Haha! "Wait for him to step in, otherwise they're just toying with you." I think he means "wait for them to step in because I have no idea how to deal with a realistic clinch-range stabbing"!
Sadly most videos on youtube about weapon self defense are rubbish. Here's what is more likely to happen in an actual scenerio and its even more the reason to avoid getting into a scuffle with anyone. [ame="http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jCrulYp4uWw"]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jCrulYp4uWw[/ame]
The best technique I know: Break contact and run! I learned a lot of useful things in krav maga, but i also took interesting seminars with Alexander Zhelesniak (ACT, knife against knife system including machetes) and Frank Stroeven (karambit seminars) among others, which also included knife defense. But I also picked up useful things from Aikido and Kung Fu/Wudang. It is all about what suits you and what works for you. The main thing is that your reactions should be drilled and repeated in training so that they become a natural flow and an instinctive reaction. I stopped krav maga last year. I train with my buddy (Antonius on this forum) now and the knife defence skills still prove to come in handy, it's still there. Lior Offenbach taught me in his Combat Krav Maga seminar that statistically, you will get cut or stabbed at least 14 times a minute in a knife fight. If any of those cuts is fatal, it's over. So I'd rather grab a chair, a glass of water, whatever and throw it into my attacker's face and make a run for it. Zhelesniak said "Whenever you get well into a knife fight, you are too late to run away and you should be prepared to trade in body parts to save your life." That's not a prospect i am particularly looking forward to.
Agreed. I can't upload the video here since it was loaded straight to FB, but there was a video that was part of the TV show where it showed somebody taking an aggressor to the ground, then going for the armbar. The guy being armbarred pulled a knife and stabbed him must've been a couple of dozen times in the abdomen. The video summed it up best when it said that the guy should have disengaged and run away as soon as he had put the other guy on the floor rather than carrying on the fight.
I'm sure it's been said before but there isn't much you can reliably do after avoidence fails other than use proprioception and distancing to disengage or use two on one to attempt to control the arm and body in order to limit damage and potentially dominate position for disarm and/or strikes. Likelihood of getting stabbed and or cut is very high and most actual stabbings are committed as an ambush rather than a duel: meaning by the time you realise you are in a fight or a knife is involved the knife is most likely already in and out of you a few times. Overall assessment: knife = bad times.
There are two kinds of scissor technique: #1 is a grab and then strike timing. #2 is a strike and then grab timing. 1) The grab first version uses one arm for shield and the other to cut. Techniques that use this version generally are used in grappling, such as arm drags use this version of the scissor technique: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWBrnVxpW7w"]Ivan Ivanov 2 Arm Drag - YouTube[/ame] And if you want more traditional karate version: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp1drfqOMKY"]One Minute Bunkai: Juji Uke #1 - YouTube[/ame] 2) The strike first version looks like the typical X-block. It is important to keep the wrists together for speed. This can be a hard strike that stuns or a softer one that unbalances/redirects. The grab only really works if you stun or unbalance first so that you can apply a lock. I don't have a video of this version, but basically with the hard style version, you strike with your back knuckles while your wrists are together, then you apply a lock.
Take all your knife defense knowledge. Find a partner of any skill. Both of you get a felt marker and go at it. See how many marks you end up with.
This is a nice idea. I've done similar. Out of more than twenty knife counter techniques, I got only three that worked more consistently. Then went back and figured out what made those three work better than the rest and started applying those principles to the other applications to make them work better.
I'd give most people less than five minutes before they start to look like a colourful zebra. It is good advice though.
Possibly he could have armbarred the arm that held the knife? Also a knife is pretty dangerous while standing up, its not like its only grappling that has problems with it.
I mean you have to practice knife defense like anything else. My question is, what is the underlying message of this statement. In my mind it is secretly shouting that any and all attempts at knife defense are a fools errand. I hope not and I am likely reading to much into it. I however will interpret it to say afterwords, take what you have learned and keep trying till you get less marks. You have to accept that you will end up with marks no matter what, its keeping them to places with less lethal potential. I have to wonder though, why arts like the FMA are so touted to have best unarmed knife defense. I talked to friend of mine, who had a rough youth. Lots a fights, no striking ma experience just wrestling. training at all. Had a knife pulled on him, he didn't get cut. All he said was he did what he had to do to not die. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-3ZK8l6zSI"]ISE Suro Inay - YouTube[/ame] I have attended a 14 hour seminar with Suro Inay and thought he was fantastic. I have to wonder what parts of that and indeed all of FMA unarmed knife defense translates to reality when pressure and resisting opponents are added.
One aspect of successful knife defense (and this based on real world accounts of some survivors) is the element of surprise that comes from muscle memory. You could use a karate rising block to stop a knife if that movement comes so naturally and quickly that it catches the attacker off guard. And I know a retired police officer who told me that is exactly what happened one of many times he was attacked. Many pieces of FMA take years to learn the movements as natural movements. Once this happens, they gain that element of surprise and quickness. However, if you are trying these techniques with only a few months training or less, they can be more complex than you can handle at that time. I forgot the name of the FMA grandmaster that told me this, but what he showed us was more simplified technique that he said we could use right away based on our current backgrounds in martial arts. That simplified technique was basically gunting, ending up with unbalancing and two-on-one grab driving the knife tip first into the ground. Not at all as fluid and cool as the stuff the grandmaster could do with all the years of practice and experience.
A Karate rising block isn't a natural movement and I'd argue that it's the natural flinch response that survivors are recalling. No longer than any other technique and certainly no longer than it takes to learn a decent Karate rising block. Also the Karate rising block is going to get you into a heap of trouble in certain knife ranges.
Yet I can see movements in FMA unarmed knife defense that look suspiciously like karate rising blocks just done more fluidly.. Since I have been watching FMA unarmed videos, I have started seeing lots of things that I would consider Karate moves, just done more fluidly. If I had to point to a thing that sets FMA training above karate training is the fact that the movements are practiced fluidly. I have never encountered a fluid moving karate practitioner. I see so many that move in that one step fashion, jerky and stop start. Of course I have not seen a whole lot of them so it doesn't matter.
