And the main thing t think about is how the hell I got into that situation and how to avoid it,Knife attacks scare the life out of me. Luckily I can quite naturally implement what was one of the best instructions I ever received. When facing a real situation A COMPLETE AND UTTER LACK OF IMAGINATION is best.That and the ability to go from alert to 100% attack in an instant. Afterwards you can "think about it." koyo
Please be patient while i get this uploaded .. Hi Koyo, sorry for not coming back earlier on this one. The two examples highlight the range of uncertainties and difficulties associated with knife fights for real. An objective description as to how best to deal with knife fights a) in terms of reality and b) effective training to counter the possibilities; is always going to be difficult. However, Koyo writes in an entertaining and lucid manner, hence the original request. In the thread "expect to get cut", AirWeaver quotes Paul Vanuk and Lynn Thompson - their vids on youtube add more perspective to the difficulties and uncertaintities. I will add in a few points, difficulties, uncertainties, questions and potential solutions (note 'potential') myself; generally sticking to things from the Aiki perspective (but not exclusively) for the time being, as this is an Aikido thread. Firstly why do I attach significance to knives for MAs and self-defence? Knives can easily be concealed and suddenly utilised in a street/pub skirmish. Unfortunately, knives and multiple opponents are a potential reality that we have to face up to. In a 'regular' one-on-one no-weapons street skirmish, most trained MA are potentially able to give a reasonable account of themselves (as long as they dont 'freeze' etc.) When knives pop out of pockets, and/or more opponents suddenly squeeze your space, the limitations of one's MA training becomes a lot more visible. Like Inspector Callaghan said in Dirty Harry, "A man has to know his limitations". However, if we are conscious of our limitations i.e. we recoognise them, maybe we can do someting small to improve our chances a touch, in our training methods. In at least one of Koyo's posts, the essential message was along the lines of : always train as if every strike/blow is coming from a bladed weapon and enemies are present in all corners (the words were different, but the same message.) All solid sound advice. In Aikiken, training with boken teaches us to use hanmi posture (to minimise the attacker's target area), body allignment when entering the attacker's inside/outside space, triangular footwork (to get off the line of attack and into the line of counter attack), simultaneous attack and defence, taisabaki evasion (called 9 Palace step in TaiChiChuan - principles are the same), and decisive counter action along the opponent's centre line; all washed down with plenty of spirit (no pun intended.) We are unlikely to face a street attack from a Katana - although there was a gang skirmish in central Glasgow about a year ago, where one of the headcases came out of a car to fight katana in hands, against the rival mob - I would not like to have been crossing their paths that day e.g. you come out of a shop to cross the road, when suddenly two mobs are at it with each other. I imagine that their differences were about a little bit more than some junkie/dealer not paying for a tenner bag (or whatever chemical tosh todays kiddos take now.) in my mind Aikido and the Japanese koryo arts are essentially born out of samurai battlefield arts, rather than street skirmishes. This does not mean that the principles of Aikido, Aikiken and koryo are of no value in a contemporary street skirmish unarmed or armed. In my perception, the principles of movement/mobility and body alignment, I recognise as particularly usefull and should constantly be developed and tested in training. In the Taijitsu of Aikido, the principles of Aikiken are used at closer range, and we add atemi in more (our hands are not now both holding a boken.) When uke has a tanto, tori trains to utilize the Aikiken principles at close range with a heightened sense of bladed awareness. In the original vid of this thread (which is somewhat spoiled by uke's wet