MAP essay - Defence against knives

Judderman, your not being pedantic, your being accurate. As with the discussion of pressure point striking, targeting is everything. And targeting under duress is even more difficult. I only cited the example as to suggest the deadliness of stabs with a small knife vs slashes (though rereading my post what I had in mind and what translated to discussion board are two very different things). Which leads to:

Knifes are definitely a killer. And need to be treated as such. My point in early posts though was to try and get to "what" about the knife is a killer. With a small blade your primary concern should be stab damage, not slashing damage. And if you need to engage in a self defense scenario then you need to understand:
1. What will stop you and what won't.
2. What you need to really protect against.

Perhaps I'm being an "arm chair" martial artist, but facing a choice I'd rather move aggressively against a slash in order to disable the person than wait until he starts to stab at me. And that's provided that I have no way to create distance and find an environmental weapon.

BTW Judderman & Stolenbjorn, all of your posts have been excellent. You both have great depth of knowledge and share great information (great that you mentioned Kevlar)! Thanks for participating in this forum!

- Matt

 

If you learn and practice these rules when faced with a knife attack you increase your chances of getting home:
They are,

#1 Out of the line of fire>
#2 control the weapon>
#3 disarm>

Out of the line of fire can include running if possible , but stepping backwards, sideways or what ever way neccessary is a must so that if you do nothing or miss with your grab the balde will miss.

Control the weapon means control the weapon. The only way to control the weapon is to grab the knife holding wrist with both hands. The preferred grip needs to be similar to the way one would grip a golf club so that your fingers of each hand oppose each other. The wrong grip would be like one would grab a bar bell when lifting weights so that your fingers from both hands approach from the same side. It is a common mistake to think that grabbing the attacking wrist with one hand so that you can strike the person with your free hand will work. The attacker's total chi will be focused into his knife hand and it will be almost imposible to control all of that strength with only one hand.

The other common mistake I have seen is where the so called self defece expert starts to strike the attacker before the weapon has been safely disposed of. It is crucial that once the weapon has been controlled that it is disarmed. Then and only then is it safe to strike, choke, stomp or to do any thing to the attacker to end the fight. If the attacker still has the knife and you are relying on your striking him to make him stop the attack you run too big a risk for failure. If someone is so keyed up to attack you with a knife their resolve is much too high to be overcome by a strike that is not absolutly perfect. And let's face it delivering a perfect knockout strike does not happen every time. If he still has the knife and you have let go to strike him poorly, boy are you in trouble now!

When you practice, practice defences from all angles from the right and the left. Learn how to do these things slowly and methodicly so that they are as perfect as possible and gradualy increase the speed of the attack.

Remeber:
Out of the line of fire.
Control the weapon.
Disarm.

 

Hello there...
Matt, i totally agree with you concerning "knifes = scary"... I'd run like hell if i ever came into that kind of situation.

Wolf-Heidegger's "Atlas of human anatomy 1" is quite a good resource, if you are still interested. Very good stuff for learning systemic anatomy, in my opinion.

As far as i remember , too many of the big blood vessels lie within reach of even a very small knife... typically 1-2 cm under the surface.
Most people will reflexively try to avoid being stabbed in these places (like neck, armpit and so on), though...

Oh, and just a comment on trained vs non-trained attackers... I think it doesn't really matter if someone stabs erratically at you or has some kind of system behind it... He'll hit you eventually. The one thing you really have to be concerned with is - how much does that guy with the knife know about human anatomy?
A trained medic or commando could possibly disable and kill you with about 2 to 3 stabs or slashes, while someone who doesn't know what they are doing might stab you for like 15 minutes and totally fail to do anything but create quite a mess... scary thought in both cases, though

 

Agree so far.... but:

I strongly disagree with this statement. I do agree with the concept of controlling a weapon. However, I think about that more in terms of understanding where the weapon is in relation to you. I do not (and most Kali instructors I know) advocate wrestling with you attacker while both hands are on his knife hand. The reason for this is three fold:

1. You are taking away all hand strikes while in this position.

2. You are totally ignoring the attacker while focusing on the weapon. He still has a free hand. Since he's already attacked with one knife there is no reason not to believe he doesn't have a backup weapon that he can draw with his free hand.

3. In order to disarm an attacker you need to give them a reason to let go of the weapon. You've already limited your ability to strike them because of fact 1. Now you need to wrestle with them in order to disarm.

