Defence against throwing weapons.

My defense is either moving out of the way fast enough, or if you can't move fast enough be sure you're strong enough to take the hit and keep on fighting. It's bassically like, they attack, wait till the right moment and your return attack will be devistational.

I've tried it several times before, and it's worked surprisingly well most the time(except twice out of like thirty times, those two times I got my butt whipped).

 

As is often the case, we probably agree, it's just that we disagree on the choises of words and definitions. In Fiore di Liberi, the mantra is the defence, the riposte or the attack, depending on how you define the three phrases.

One could say that the point is the defence as his manual fiore di battaglia shows many techniques where you bait the attacker into traps

It could just as easily be interpited as a riposte, as 90% of the techniques shown are both a deflection, a dodge and a attack, all in one move!

And finally, it could be interpited as a very offencive style, as the latest theories on his system is that you take the initiative with an attack that
a: -goes through and ends the fight
b (and most likely): -is parried where you responds with a thrust, that
a: -goes through and ands the fight
b(and most likely): -is deflected to one or another side, where you have a given set of techniques where you end the fight; if it doesn't, you step out of range and repeats the procedure (or escape, as your opponent clearly is either very lucky, or at least as good as you).

 

Hi there,

The following is an excerpt from an essay that I wrote for a publication last year. This may well help explain the reaction vs action thing from a point of self defense. Hope you enjoy.



