Best knife defence?

Well we didn't do that, it was mostly basics of the system we did for 14 hours. At least my group. I thought it was good. He seams to be well respected among the FMA people I have talked to other places.

Edit to add. So out of that whole video, that was what you had beef with? Nothing else about it was good to you? I mean, not everyone is going to be perfect all the time in everything they do. I admit the head thing was odd as heck, and yet I have seen just as weird things else were in the fma world. It is only a click away on youtube.
It was the head thing that spawned my question, of how does FMA unarmed knife actually translate to situations with aliveness and resistance.

 

I have to wonder how much it would have changed if the speed was upped to punching speed with the knife. Real fast striking with it.

When I trained with him, he was all business and taught us things that meshed with stuff I had done to that point.

I can see your point about fluff for fluff's sake.

 

I wasn't referring to the head thing I was talking about the more pedestrian things he did preceding it and following it and the system in general. When I asked what would have changed, I meant what techniques would he have used if it were real speed. Saying he would be dead, only addresses if he used the video technique of head disarms at full speed. I have a hard time accepting that a person with over 30 years FMA training would not beable to defend a knife or use one.

 

To be honest I was not a fan of a that of that video....the head stuff is pretty much nonsense too, and there were numerous instances of it

As for 30years, well i know people that have been training in systems that long who can barely fight sleep...in their own head they are legends though

 

I don't mean to come off like a shill for the guy, its just I met him and trained 2 days with him. He seemed to be genuine about passing on the family system. I agree the head thing was bad, but what about the rest of it?

I mean some of it just looked like simple parries to controls.

 

As for rising blocks, I think I'll keep me elbows in and hands near my neck and face, thanks.

Pretty much the only strategy that has worked for me in live practice is playing the distance game until he overcommits and then getting a 2-on-1 grip on the knife hand.
With plenty of warning and room to move, it's successful about 70% of the time for me. Under more realistic circumstances it dips below 50% pretty quickly.

Noticing the bad guy setting up an attack and being in a position to evade it is the best practice. Dominant position, watch your six, watch your distance, watch the hands. If you have a weapon and can consistently win against randoms in unscripted, resistant training, even better.

 

He was a shotokan black belt of many years. It what he did.

Missed the point. He did it, it worked, and it was a real knife attack. It wasn't the choice of technique, it was that he did it instinctively and from all the years of training, it was solid. He stopped the knife and then punched the attacker out.

Of course you could say he got lucky because the attacker came down with the knife at such an angle that the rising block worked. But my point was that he did a karate rising block and then he punched the guy out... I'm looking at why that worked, not particularly what technique he used.

The why it worked I think is very important.

 

This is the GM that told me basically that the stuff he did took many years to learn until it was natural. He noticed how some of us struggled to make things work.

He also gave us other options for techniques we could learn to use in less time effectively. He encouraged to both train the simple stuff that we could use today or in a short time, and to continue to train the complex things until they became simple for us.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FMwzEPiNjU"]Grand Master Robert Castro ESKABO DAAN - Demo - YouTube[/ame]

He wasn't alone in those thoughts. Long before that we had the concept of "caveman martial arts" and starting with that and progressing to more refined movements as the complex became more simple for us.

Edit: Oh wow, I almost missed this video. I like it:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SssVaViRYlI"]Filipino Martial Arts (eskabo daan) on Filipino Journal pt 2 - YouTube[/ame]

 

This video gets into the 2-on-1 grab near the end. I think it is a pretty good video:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9pbQclU9JM"]Functional Knife Defense - YouTube[/ame]

 

I mentioned this somewhere...
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1074872939&highlight=marker#post1074872939
Post number 26, July 2014


Also to add, start off with clothes that you don't mind getting ruined as well as those that are not comfortable

 

Just watched said video https://www.facebook.com/KaliFighting/videos/464933843684125/
Full of problems really. If an untrained Joe can sit up into your armbar like that when it's already on then you're just no good at it. However the big problem which is one you see a lot is the bizarre assumption that submissions are a goal in and of themselves. Submissions in sport fighting are proxies for breaking limbs and rendering people unconscious.

 

100% on the money

 

My main problem with 'knife defence' is usually that it gets portrayed as a man with a knife clearly visible several feet away from you, attacking 'calmly'. Not reflective of what I have seen in videos of real stabbings - frenzied close range attacks, where the knife isn't apparent - you can get quite badly cut and not realise it in the heat of battle.

 

Yup.

To date, I have never seen a single martial artist from any style IRL who trains with the longer range telegraphed attacks you frequently see be able to cope with the more frenzied stabbings you see in videos of real incidences during simulations. Ever.

Honestly I don't think it's a question of avoiding being cut & stabbed so much as what you can do to reduce the amount of cuts and stabs you are on the receiving end of.

 

This is why I emphasise blade aware empty hands (no taking the hit to gain an advantage from me) and build blade skills on the structure of the hand to hand.

 

I spent two or three years of my life throwing knives almost every day.

I spent two or three years of my life throwing knives almost every day.

I learned the single spin distance by heart. I mean the knife was like a gun in my hand; it was so second nature to throw the knife and i was about 4-5 feet out of kicking range.

I also learned the 2nd spin distance to about 80%.

If I ever got in a knife fight and I had two or three of my throwing knives, i would throw one at my attacker's face at the single distance; then, follow up with the other two in my hands blocking with one and using the other to get my favorite judo grip and throw my attacker to the ground and make him pull negative G forces before the air in his lungs left his body and the back of his head smacked against the concrete. Take mount and do a judo frontal choke with the two blades in my hands, which incidentally is not unlike choking him unconscious with a gi.

hope you don't criticize me too harshly, like the others do. have mercy on me.

 

I hope those knives were sharper than you, bro.

 

I tried calling them all but it is still not enough.....I simply lack the required number of shenanigans