4. Most imporantly your wrestling with a knife blade facing you. The nature of that type of secenario is that the weapon is going to pass across your body, back and forth, as a by product of wrestling. Every pass across your body offers your attacker intentional and unintentional targets. Speaking for personal experience watching live gun (with training rounds) disarms, everyone was sucessfully able to clear the gun from their body at first. Almost all of the participants were "shot" (with a chalk round) when the gun swung back across their body as a function of double hand wrestling to disarm the weapon.

In my opinion the preferred method of knife defense is:
#1 Out of the line of fire>
#2 control the weapon (though checking or grabbing)>
#3 disarm through striking>

Basically any person whose done enough weapons training will admit that disarms come as a byproduct of striking. Heck even O'Sensei effectively admitted this when he wrote that 90% of Aikido was teme (striking). It is near impossible to disarm or throw someone who isn't immediately giving you the energy to disarm or throw them. Rather, you disarm a person by going ballistically through that person. You move off the attack line, check the weapon outside of your frame and then take the person's head off (or attack the center of mass) depending on what you have open. Regardless of choice it needs to be through the person. It's the one line most attackers don't expect you to take.

That's my 2 cents at least. It's derived from Kali and reality based self defense practice.

- Matt

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

Agreed and agreed.

- Matt

 

Bingo. Too much focus on the knife could mean that you get sucker-punched with the free hand.

 

I strongly disagree with this statement. I do agree with the concept of controlling a weapon. However, I think about that more in terms of understanding where the weapon is in relation to you. I do not (and most Kali instructors I know) advocate wrestling with you attacker while both hands are on his knife hand. The reason for this is three fold:

1. You are taking away all hand strikes while in this position.

2. You are totally ignoring the attacker while focusing on the weapon. He still has a free hand. Since he's already attacked with one knife there is no reason not to believe he doesn't have a backup weapon that he can draw with his free hand.

3. In order to disarm an attacker you need to give them a reason to let go of the weapon. You've already limited your ability to strike them because of fact 1. Now you need to wrestle with them in order to disarm.


You are obviously free to disagree with what I have said about out of the line of fire , control the weapon , disarm, but your critisism is based upon only a cursurary explanation of the full technique.
You say that you want your hand free to strike. I know that if you only hold with one hand the knife attacker will be able to free both of his hands and there you are again faced with a knife attack. First of all the first rule is out of the line of fire and then control the weapon. After the weapon is controlled the thought is not to wrestle but to break the wrist and or elbow depending upon which control move is applied. Also, contolling the weapon is geared towards being on the outside of the attacker therefore limiting the risk of the free hand attacking. I would sacrifice a "sucker punch" to ensure that I avoided a stab wound. So often when practicing self defence techniques the practitioner forgets that in reallity the move is not just a hold to have your partner to tap out, but it is a reallity situation resulting in the fracturing of bones. Go ahead and hit me with your free hand with your other arm dangling at the elbow by cartalege. We may not be in such total disagreement, because you do mention the need to give him a reason to let go of the weapon. I agree completly. In fact I do not do any thing until the weapon is dropped and I have forced him to move away from the weapon.
You do have to be worried about another weapon that is true. But, if you apply techniques to the outside and follow through the way the technique is intended you will limit the risks.
Defending against a knife is a risky thing and yes getting hurt or worse is a reallity of the situation. But, not controlling the knife and not disarming is dangerously stupid.
Think about how hard you have to hit someone to make them stop attacking you. If you can stop someone with one strike before he can slash or stab at you again I know the number for Don King. I'm sure that he would like to promote a one punch knockout fighter. Seriously, when you grab the wrist you also move into an arm bar or wrist lock to put yourself into a situation to completly stop the attack. After the knife is gone you can do what ever you want in the way of striking with as many hands or feet that you feel neccessary. Or you might decide not to let go and keep breaking diferent bones in the wrist or arm.
Always get out of the line of fire. Always control the weapon. Always disarm. Then do what ever you want.

 

Hey Gojuman, Thanks for the great response. I'm going to reorder your post (and note where I did) just to make the reply flow a little better. Hope you don't mind:

AGain, I'm with you on the move, control. I don't agree that the disarm is the next thing to go for. I do think that you eventually want a disarm, but I see it as a by product primarily of striking and then as a fall back breaking. I'll try to outline why below.