cabbage attack), koyo points out tori using Ude Hishigi (as an ara waza), and later makes the point of the importance of minimal movement by tori. In this vid tori gets into an advantageous position (unfortunately to easily due to uke's wet cabbage attack), and instantly takes decisive action. Getting into the advantageous position is one difficulty, and a potential second one is tori 'locking' himself - if he gets too absorbed in the mechanics of the lock, rather than striking. A lock is usefull, but it may only be transiently usefull i.e. tori has to keep uke's mind from re-gaining focus, by continuing to move however minimally. In general I reckon that you have to think more about striking, once in the transient advantage point i.e. some combo of elbow slam/control, foot stamp to the back of the leg, kidney punch, swift knife-hand cuts to the back of the neck - bearing in mind always that uke is attacking with a flesh tearing knife and you dont want your arm looking like sliced beef. Now I've jumped the gun with my countering - before I have dealt with getting into the initial advantageous position - lethal if knives are involved. How can Aikido help us with this? To get off the line of attack, we can use the basic movements of irimi, taisabaki and kaiten movement I think - e.g. the movement when meeting yokomen inside, prior to taisabaki before executing kote-gaeshi on the outside- someone help please - the limitations of my 23 year old Aikido are badly exposed here. I hasten to add that I have recently found an Aikido dojo in Edinburgh that I well pleased with (on the first night we practised kote-gaeshi with tori armed with shinai against two ukes both with boken/tanto); and I try to get along there as much as possible, subject to my body recovery and time demands. So far I have covered the general training methods of Aikido for basic knife defense. Now I get a bit closer to the limitations (or my perceptions of) Aikido's knife defense and the inherrant difficulties of knife attacks i.e. there is a big difference between training in the relative comfort zone of the dojo (does such a thing exist with koyo?) and autopilot action in a real knife street skirmish, where adrenalin is pumping hard and instantaneous uncertainty everywhere. A sometimes raised criticism of Aikido is that the attacks are too telegraphic i.e. the nature of the techniques (not principles) mandate a measure of predictable choreography (or words to that effect - I cant describe it better.) To this day, I still slightly overextend my attacks in other MA. With weaponary and the decisive action of Aikido, safety has to be born in mind. How can we get round this? Juewaza (???spelling???), kaeshiwaza (??? spelling???) and Randori can aid us in this repect. Personally I would like to see a bit more of this in Aikido practise i.e. train to act, when there is not a predictable attack. In my perception, this kind of training requires a great deal of mutual respect and experience. These things can be approached early on however, but only inch by inch i.e. smal steps. With tantos this should be ok, with bokens, a great deal of care is required. Now I have addressed to an extent the general predictability/uncertainty factor. Taking this further, lets look at the mechanics of some knife attacks, for the time being, single knife attack only. As allready stated in this thread and others (certainly by myself and mike.budo, probably koyo/others as well), the straight forward training lunge thrust is a starting point, but it is too simplistic and not threatening enough i.e. tori can stay in a degree of comfort zone. In my mind, yokomen cut is more realistic but still too predictable. These two attacks are fine for initial training, but you have to get beyond this, inch by inch i.e. not big leaps forward. These two attacks can be made a step more interesting by introducing feints, to test tori's timing, footwork and mobility to gain the initial transient point of advantage - after starting from a clear disadvantage. Through tanto armed chudan tsuki/lunge thrust and yokomen/outer hook, with or without feinting, tori can test/ gauge ability/difficulty/danger going outside and inside.