The system that I studying primarily is that which was recorded by a man called Fiore dei Liberi in the treatise that is titled Fior di Battaglia , and in this system he presents various types of combat including unarmed, dagger, sword (both single and two handed), spear, axe, including both armoured and un-armoured combat. At first glance this manual appears to be a collection of techniques and not a presentation of a system of combat. However this view is wrong, and is in fact a presentation of one of the fullest and most complete martial systems that I have ever seen, a view that has been echoed by many martial artists both eastern and western.
Due to the period of time that this was written and the styles and conditions where this martial art is practised the art is based in the unarmed system, and the concepts that are introduced in this part are echoed throughout the rest of the system, being built on and expanded with the weapons. An example of this can be seen in the movement to defend where the lead foot moves slightly before the other foot moves thus bringing the opponent forward and slightly off line. This appears again in the dagger and in the sword, both single and two handed.
Due to the way that this system is grounded and the fact that the longer weapons tends to distance the practitioner from the chance to employ hand to hand techniques Fiore splits his techniques or Plays, as he calls them, into Zogho Largo and Zogho Stretto, or in English the Wide/Loose Game/Play and the Tight/Narrow Game/Play. The key concept that lies behind these two types of Game or Play is Distance, a concept that is vitally important to all martial artists, eastern and western.
Although Fiore identifies these two sorts of play, the Zogho Stretto can be split into three distances that can be summed up as long, middle and range. Fiore does not identify these differences but shows these distances separately and together in various techniques. The techniques where the distances are shown together are interesting to study as it shows sound ways of crossing these differences from the long to the close and various tactics of how to do so. This essay is not about identifying this element of crossing the distances but rather the differences between the long fight with a weapon and the close fight of unarmed, dagger and half-sword.
In a fight distance can be defined as the spatial relationship that exists between two opponents. In a fight this spatial relationship is constantly shifting and changing as each fighter tries to:
• Outsmart the other
• Find the correct distance to launch an attack
• Cause the opponent’s attacks to miss
• Disturb the opponent’s plan of action
It is said that a fighter who can control distance can usually control the fight and therefore stands a better chance of winning.
In both the close range and the long range fight the same four points hold true, however the manner in which this may be done changes due to one basic factor that is a product of distance and that is Time. At the long range you have more time to initiate an action and also more time to react to an opponent’s action. At the long range it is possible to wait for an attack. If the opponent launches an attack then you can see it coming, decide whether you are going to defend or whether you are going to move out of the way of the attack. Either way, once the attack is lying spent you know that you are in range to be able to attack successfully; it is only the actions of the opponent that will now cause this attack to fail. At the close range, at the shorter distance, you will have less time. This lack of time means that if the opponent launches an attack then you will have less time to react and his attack will more likely be successful.
The weapons that are used, at the different ranges, cause another difference of the long and close ranges. The longer the weapon then the slower the weapon will move, the smaller the weapon the faster the weapon will appear to be. This means that the quickest weapon that one can employ is a jab with the fist. This attack moves in a straight line, is closest to the target and the weapon is the lightest weapon one could hold, i.e. a closed fist. If we compare this against a weapon of the longer ranges, say a staff or a bill making a blow then you will see the development of the blow and the path that it will take, but essentially the weapon will take longer to reach its target than would that fist. The advantage that the long weapon has against the jab is that although the jab is quicker it will obviously not reach the wielder of the long weapon unless the jabber has broken distance.
On the other hand if the jabber breaks distance to the point where he can employ this weapon then the man armed with the long weapon will not be able to employ his weapon unless he shortens it down so that it can be employed, for example go to the half sword or the half staff, or alternatively abandon the long weapon and employ the weapons that are more suited to the closer range.
Another point to consider when looking at the differences between the long and the close range combat is the physiological effects of actually being in a fight. When someone enters into a real fight then they will be scared and in fear of their own safety. This will have the effect of releasing a natural drug called a hormone into the system that is present in all animals as part of their arsenal to help them survive.
This hormone is called adrenaline and is like a short-term performance enhancing drug. If adrenaline has not flooded your system or you are used to its effects then it will make you a little bit stronger and a little bit faster. However, there are some negative effects. Adrenaline also has the effect of reducing the amount of blood that is being pumped to the extremities and concentrates the flow to the large organs and muscles so that these areas have more oxygen to burn during the sudden increase that a stress situation will have on respiration.
In addition to this vision is restricted and become what is called tunnel vision. At this point the combatant will lose periphery vision. If you are at the longer distances and facing an opponent this will have little effect, you will be able to see all of your opponent and his movement. At the close, however, this loss of peripheral vision can become problematic and you will loose sight of your opponent’s limbs and movement. At this distance however, the combatant will become more reliant upon other senses than sight. This other sense is related to touch and is known as kinaesthetic awareness. With this awareness the combatant by being hopefully in contact with his opponent will be able to sense the others force, movement and the direction of movement and will be able to act accordingly.
This concept of kinaesthetic awareness is not ignored by fencers and is called, in more recent times, sentiment de fer. This is not a new concept and is apparent throughout the history of swordsmanship from the earliest treatise such as I.33 to present day and modern sports fencing, the Leuchtenauer tradition typifies it best with a technical term called fühlen. The only difference with this is that instead of being directly in contact with you opponent you are in contact with your opponent’s sword through your own sword.
A simple way of feeling this for yourself is to stand opposite a partner and touch both your swords together. If you close your eyes you will be able to feel a slight pressure against your own blade from the other person and you will be able to judge fairly accurately how your opponent is standing and the orientation of his blade.
This can be turned into an interesting drill along the lines of sticky hands from Wing Chun and Kali, where two people move around the swords whilst touching and try to maintain a position of safety, with the eyes closed. As soon as the touch or sense of touching is lost then you should fly out and distance yourself immediately.
It is interesting to note that Captain Hutton that renowned fencer from the beginning of the last century who also studied the treatises of ancient Masters, noted a very similar drill and suggested that although there was little practical application in fighting with swords whilst blind folded that these exercises were useful to increase the sensitivity of the swordsman and made for interesting displays of skill.
So, having looked at some of the differences of the close and the long fight, how should one approach the fight both physically and mentally at these two very different ranges? Some people maintain that at the close and the long one should look to the defence first and then from a successful defence launch a counter attack. This however is a little short sighted. If we take this approach then whatever we do will always take two times, one time for the defensive action and one time for the offensive action, and relies on the opponent staying spent whilst you make your counter. This takes into no account that the opponent will be recovering his spent blow and in doing so will most probably be covering the line that you are aiming to attack, and also, if he has any sense, will be moving away from the attack to ready himself for another action. This takes into no account the idea of single time parry/riposte, for example the counter cut, or indeed the concept of stop thrust/blow.
If we add to this problem that if the opponent has launched a blow he will then be in the initiative and fighting from that point of time that is before your own action, or as the Germans in their medieval texts term this the Vor. One of the problems of this is that the opponent will be maintaining the initiative in that he should be attacking in such a way as to force you to minimise the amount of counters that you can respond with, thus making his own decision making process easier.
At the close however, the method is impractical. According to some prestigious martial artists this approach does not work basing this assumption upon the simple premise that action beats reaction. If the block does not work at the close then what should the approach be? Instead of waiting to attack then you should look to attack first, preferably as you enter into this range. This does not mean to say that you should ignore your own safety, instead you should be looking too cover lines that are either being most threatened or cover those areas that are most sensitive to damage. In this way you will gain the initiative that should be maintained by continually attacking and spoiling your opponents own plans for action. In other words you must attack first while being aware of the distance and spatial relationship between yourself and your opponent. This attack should be strong and delivered in such a way where your opponent will not be able to recover. If the attack fails, then ideally your opponent will be disordered thus enabling you to attack again, in a similar manner to before – with strength and aggression. If the attack fails and your opponent is not disordered then you know what attack you have launched and will have been expecting such a counter and will be able to respond quicker with this foreknowledge, however, looking to regain that moment of before.
The question begs to be answered. If this approach is successful why not employ it at the longer ranges? Well, why not? This approach is recommend in fact by many masters of fence through history, in fact in Medieval Fencing the idea of defence is secondary to that of attack, and your attack should create your moment of defence at the same time. One Medieval Master, Sigmund Ringeck, in his commentaries on Johanne Liechtenauer’s verses states that:
When you are closing to an opponent, do not watch his blows and do not wait for what he might use against you. Because all fencers, who just wait for their opponents blows and do not do anything else than warding them off, do not succeed very often. They are defeated very often.
This sentiment is echoed, if not through their words, then certainly by their deeds, by many if not all the medieval masters of fence.
The reason for this has already been gone into. If we initiate the combat then we are more likely to be in control of the fight, we will have reduced the options that are available to our opponent and will expect one of a few counters from any particular position. With this expectation lies an advantage in that once an attack is made then another attack can again be made to another area, thus not giving time for the counter to develop.
Another thing to think about is this. If we are fighting within a system then we should expect that system to act in a similar fashion whether we are at the close fight or at the long fight, and we should expect that system to be equally effective at both distances. If it does not then we are either fighting with an incomplete system and as a martial artist should look for other things to employ to shore up those holes in our technique, style and become comfortable with the different distances that we may encounter. On the other hand you may already be employing two different systems to handle the different natures of the fight at the close or at the long.
Alternatively, if we are finding that an area of the fight is not being addressed within a system then maybe we should start looking at employing the principles and concepts of that system with a variety of different tools and different distances to find the answers that are undoubtedly there. For instance if one should look at Silver’s advice about the dagger play then we see this very idea being employed. Where Silver tries to suggest that one should employ his system in such a way to continually make the other fail in his own attacks, even though he is dealing with a close fight he still deals with the situation in the same manner as he would deal with a staff fight or a sword fight.