I'm in total agrement that you want to be to the outside of the attacking arm. But if you've moved agressively on that line you should in theory be past the person's extended wrist. So you would need to turn approximately 90 degree towards the attacking weapon to initiate a double hand grab. My second issue with the double hand grab it that its most powerful point is when it's on the center line of your body. So in order to get the most power of that manipulation you need to bring the weapon in line with your centerline. If you're at 90 degrees to the weapon then that's less of a risk. However if you're less than 90 it means that the blade is pointing towards you. And now, should the break not work you're in a weapons wresling position with a blade facing you. Somewhere I'd like to be.

I think here's where our fundimental disagreement lies. I don't trust the ability of an "average" defender to secure a break under this type of duress. Basically you need to be able to "catch" an attack, extend/ manipulated it, and convert it into a break. There are a lot of factors that can go wrong in that situation. That's why I favor a palm/rake to the nose or eyes. Or an elbow/rake to the nose/face. It's easier to achieve and then plays on normal human reactions to faciltate a better scenario for you. Basically when the face (more accurately the eyes are attacked) the programmed human retaction is to draw hands back to protect them. Even if I don't fully disable my attacker with the strikes, he will hopefully retact his hands allowing me a route for escape. Additionally I don't expect that I'm going to knock him out with a single punch. So I would throw a lot. A LOT. Plus elbows, knees, feets, fingernails, what every it takes. The goal here is to overwhelm the attacker (give him more inputs than he can process).

Now once I've softened the person up, hell yes, I'd take an opportunity to break the elbow or wrist. Or disarm. I just don't believe that at my level, under duress and with adrenaline pumping through my system I'm capibible of executing a break off of the inital attack. And I don't think most lay people are.

Plus, I do trust my footwork to help position me (as you mention above) in an advantageous position to strike. So if the person is slashing me I'm moving into his circle and jamming the slash. If it's a thrust/stab I'm moving at about 45 degrees to the outside of the stab, again putting me into striking/elbow range.

Again, different training and personal beliefs. At the end of the day we're not too far apart. It's execution where we differ.

My mindset on this has come from training in blade based arts and working with modern self defense. So I come in pretty opinionated (and I'm happy to share those opinions).

- Matt

 

I think the problem with your critisism is my inability to articulate in writing the nature of the defensive moves used to control the weapon and to disarm. So, I will try to explain one of them.
I say one of them because for each different angle of attack there is a different ( all be it sometimes similar) defense. We are taught to practice a number one feeling for each attack and be able to perform it in our sleep. There are an infinite number of possible techniques for each defense, but we grade them on their leval of strength and supperiority. Even though there are several quality defenses for each angle of attack they all follow the rules mentioned previously. Out of the line of fire. Control the Weapon. Disarm. (I just thought that part of the problem in my relating this to you is that the disarm is really only the beginning. Once the disarm is complete the kicking scratching and biting takes place as you like to do first)
Any way. I will use the example of an attack from the front and the attacker holds the blade up in his right hand and he is trying to stab me with an upper cut . First rule. Out of the line of fire. I lean back or step slightly backwards so that if I only do that his stab will miss me. Then I control the weapon. To do this I catch his wrist with both hands ( like I would be grabbing a golf club) and while holding tightly but not stoping to "wrestle" with him, I turn 180 degrees to the right . While turning I lift or really follow his own upward momentum his arm up and over my head. If I freeze this picture for you at this point I would now have my back to him and I am holding his arm so that his elbow is in front of my shoulder and then I am in position to pull down on his wrist agianst his elbow joint ( the palm of his hand will be up towards the sky). In reality I do not freeze at this spot. Once I grab the
wrist I turn right with his momentum and after his elbow has past over my head I pull down on his wrist so that his elbow breaks over my right shoulder. I will remind him to drop the weapon if he has not allready let go and then with my left hand I can back fist to his face drive my elbow into his gut and smash his groin with a downward hammer fist. If I continue to hold his wrist I am free to spin him into other breaking angles, but I suppose at this point the fight is over.
I hope this is clear. I know what I mean, I just hope that you can now envision what I am referring to.
If you do not disarm your attacker you are apt to get into a duel of sorts with you trying to strike him while he tries to stab and slash you and that is bad in my book.

 

It appears that there are two schools of thought.

1) Intercept and trap arm with one hand and strike. Problems with have been highlighted by Gojuman. It is vital that if this option is used then the two occur simultaneously.

2) Grasp weapon arm and move for break etc. This is fair enough.