Can an admin stich this to the prevous post of mine? I cant upload it all. Bandwidth Going outside always seems to be generally preferable to inside, but sometimes, you dont have a choice. Two hypothetical single knife attacks to bring this out a bit more : 1) Uke has knife in right hand, but low at left side of waist, blade out; and left hand guarding his centre-line, just below his face, covering his throat. Uke attacks Tori with an upwards slashing action across his own centreline (thus protecting himself.) The tip of the blade is arcing towards Tori (from Tori's lower right to upper left.) Tori cant go outisde easily. For me Tori has 1 of 2 'choices' a) go inside (there is no space for anything else) taking on board the inherrant risks of uke's left hand being used in a second strike; or b) move advantagoeusly without entering (if space exists), waiting till an ouside entry is possible (which may never come.) In this second case, Tori must stay cool i.e. not panic, and alert to danger and uke's followup attack (which is not predictable.) One small advanage to Tori, is that uke has played his major card of surprise. If uke's attacks are not controlled, he may start to emit openings e.g. exposing front leg to a low stamp/kick. All of this is extremly risky and dangerous. 2)Uke has his blade held behind his lower arm, so that it is not initially visible to tori. When uke suddenly attacks Tori with an upwards sudden outer hook slash, the blade is arcing towards Tori from the outside. Again Tori cannot easily go to the outside, and even if he is successfull, there is a blade edge facing him, which can be direction reversed back against him. The 'choices' for tori are more or less the same as for the previous case i.e. both are risky. If tori moves out of the road, but not inside, Uke can easily follow up with the attack from case 1. Not pleasant if you are tori i.e. it is a combination knife attack - not easy to train against, not impossible but difficult. These two examples are still quite mechanical in order to be analysed methodically. Now lets look at a stage more danger with double knife attacks. 3) a variation of 2). Same uke attack, but he has a second knife which is trust towards tori, if tori moves inside. What can tori do in this circumstance? Not much, but a few ideas: tori does not move deep inside and executes instantly the following strategy (as best he is able to do so) : take hold/lock of the second knife hand such that the centre ground is not occupied by knives from either side and knee/kick to uke's groin/stomach or headbut uke BEFORE uke executes the same option on tori i.e. ignoring knives, the options are even-ish. If tori has the presence of mind to unbalance the lunging body of uke, releasing one of the knive bearing arms (preferably the one with the outwards blade edge - less immediate danger than the other, remember we are now face2face inside) and INSTANTLY finger thrusts to uke's throat, this may yield advantage to tori. This is all extremly risky and very dangerous. However, if it came to the limit, I'd do something like this instantly - if youre taking me out, youre coming with me, and youll have to like your meat raw i.e. no cheap dinners. I have trained a few sessions in FMA in this kind of sitaution, but not regularly enough. FMA has far too many drills and complicated mechanical applications to easily build these into ones' autoresponse. If I did an hour of this every week along with al the other FMA stuff (single stick, double stick, long stick, panatukan boxing, disarms etc), then maybe an inch or 2 nearer. TaiChiChuan has an excellent san shou drill to deal with the above for combination punches. I believe it could be adapted for double knive combo attacks, but I havent yet persuaded anyone of the merits (the FMA and TCC folk that I train with dont know each others territory.) Such a drill only deals with meeting repeated combo attacks (armed or unarmed), not the full and decisive counter. 4) This one has uke attacking tori with a lung thrust, maybe partially feinted. Tori gets to the outside, but is not quick and incisive enough to gain a good advantage point - due to the speed and surprise of the attack, and maybe an uneven foot surface lets say. Uke has the coolness and presence of mind to reverse wheel back round and second kife attack straight into tori from behind i.e. at tori's back. This has happened in FMA training but not by explicit plan or intention. As uke I attacked tori, who then set about executing a complicated outside entry disarm - but not confidently/quickly enough. I wheeled round and 'stabbed' him with my second tanto, and carried on doing so, until he adapted his entry to control me better. This could happen in a real situation. Thats it for now, quite a long response, probably full of gaping holes, errors, and complications. I reckon knife defense is difficult and tricky. The biggest problem that I see for the MA, is believing in fool's gold i.e. false sense of capability - which will be exposed vs knifes and/or multiple opponents. All the above frightens the bejazzus out of me. The 4 examples are by no means exhaustive, just aspects that have caught my attention.
Sorry, I cant stitch the previous 2 posts together. My MAP connection just times out on me or hangs - probably because the text is too long. Can an admin stitch these 2 together please? Aplogies to anyone tyring to make sense of this in 2 parts. As yet I have not been able to get this any further into 1 edited post.