That was kind of long wasn't it.

Still well done for getting this far

Regards
Rob

 

A very insightful and thorough article. I agree to all that was posted there, and it concurs with the "latest" theories that my trainer have told me. I'd just like to add another theory that we adopted; that since it's easier to spot incoming attacks at longer ranges, and easier to feel them when you're in a clinch, one should try to avoid the "boxing/dagger-range", as it is a very devious range. To support our wiev on this one, most old fightingmanuals regards the dagger (because of the range?) as the most dangerous weapon to fight, as it is as fast as a fist, and works at a distance where fûhlen cannot be applied until it perhaps is too late (i.e with your opponents dagger embedded in your forearm...)

 

Defense against throwing knife.

Carry lots of ballons and when attacked quickly attach them to the side of your body end of hands and feet and top of head. Then do quick on the spot cartwheels. The knifes will be magically drawn to pop the balloons leaving you safe.

P.S. don't try this on morning TV as it doesn't work before 12. As some knife thrower found out when he hit his wife live on national TV.

 

Mark_Campbell: I think you mix the knife with the gun I have never had a knife thrown at me, but I doubt it moves so quick that you cannot see it, and hence it chouldn't be more difficult to take evasive action against a thrown knife than a thrown stone. Range is of course an issue here as well. I've dodged thrown stones in my youth on several occantions when "entangeled in minor disagreements" with the neighbour kids, and it really isn't that difficult if the range is over 10 feet. Both the knife and the stone is by the way far more lethal if kept in the hand as a melee weapon than as a missile weapon.

I agree that it's not easy to evade a thrown knife, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to avoid the thrown knife if possible My point is (as written before) is that the knife -when thrown -is not by far as lethal as many holywood/hongkong-movies wants us to believe -and that if someone comes at you with a knife, you should be glad if he throws the knife away from himself...

 

well perhaps your right about reaction time, but tell me how many times youve thought youd reacted to something and wore it anyway

i would imagine a knife thrown from a sensible distance (10-15feet) would give you about the same time to react as a lead hand jab, and lead hand jab executed properly is unblockable

 

If you mean that there's a difference between theory and pracsis, I agree. I'm not a particulary dexterious person myself, and if anyone is an easy target for a thrown object, it's mee

well, I'll grant you that I might sound a bit bombastic, but so are you in this latest statement. It all depends on the skill of the thrower and the experience and reactiontime of the attacked. When I watch boxingmatches on TV, I see several left hand-jabs that are blocked; it allso comes down to what stance you're in as the one opposing the knifethrower/left-hand-jabber. I have no illutions that blocking/deflecting/dodging a knife thrown from 10 - 15 feet is easy, but neither do I think it's impossible. My guess is that you manage to do either of the above counters in at least 40% of the time, but I have no statistics to support my statement with

 

Hm... report the weapons to the local authorities? :O

(Just kidding, so flame nice...)