For me it is vital to control the arm at the elbow, this means you have control of all the arm and the weapon has to travel further in order to be used, especially if you are on the outside of the weapon.


Now as I like to play devil's advocate, I would like to examine your defense further if I may Gojuman...

This is fair enough, but the weapon is still directly in front of you and is more than likely heading back slightly or changing direction again. But assuming....

This is verk risky IMO. Not only are you still in the line of fire, but you relying purely on strength. If your grip is weak the attacker will retract the blade slicing your hands and/or wrists. It is exceptionally easy to remove the grip around the wrist. In addition to this you have removed the ability to defend yourself against head strikes. If an attacker can't release the arm I'm pretty sure his other hand is going to be heading your way quickly. However you quickly move to...

Following on from above, the attacker will be struggling, you can't see them and you're moving a sharp implement, partially controlled by someone else, near vital areas. This could expose you not only dangers from further attack, but chokes and othe grappling. Moving on though...

Ok. This could work against an attacker of equal height or smaller, but I'm not convinced it would against a taller attack. One that is also struggling regardless of height would be awkward. For good measure...

I agree.

Budo.

 

Well, From what my "mentor" tells me, the slashes are actually more dangerous than the sabs in modern times, as they tend to cut scenes and cause quick bloodloss even if not a vein or artery is hit. A stab is the most eficcient for a quick kill, but that takes a master that knows those 7 places on the body where you're asured a dead person within 15 seconds from making the stab. It does allso take more time to score a diecent stab hit, and is thus more difficult to achieve. No armydaggersystems of modern armies use stabs to any degree that I know of -for exactly theese reasons.

In the rennisance the slashing was higly ineficcient as the targets for knife assassins were noblemen/artists wearing gambersons. There the rondell dagger evolved, having no edges at all.

Fiore del Libere's manual from ca.1410 has 5 sections on daggerwork:
Disarming
Killing
Dislocation of arms
Tecniqes to deck the opponent
(the last one, I cannot remember, sorry )

My point is that he had several angles of approach to the consept of daggerfighting, that I think gives a good illustration to keeping your options open when fighting someone with a knife/dagger

 

I probably should, like Gojuman, qualify my approach. Judderman, you're completely right about controlling the elbow. What I was trying to suggest is you can "actively" control a point on the body by grabbing/hand trapping it. Or you can passivly control it by checking/body trapping it. My initial reaction is to move myself into a poisition typically outside and forward of the termination attack (in cases of a circular movement I would probably go inside to go outside). By forward I'm suggesting that by moving at approximately 45 degrees off the attack, my body should be "laterally" in line with the attacker's extended elbow. My intent line should be facing in on the person. If I'm in full "knife tapping mode" my body should be checking/bumping the knife arm, crowding the person and helping slow down a retraction or choke/jam an back slash. The arm closest to the weapon arm should be checking, keeping track of the elbow.

So why do I (and Filipino Martial Arts) advocate this position, rather than backing up? Becuase even if I miss and don't hit the guy I'm moving past him (and potentially keeping running). I've given myself an exit line (or at least bought time while he/she turns themselves around to launch a second attack). Additionally attackers don't expect you to move into them. They expect you to back up. Finally most people can move forward faster than they can back up. I'm dubious of most self defenses that involve backing up becuase you need to ****f your weight to re-engage and go forward (and that adds time to your response). The action of backing up also provides ample opportunity to trip over one's feet. And typically, oter than placing distance between you and the attacker, you haven't gotten off the line of the attack.

I guess it's also fair to for me to explain that my "fear" of grappling witha weapon in based on observation of "real life" testing of this:

True story: I was at a self defense workshop for gun defense. The instructor, a US Marshal, had a gun with chalk rounds in it. The class featured a chance to work against a live gun (with the rounds). Four people got to try. In every case, they all were able to initally clear the gun off of their bodies. However three of the four continued to wrestle with the gun in the attempt to disarm it (some tried locks or other patented escapes). In each of those cases the gun swung back across their body as part of the fight and they ended up shot in various body parts. Only the fourth defender was sucessful. In that case he cleared the gun and immediately attacked the gunman's head/body. (note that he was also employing Blauer Tactics, but that's another discussion).