In budo the instant you "touch the sword" sense danger..you fill yourself with the intention to cut/strike the enemy.NOTHING more. I cannot tell if he has a knife nor which manner he shall use it. BUT I CAN tell that it is going to strike somewhere on the space I am holding so I cannot emphasise enough ..move off line. The ability to go from aware to 100% attack in an instant is a prerequisite for "real" encounters. Your first example I would enter to uke's right hammering his elbow into his body with my left handblade unbalancing him and negating his left hand defence very close ,a head butt or elbow. It is always better in my mind to attack the man not only the knife.Any "hand across his body" like reaching for the knife or holding it as you posted is seen INSTANTLY as a suki weakness in his defence. My attitude to knife defence is no different from that of an unarmed attack..I shall try to Surprise him with an Agressive attack and Sustain that aggression and control. I am always wary of assumptions such as (from another thread) "When you get cut your body goes into shock. The truth is in here somewhere. At the mere sight of a knife some will go into shock...some shall take out the knife weilder and only realise they have been cut afterwards. And as I say everything in between ASSERT CONTROL IN GENERAL BUT OVER THE LINES OF ATTACK IN PARTICULAR.
What I maybe should have added for ex1, this is more likely in a pub where 'uke' ( I use the terms uke and tori simply to imply their respective roles); is sitting with arms folded and suddenly strikes accross, upwards and arcing round outwards. In my mind this makes it dangerous for tori to enter outside - but if you can get in fast enough and get his elbow, advantage does shift to you. You may get into a situation where you are almost fast enough, but still too near the approaching knife tip and cutting edge, and not sufficiently footed to move in deeper to fully exploit the entry. In such circumstance, you can 'choose' to either a) turn a bit more (ura like), or b) go for the limb rather than the centreline immediately i.e. go for limb dislocation - this is the FMA panatukan way. However in this instance, I still see it as risky, becaus the blade and tip is arcing towards your face/throat area. Against a blade (or unarmed), I cant see how you (unarmed) can assert control over the attack line, until by movement, transient advantage is yours for the taking and you dictate the atack line. A variation on ex1, again sitting in the pub with folded arms. Uke suddenly strikes as before from left to right with his right knife arm, and follows up with a second thrust via his left knife arm. I have no idea how I would react in such a situation.
Assert control in general Do not get suckered by folding your arms. Over the line of attack in particular.Don't be in such a vulnerable position. Easy for me because I am that great anomally..a Glaswegian who does not drink. Bad news if he truly knows how to use a knife and has a mastery of timing and distancing You BETTER be far advanced in those principles than he is or you are in deep trouble.
Although rare, such anomolies of the Glaswegian species are known to exist. I am lot more cautious in pubs these days, and rarely drink in them. Sometimes a decent football match gets my drinking attention however, but I never get drunk now. In the street, by instinct I never walk directly between people and always pass triangularly, more or less in hanmi posture, such that no-one even blinks. If you come up against a knife fighter who understands timing and distance better than you, not much you can do. Best not to be there at all.
IMHO: One note on entry and unbalancing on contact, I found it helps (no matter what the entry, to inside or outside) to ensure that the opponent is overextended on one side (reaching) and jammed (collapsed) on the other side. I've heard some refer to this as twisting their spine. For example, when pinning the opponent's elbow to his side or his hand to his hip, ensure that the opponent's other hand has to "over reach" to get to you. Conversely, extending one side of the opponent, ensure that the opponent's other hand is "jammed." Good use of tai sabaki is a must to never give the opponent a "flat surface" where they can attack you equally from both sides. P.S. in the two knife scenario, using the same contraction/extension idea, when the opponent is "thinking" about one knife, they often "forget" about their other knife. When the second knife is about to attack, the first knife arm will be momentarily weaker, if you can sense this, you can use that timing to turn the first knife against them, a kill shot to their eyes or throat with their own weapon.
