attacks that happen. This brings up one of the big rules: Knives aren’t used for winning fights. Knives are used for killing people.
Then the Reception Line drill. One student is picked out and I joyfully announce that he or she has been elected governor. It is now time for the inaugural ball. You first duty is to shake hands with all the people lining up to congratulate you- contributors, friends, political allies and rivals. You have to be nice, friendly. By the way, your security detail has information someone plans to kill you. Have a nice party.
The governor then faces away and one of the other students gets the knife. All the students are given instructions. Be happy, be friendly, shake hands, hug, then mill around behind the governor. The assassin can attack at any time- while shaking hands, later, after everyone else is done, while the governor is getting a hug…
The students cycle through the governor role. At least once, time permitting, there is no assassination attempt and the whole class gets to take a good hard look at how stilted and weird the body language of someone who is afraid can be… good education.
But in the end, the critique is almost always the same. No one yelled for help. No one ran. No one yelled, “He’s got a knife!” No one used the mirrors all around or the weapons lying everywhere (we usually do this at a MA seminar, remember)… in the end, people were trying to come up with martial arts solutions to survival problems. As much as we want to pretend otherwise, that is rarely a good fit.
At this point someone usually gets frustrated (which is fair, they’ve been there for almost an hour getting told nothing works and they’ve wasted sometimes years of training- not exactly the message but what many choose to hear) and asks what I would do.
I tell them what has worked for me in the past, and caution them that if five real-life knife defenses seems like a lot it isn’t- no one in there would put up with a judo coach who had only had five matches. Then I show them my highest percentage shot (in either scenario, it doesn’t matter). Sometimes I get stabbed up to three times, often I don’t… then I let it sink in that what worked was fighting minds.
This is frustrating- by only hinting it feels like I’m jerking you around, but the nature of fighting minds instead of bodies is that it quits working if the person has time to think about it. Hopefully, this is a drill I’ll do with some of you in the future. Don’t want to spoil it by letting you think.
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
The term knife defense is sort of an oxymoron. I like to say knife survival.
A knife doesn’t jam, or malfunction, doesn’t matter if it’s dull or rusty, long or short, and you don’t have to be an expert to use it lethally.
Training to survive a knife attack is by far the most challenging aspect of self defense IMHO.
Stay away from people holding sharp objects!
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
Agreed with “Knife Survival.” But in most cases… by the time you realize there’s a knife involved, it’s usually too late which is the scary part.
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
quote KMyoshi:Agreed with “Knife Survival.” But in most cases… by the time you realize there’s a knife involved, it’s usually too late which is the scary part.You are absolutely correct. In a perfect scenario, you would see the attack coming, it would be defined and you could apply the techniques we learn. Since most of the time, NONE of the above happen, the difficulty becomes more pronounced.
Stay away from sharp objects…….
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
The snippet in the first post is interesting and I would like to read a little more from Rory Miller.
IMO, however, I would not use the word “Drill” in the place of “Demonstration” or “Exercise”. A demonstration or exercise is used to show something or “prove/disprove” something – to perhaps cause a paradigm shift in students’ thinking, to expose them to something new, or to get a light to go on in their heads, etc.
For me, “Drilling” is building repetitions/muscle memory – developing (ideal) trained responses to become reflexive. Now take those two demonstrations/exercises in the snippet and modify them so that the students are re-engaging in the scenarios but are now utilizing techniques you taught to help them minimize damage received and maximize damage given out or having them recognize improvised weapons, accessing them as quickly as they can, and using them effectively against their attackers. That is more in line with what I call “drilling”.
Meh, semantics maybe…
Btw, realism in edged weapons training is not only difficult to simulate because of the potential damage/injury the guy without a knife might sustain but also because of the potential damage/injury the guy WITH the knife might sustain.
A 16 year old girl with 30 seconds of knife training [insert your description of bad guy or training bad guy here – I’m just using the one in the snippet] MIGHT cut me 20 times if I’m trying to be nice and just going for controlling the weapon hand or disarming or just trying to only defend and not get cut BUT I guarantee you that same girl won’t cut me nearly as much if I’m hitting her in the face as hard as I can, kicking her in the groin or knees as hard as I can, eye jabbing full force, head butting/biting, kaboshing her with a chair or whatever…
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
Two things.
1. He never told us what “fighting minds” was??2. I vote for the run like hell defense :)))))
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
I think I heard it in a Paul Vanuk video. The only certainty in a knife fight is that you are going to get cut. Situational awareness needs to be a very high priority in any self defense training.