IMHO the first three people failed becauase they tried to disarm the weapon. In a true self defense scenario your adrenaline is going to be surging, preventing fine motor skills from coming into play. What do most traditonal disarms require? Fine motor skills. So what should you fall back on? Clearing the weapon and beating the bejesus out of the person's body. That prevents the attacker from allowing the weapon to easily come back into play. Cause enough tramua, they drop the weapon. Again, my two cents.

Judderman, I agree with your breakdown of the Goju defense. I definitely think that in the right situations it works very effectively. But it also encorporates a lot of things that concern me (epecially turning your back, even partially to an attacker), which you've outlined as well. BTW Gojuman, this is no knock on your or your art. I'm a huge fan of USA Goju and working to learn one of your crane Kata's in my spare time.

Great thread everybody!

- Matt

 

Interesting, I've been taught the opposite. I think it also depends on the size of the knife. Most slashing techniques (at least in the Filipino Martial Arts) were predicated on your knife being almost the size of a machete. I've been taught tactical folder does not have the weight or the size to get significant penetration to do a lot of damage on a slash. This is expecially true in areas like Rochester, NY where we bundle up to protect ourselves in 0-10 degree (F) winters.

A great article discussing all of this (which I post a lot) is Tuhon Bill Mcgrath's Big vs. Small: does size matter when it comes to knives:
http://www.cfwenterprises.com/article.asp?s=cfw&content_id=3077

In just rescanning the article, Tuhon Mcgrath hits an important point: regardless of stab or slash... if one's adrenaline is pumping you may not know that either have happened to you until after the conflict is over. And as Goju pointed out, even the best series of hits in the world (or even a joint break) may not stop someone. So as we all have stated the best place to be in a knife fight is somewhere else. Or at least far enough away that you can hurl things at the attacker. Beyond tat I want to have the mobility to deal with the situation and then get far away and hurl things at my attackers.

- Matt

 

Wow, I think I started anything. If anyone's doing a phD in knife studies, there are some good starting points here.

It's really good to hear different viewpoints on the subject. Mind you, that's what MAP is best at

 

Matt,
Your live round story was interesting. We too practice in this manner. What I can tell you is that you will just have to take my word for it that the disarm techniques are not quite the limiting motor skill puzzles that you are making them out to be. But to stay on the knife topic. Gun should come later in another discussion.

The technique which I discribed above involving me to turn my back is being misunderstood I am afraid. The movement moves so fast that there will be no wrestling time between my grabbing of his wrist, the turn and the snapping of his elbow. A great deal of strength is not requird to break the elbow over your shoulder if you have the elbow in the right direction, and you will have the elbow in the sweet spot by really understanding the grab I am using. Also, Judderman was afraid that the weapon hand could break free from this position with the knife pulling back toward me. This is only possible if the turn was made incorrectly. And if for some reason the turn is made to the left instead of the right for this technique another technique is used. If you grab the wrist defending an uppercut attack and turn to the left you turn under his arm, but do not try to break the elbow over your shoulder because his elbow will be bent toward you making you stab your self. Instead, continue the turn so that now the blade is driven into his own side. If you really do not want to kill your attacker ( why you would'nt at this point is beyond me, because he was certainly trying to kill you, but anyway) turn further so that now his arm is twisted behind his back. If you continue to push his arm upwards you will blow out his shoulder.
Judder made a proper observation that this technique of breaking the elbow over your shoulder will not work against all attackers. If the attacker is a great deal taller than you DO NOT TRY THIS! You will definitely have to turn the other way and stab him if he is so much bigger than you. The rule is you must have an arsenal of defenses at your disposal because not every technique will be absolutely everyones best technique. You must realize for your own body and strength what is the most realistic for you. I am 6' tall and weigh 220lbs. I can do many things my female students could never ever do in a million years of trying. I can do things that the senior black belt women could never do either, but htey use the variation of the technique that will work for them. My sensei is smaller than me so I learn from him what works for his size and strength. He can do things I can not and I can do things that he can not do either.
Bottom line is. There are hundreds of techniques possible in defense of a knife attack. If you follow the rules that I profess or not your technique may or may not work. It is really a question of putting your self in the highest percentage situation where your technique will work. Getting out of the line of fire is essential because its easy to miss. And lets face it. The attacker comes at me with an upper cut and I move out of the line of fire because that is rule number one. I then try to grab his wrist, because that is rule number 2. Well guess what? I miss my grab. Then what? I am back at rule number one, because he will try maybe another attack. Now I get out of the line of fire again. and I attempt to control the weapon. Maybe I am successful this time and now I can disarm him effectively. If I did not obey rule number one the first time and I missed my technique I would have a knife hole in me. IF there is a possibility to miss a technique and there always is, I want to be in a situatin where I can try again, and that is why getting out of the line of fire is the number one rule. If I do not control the weapon I run a greater risk of getting stabbed or slashed, because he still has control of the blade and that's not good. Controlling the weapon with a properly practiced hold is the key to success. These things are not easy and need to be practiced and there are good holds and very bad holds. Learn the good ones and practice.
Disarm. If you do not disarm and you try to start to hit him he may be so high on something that hitting him with all of your might won't do a thing against him. It is much safer to work against a joint to break than to try to hit him before he can hit you with the knife. Think about how perfect your sparring sessions have to be not to get hit by your sparring partner and you will reallize that in a fight your going to take a couple of shots. If you try to fight someone who has a blade you will most likely get stabbed or worse. Make him drop the weapon first!! then fight him.