If you subtract the neck wrap and finger lock, it is called ude-kujiki or ude-hishigi. In Daito-ryu and other schools of koryu jujutsu, the technique is called shichiri-biki. Other ryuha call it hiki-tate or hittate. [RANTMODE=KOGUSOKU] "If I punch him on the nose, he'll automatically drop the knife!" Like F*&#! Sorry, but if someone talks in absolutes like that about a technique as flimsy as that, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Have the uke grab and stab with aggressive, killing intent, ala the sewing machine (repeated stabs to the abdomen in an adrenal rage) then see how things like that work out. If the guy grabs a hold and starts stabbing, there is no defence except that of a good paramedic and a bag of plasma. [/RANTMODE]
If he "touches" you , you are dead!!! Strike as he reaches for the knife,once having struck CONTINUE to attack aggressively. Strike as he reaches for you (ONLY defence against the "sewing machine"),once having struck continue to attack aggressively. Any "exchange"...you lose. Saw the sewing machine in action and they both had fallen to the ground. Attempting to avoid/control a knife that is only moving inches is impossible. brings me back to control in general and over the line of attack in particular. If he manages to grab you and deny you mobility..you are done for. In the video waving the knife in front of the face is straight out of the movies.So if it is a fantasy..go Indiana Jones on him....shoot the bugger. koyo
Bad evasion/tai sabaki will get you into ex4 territory. If you can get them over-extended - good, otherwise no apparrent advantage. Is your opponent savvy enough not to over-extend? Yes, if they have some kind of nasty background e.g. military/serious criminal type - you dont know either way. If they do over extend the double-knife scenario becomes a bit less riisky as outlined. I tried this out 3 nights ago with TaiChiChuan folk who know a lot about turning opponents and taking them off balance i.e. over-extension - however they had no idea how dangerous even small cuts from knives are - I cut them all the time and they often cut me. What did work well, was sliding down the first knife arm, palm striking his jaw (and unbalancing him) which exposed his front leg for a leg sweep to take him down. Needs a lot more work This was only 5 minutes worth. Can you entice him into over-extension? yes, but its a gamble to some extent - you dont know each others capabilities up front - he just wants to get you because he a) wants your money, b) he wants to impress his mates (or satisfy his own twisted sadistic ego) how evil he is, c) he is insane d) hes out of it on drugs/drink. Of these motives c) for me is the most serious, then a); in terms of how you deal with him. Motives may be a combination, but to want to knife you is serious intent on their part (but not so in the unfortunate vid at the begining.) Do you know any of this up front? No unless there is an element of vendetta, perceived grudge/slight against you from him in which case you know something about each other - however never be complacent. He may never over-extend, but your body movement, timing/distancing, angling, intent/decisiveness; has to better than his, or you will be sliced.
If he gets a hold of you while knife armed and your not, expect to be sewing -machined i.e. your stuffed.
What I take from this passage is more or less (adding in a little bit more): Make your movement and overall delivery (timing, distance, decisiveness) superior to his, no matter what he does. When he emits an opening that you can exploit, attack through the opening and keep attacking i.e. sewing machine him with your hands, feet, elbows, head; until his danger is nullified sufficiently. Last night and tonight at FMA, stole 5 mins at the end/wrap-up time, running though some of the previous scenarios, from FMA perspective. General outcome so far (ongoing): no matter what attacker does with knife, its very easy for him to follow up attack with very small hand movement sideways or slightly bigger movement up or down; no matter the angling of defender. Going straight back is useless, Angling of the line of attack is esential. Outside entry preferable, inside a lot more risky. Angling off the atack line backwards and parrying at the same time is possible but still risky (because he can adjust attack easily.) When you parry/control like this you have to be prepared to take some damage to your other guarding arm (boney outside with no arteries visible) in front of your centreline. If you are fast enough and your body movement effective enough - relative to him, you can switch them inside to outside - but I think this is still very risky. More or less this is the Doce Pares version of knife fights. There are some FMA folk e.g. Bakbakan, who dictate that you cant get cut at all. Ongoing.
thankyou for all of the informative answers. So from all your resposnes this is what ive got out of it. The main things to do is take full advantage of tai sabaki. In addition utilize timing and distance to my advantage. And strike him before he gets the chance to hurt me , or as i see him pulling out the weapon. (Kind of remind me of the karate kid movies : lol .. "Strike first , strike hard , no mercy sir ")
Which is exactly my point. Get an uke to grab and start stabbing sewing machine style, and see how difficult it is to defend against such an attack.