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
I’ve been working on this but have only had limited success so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Gqjf6E_Cc
And, if I ever get that one down, this will be next:
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
quote Don:A 16 year old girl with 30 seconds of knife training [insert your description of bad guy or training bad guy here – I’m just using the one in the snippet] MIGHT cut me 20 times if I’m trying to be nice and just going for controlling the weapon hand or disarming or just trying to only defend and not get cut BUT I guarantee you that same girl won’t cut me nearly as much if I’m hitting her in the face as hard as I can, kicking her in the groin or knees as hard as I can, eye jabbing full force, head butting/biting, kaboshing her with a chair or whatever…this is that middle ground where Force On Force scenario training gets skewed because when you put on the helmets and the padding it seems to me that the results are false…..how many guys instantly stopped in MMA events when poked in the eye or kicked in the ding dong…not saying this would be the case but has to be considered but not relied upon
I use to say that all martial arts are an attempt to organize chaos but that chaos by its vert nature can”t be organized. especially true for a edged weapon defense
i have quite a few friends in the FMA’s. i love the systems and they do all these awesome knife defense drills then they knife spar and you see none of it. It becomes fencing with a short blade. And this when the knife is seen
Watching the Dog Brother gathering vids bring it home as you’ll see a lot of stick to empty hand and then the metal stabbing begins when one guy accesses a knife…in the progression of a fight. DBMA put out a few dvd’s awhile back and were smart enough to entitle them DIE LESS OFTEN
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
quote Don:A 16 year old girl with 30 seconds of knife training [insert your description of bad guy or training bad guy here – I’m just using the one in the snippet] MIGHT cut me 20 times if I’m trying to be nice and just going for controlling the weapon hand or disarming or just trying to only defend and not get cut BUT I guarantee you that same girl won’t cut me nearly as much if I’m hitting her in the face as hard as I can, kicking her in the groin or knees as hard as I can, eye jabbing full force, head butting/biting, kaboshing her with a chair or whatever…Agreed. It’s difficult to train when you can’t really hit your training partner square in the nose/throat to disrupt his thought process.
Mike Tyson said that everyone has a plan, until they get hit in the mouth.
As with most techniques, there must be a strike delivered to distract/confuse, etc…..making your defense easier to implement.
I’ve had a training partner put on a mask and done a traditional defense against a straight stab and his reaction after getting punched WITH a a face shield is entirely different. They go backwards a bit, they stagger, making you have to react differently that a compliant partner, or one who HASN’T been hit and who’s thought process hasn’t been interrupted. Two/three entirely different scenarios.
Now remove the face shield and imagine what would happen? They may stagger more, some may not. It would definitely help, but dealing with a knife is complicated nonetheless.
Stay away from sharp objects!
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
quote unstpabl1:this is that middle ground where Force On Force scenario training gets skewed because when you put on the helmets and the padding it seems to me that the results are false…..how many guys instantly stopped in MMA events when poked in the eye or kicked in the ding dong…not saying this would be the case but has to be considered but not relied uponI use to say that all martial arts are an attempt to organize chaos but that chaos by its vert nature can”t be organized. especially true for a edged weapon defense…
Which is the point of why you don’t just stop at the groin kick, or the eye gauge. Once you make contact whether its with 360 defense + counterattack, kick to the groin, defensive front kick with ball of foot, once you make that contact you’re in a fight that you have to finish/end. Doesn’t necessarily mean disabling your attacker to the point where they need to be hospitalized but once you do a defensive front kick to create space and you don’t want to stand toe-to-toe with the guy, get the hell out of there before he realizes what the heck just happened!
Re: "Why I Don’t Pretend to Teach Knife Defense"
quote t-krav:The only certainty in a knife fight is that you are going to get cut.This is pure fact! I learned this many years ago. If you go against an edged weapon, you are going to get cut. If you don’t, it is luck, and you should probably play the lottery. I would much rather defend against a firearm!
If anyone thinks differently, take a knife defense course. Or, more simply, put on a white T-shirt and give your dearest untrained friend a magic marker. Have your friend use the market like a knife- slice, stab, jab… whatever. Now you try your most basic, or your fanciest moves to defend yourself or even disarm him. Now, count threw marks on your arms, hands, and shirt. If that does not make a believer of you, nothing will!
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