Does effective knife defence exist?

Discussion in 'General Martial Arts Discussion' started by Monkey_Magic, May 13, 2018.

  1. thegoodguy

    thegoodguy Valued Member

    And in case you can't avoid or run in one occassion, as I said in my earlier posts, always try not to engage the attacker with empty hands. Try to use an objetc as a shield or weapon or as something to throw it at his face ( at least to distract him for a second )
     
  2. thegoodguy

    thegoodguy Valued Member

    Maybe grabbing the knife with my gloves if I have them or with my jacket or shirt
     
  3. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    No don’t do that...don’t ever do that
     
  4. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    Knife crime in the UK is on the rise in the young but its still statically unlikely most of us will ever face a knife, or be attacked at all for that matter.

    From personal experience in training I know how false a sense of security can be built and how quickly most knife defences fall apart in unscripted training. I trained knife defence for close to 8years as part of the syllabus of my kung fu style we also did some knife sparring as well I thought I had a handle on it,

    Then when I started grappling my coach was a close friend of Karl tanswell and when we trained I got lit up like a Xmas tree with a rubber knifr, why because not only was the knife defense we did in kung fu unrealistic (wide swings, no repeated committed attacks etc) but even worse it conditioned you to attack unrealistically even when doing unrehearsed sparring which was made worse because we used blunt knifes so we still pulled our attacks even more and attacked unrealistically.
    What training with someone truely attacking me with total freedom showed was how fast the attacks are, how committed they are, how they come from strange angles and without a windup needed from such short distance and how even when you can get hold of the knife you are normally cut in the process.

    One of the things noted to me from another coacj about the stab programme was how little time is spent on the initial attack, this was normally because from Karl's experiences you know where the knife is its inside you so its easy to find, not all agree with this approach I know but it shows how hard it is to defend the initial attack especially when its hidden
     
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  5. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    Your greatest chances of surviving a knife attack are from

    1. avoiding the situation.
    2. Running.
    3. Paying up - handing over your wallet then running
    4. picking up a weapon / pick up a defence e.g chair and buy time to run.
    5. You should only fight if you believe that you have no realistic alternative.
    If it comes to a fight you will get cut - it is just a mater of time until you are cut fatally. In a fight against a knife it comes down to the balance of risk and reward. You should use a specific knife defence if you regularly train knife defences. the longer the weapon is left un-controlled the greater the chance of getting seriously stabbed.

    But if you do not regularly train knife defences you must chose between - attempting to control the weapon using a technique you are not skilled at, or using your skills to TKO / immobilise the attacker before they can stab you.

    • If you do not attempt to control the knife, but instead try to TKO the attacker and run. You will have a greater chance of succeeding in your application but at the same time leaving the knife free gives the attacker time to stab you and you could die.
    • If you attempt to control the knife this makes it harder for them to stab you. but if it goes wrong there is a high chance of being fatally stabbed.

    It is a choice only you can make at the time.

    In my personal opinion - and it is only an opinion - I would go with open hand striking techniques I am skilled at rather than attempting a weapons disarm that I have hardly ever practiced. But that is entirely my opinion and my choice.

    In my personal opinion I would avoid using open hand grappling techniques against a weapon, even a techniques I am skilled at, because at grappling range the chances of getting fatally stabbed if you make a mistake are very high. Again I stress only my opinion
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2018
  6. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    I'm really curious about how you implement this in live training. How do you prevent a committed and armed attacker from entering grappling range while having them close enough to strike with your palms?
     
    icefield likes this.
  7. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    The problem with striking with him I have found is
    his reach is longer,
    he can move faster as he isn't as worried about getting power in the strikes,
    he can change angles really quickly where as as a striker I cant
    The hand is faster than the eye

    All of this means personally I would like some control over the blade because if he is serious he will be in grappling range before you know it
     
  8. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    If they're serious then they'll try to use soft skills to get into grappling range before you even know they intend to attack you.

    If someone is mad enough to want to perforate your organs until you are dead, I think they'll eat a broken nose to do it. Unless you KO them with your first shot, I think all it is doing is delaying the moment it moves to grappling range by a fraction of a second. One of the big advantages of a blade, as you said above, is that your strikes are lethal in grappling range where it is much harder for the person defending to generate force.
     
    icefield likes this.
  9. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    For me playing with a knife at distance is like tag sparring the shots come from all angles, weird positions and stances and are a pain, the difference is in tag you just shake it off and say there's no power behind all those shots so they are useless, with a knife in the hand there doesn't need to be much power to do real damage.

    I want to control if I can how quickly that limb moves, that's of as you say I even see it,
     
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  10. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    And if you're playing "knife fighters" at range in sparring, the person with the knife can just hack away at your limbs with a large degree of impunity. Difficult to strike with the hands when there's no blood in your arms!
     
  11. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    Miss communication - i was taking open handed to mean - without weapon - probably unarmed would have been a better phrase. as for how do you attempt to controll the distance - you do it the same way as you would without weapons - foot work.
     
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  12. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    All true - which is why I would want to avoid making up an improvised grappling knife defence on the spot .

    But like i said - it is about picking the lesser of two evils for yourself.
     
  13. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    I would want to be running like hell not facing off and sparing. My intention against a knife would first and foremost be to create the opportunity to escape.
     
  14. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    I think that is a very important point.

    It's a relatively rare situation, even for people who deal with violence for a living, so we have to be wary of survivor bias and work out what works best for us in training. Not that we should dismiss what has worked for others, but to stay mindful that with a small sample pool small factors can create large variations.
     
  15. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    Off the three people I have met who I actually believe where attacked with a knife.

    One hit their atacker with a chair TKOed them long enough to run away - he was stabbed in the arm.
    One forgot all his military training put his hands out in front of him to fend of the knife. Got stabbed through one hand then punched and KOd his attacker with the other hand.
    One did not know he had been stabbed until he passed out after fighting off a mugger.
     
  16. Tom bayley

    Tom bayley Valued Member

    Missed an important one of the list of what to do before fighting - Talk.
     
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  17. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Even before that - try not to give anyone reason to want to stab you!
     
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  18. axelb

    axelb Master of Office Chair Fu

    as a teenager, I was threatened with a knife, I kicked it out of their hand, standard straight up front kick. (I was doing Judo at the time, so no relation to striking training that I hadn't done).

    Complete fluke and very lucky/stupid, and also had been drinking* (*see stupid) - a high chance it could have gone wrong - the other person from what I understand had not really done anything with a knife before, but I didn't know them.

    I have since then done other "knife defense" which we did a bit of live play with, and pretty much got stabbed in the foot each time I tried that with someone who had more intent.
     
    David Harrison likes this.
  19. Monkey_Magic

    Monkey_Magic Well-Known Member

  20. Nojon

    Nojon Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein

    Scroll to 4:05
     

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