FMA deals a lot for this situation. Hundreds or thousands of hours of drills to build into muscle memory for just when someone grabs your arm, for example. Short of all this training in countering grabs, it is very difficult when someone grabs you because you tend to lock up and lose mobility. It takes no strength and only a few inches for a sharp blade to cut to the bone. I know this first hand experience, how easy it is. In regards to the sewing machine attack, I recall a story told to me by a law enforcement trainer on one of his trips to the Eastern block. The training was with specnaz folks and the story is that one of them (a prison guard) thought it was a good idea to attack the specnaz trainer like how he had seen immates attack (e.g. charge in with repeated sewing machine stabs). He did so and immediately the trainer evaded and checked the knife arm and in less than a second had delivered five strikes, dazing and knocking down the attacker. One strike was a check to elbow (to clear the knife attack), then two strikes to the tendons of the arm, and one or two strikes to the neck and head. At the end I believe a buckle of the knee to down the attacker who was dazed (k.o'ed). The interpreter said, don't attack like that. I guess because the trainer would respond extremely to the attacker. Later on the attacker (prison guard) was sitting in the cafeteria just staring at his food. When asked if he wasn't hungry, the answer was that he was hungry but he couldn't move his arm to eat. ---------------- Basic guidelines such as: 1. Don't get hit 2. Control 3. Destroy/Eliminate the threat The Control aspect is where you see a lot of variants on what can or does work. I have found that it works best for me to never grab your opponent, check them instead (another way of saying this is never lock up with your opponent). By checking, I mean to strike them in a way that pins or extends the delivery system so that it is neutralized for the moment. This is different than grabbing on to them. Grabbing is only for finishing the fight as necessary because you lose mobility. One of three basic knife counters I have found work best for me in practice is to pin the attacker's elbow to their side/ribs, elbow their arm and ribs, forearm strike their neck and jaw line. All out attack to destroy the arm/elbow/shoulder and neck/head to stun them. Then take my two hands and grab their one arm, attempt a quick hyper extension/break of the elbow, and then drop straight down into a Kuzushi and drive their fist into the pavement. I'll step on the hand or knife if I have good shoes on, but it depends on the situation what is best from there.
To me this is the essence of iriminage, which is one of the three basic knife counters I found work best for me in practice. Of course you need to protect your centerline, high and low lines, your vitals, etc. Beyond that, tai sabaki is in constantly causing your opponent to have to "reaquire" their targeting. You only need to move less than half you body width and head height to evade most attacks. These are minimal movements to cause your opponent to hesitate and miss. I've been instructed to "not over-react" to the first movement as these are usually fakes or can lead to a fake. Minimum movement, maximum mobility, and the timing is to wait until the last possible moment and act decisively.
I tend towards going from alert to 100% attack along the line of the weapon blasting on all cilendars.If he is feignting. I think some of martial arts teachers still tend to keep a "competative" mindset when teaching weapons rather than accepting that you are in real danger and all out attack instantly is the best option.
By feint, I don't mean a "non-attack" but I mean a mid way change of angle and speed of attack. e.g. strike high, but drop down and quickly attack low is a fake but is also a real serious attack. The "don't over react to the first movement", I've found has more to do with avoiding tunnel vision by not focusing only on one line of attack. It may seem like a instruction for the competition but this is not training for competition where I get my information from but from law enforcement training/trainers and those that train them. Catching the opponent before the change of angle is good, catching them after the change of angle is good, but it is near impossible to catch them during the change of angle of attack. Catching before is like an interception or a strong irimi. Catching them after requires bravery to wait until the last possible moment to move. If I am caught in between, then I've found that there is no single good defense because my whole body is a target and thus my whole body must be defended. I'm also remembering the words the instructor used, "don't over react to the first movement because then they got you!" He was speaking that when you over react, you give away all your intentions.
