I wouldn't even use it wearing maille. This was the age of plate, albeit not the impenetrable Gothic plate. But JJJ likely has holdovers from Japanese armoured combat. When did it enter the syllabus? Perhaps it entered through contact with JJJ. Apparently (according to Rory Miller) the closed-fist strikes entered some Karate styles comparatively late. It's entirely possible the cross-block is a later addition, or as a holdover from indigenous Okinawan military arts. I don't know jack about Karate's history. From what I've seen of Fiore, he shows the cross block against a high descending attack, just like I learned in Arnis. He shows an uncrossed two-hand stop against a low thrust, very similar to WWII combatives. I couldn't find him using the low cross against a low thrust. Interestingly enough, Fiore was used as a part of Italy's WWI unarmed combatives, which was a great idea considering the medieval nature of a lot of WWI trench warfare.
In many cases I wonder if the prevalence of "x-blocks" is partially generated by bad or MIS transmission. In FMA there are several actions that could be interpreted as a "x-block" if taught poorly or learned out of a book. The "jam then pass" of hubud against the downward psycho knife attack which might be taught as an upward then extended outward block in a karate system has a snapshot which looks like an x-block when the arms are crossed. The Dog Brother's dogcatcher is a variation of the low line x-block, albeit done with lots of forward pressure. I could see that turn into a crappy static x-block with a couple generations of bad instruction without the ability to do video pressure.
I think that's pretty on the money actually, particularly with some training traditions where what you see isn't necessarily the skill you're supposed to walk away with - some koryu for instance. As you said proper pressure testing ought to 'reveal' the skill sets that are built in to some techniques but a few generations of chinese whispers can really ruin that idea
A) it's a movement in a form. It's not necessarily a specific technique in a specific context. As Blindside said there are various hand fighting applications where the X is very brief, and there are grappling applications. B) in the Southern Chinese martial culture that Karate came from vambraces were common c) the unarmoured Okinawan vs Samurai story needs to be taken with a kilo of salt.
Is it me or does it seem odd that knife defense practiced decades ago in martial arts hardly reflected those in the military of that same past era?
Some thoughts on knife defence: 1. You may not see the knife until it is too late (or indeed feel it - plenty of anecdotes of people getting cut and not realising it until later). So if you train for self-defence, you should think about how that changes things 2. You will end up in a grappling match (because you are going to try to control the knife or limb) - and as we know that can often end up on the floor, so think positional work on the ground and how the knife changes things 3. Getting cut is rarely instantly fatal - if you get cut you are quite capable of continuing to fight and should expect to do so Personally I am keen on avoidance, pre-emptive strikes and 'dirty boxing' (wrist control on the weapon hand and putting in all the strikes I can with whatever is free), in that order (actually with avoidance 1st, 2nd and 3rd and the rest trailing a long way behind)
Social cues and environmental awareness (i.e. is this stranger reaching behind himself and did he just say "I'm going to stab you!"?), followed by a swift and heavy jaw breaker of an overhand. X-block if you want, or cross block, or side block, or elbow block, or building block if you want, just don't get stabbed.
X-block for knife defense? Aka standing in the path of the blade while opening yourself up to attacks from the aggressors other hand. Sounds like a great technique. [ame="http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vIqhMwyAs6c"]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vIqhMwyAs6c[/ame]