 

I'm very glad that we don't take bombastic stances in here! I really enjoy reading about such in-depth wievs on fighting knives. A supposedly true story my "mentor"(I keep calling him mentor, because he hates beeing called that ) uses to illustrate the dangers of cutting in modern knifecombat involved a friend of him beeing attaced by a street punk with a convential bad-ass dagger. The punk was quick and managed to stab him in the abdomen. Then the friend grabbed the punk's wrist, while the knife was still in him, and took a barber's knife he had in his pocked and sliced over all the scenes in his underarm. Had he done that on the inside of his overarm instead, he'd be bleeding to death in a coupple of seconds...

This story is not to tell that I'm right, and you're wrong, it's simply to advocate to not ignoring the cutting abilities of a light, shortbladed knife. Had the punk's stab been in the right spot, it would have been him walking off victorious, this time he ended up in hospital with a crippled right hand

 

Ditto aobut the open and humble discussion. This is great. We discussed the wrist thing eariler. Ap_Owen made a ton of great points about it. The one thing that I wanted to note is that the danger of laterial wrists slashes lays more in the possbile cutting of tendons rather than in bleeding the person out:

I also want to correct myself. In this, it does seem a slash with a smaller blade across an exposed and reenforced wrist, might be enough to sever tendons and seriously limit someone's fighting ability. However, that same slash against mony other parts of the body (such as the forearm) would have a lesser (if not negligable) effect).

So in this case I think we can agree that a slash to the wrist is similiar to a stab to the neck. Both are effective. But both also require opportunity and trageting.

- Matt

 

Recently at my lesson with the master sensei of the Ryu, he gave me a demonstration that made me a little nervous at first. He was talking about the types of bladed weapons (knives in particular) that you might have to encounter in an attack. He was talking about the slash against the body and the effectivness or the lsack there of. He dug through his drawer and came out with a swich blade. He then walked up to me as as was standing there in my gi and slashed the front of my chest with the blade. Lucky for me there was no damage to me or to my gi. He then took out a tactical folder that he said probably costs $15 and he then slashed the card board box beside me. He of course knew that he might hurt me with this blade, but the damage to the box was minimal and you could tell that chances were that my gi might have torn and I would have ended up with a slight cut. He then pulled out a folder that was roughly $150 worth of a knife and he slashed it at the box. This time the cut was very deap and it was very obvious that had he slashed me I would have been cut to the bone and beyond.
His point was to be aware of what the possibilities are when you are attacked. Sometimes you can afford to miss your block and sometimes you can not, but you should always be prepared for the worse kind of attack there could be. Also , understanding that in a great many cases your attacker will not have the $150 knife and may only have the cheepo switch blade. Make no mistake though . He certainly was not saying to go ahead and ask how much the blade cost before you choose a defense, but rather making the point that knowledge gives you confidence and confidence gives you the strength to face an attack that might otherwise scare you beyond the proper response.
Any way. It was an interesting end to the days lesson.

 

Some very interesting posts about the severity of knife wounds. I particularly liked the pratical application in Matt's and Goju's posts.

I thinK I will try the cutting experiment put forward by Goju's post.

Just one slight addition though. Did your Sensei use any sort of "professional", craft or kitchen knife? Here in the UK the Stanley knife is a well known craft/professional knife and it generally as sharp as many butcher's knives. These knives are easily bought from £5-10 ($3-6ish) from hardware shops. Specialist kitchen and butchers knives are also available, but cost a great deal more. In addition it is often possible to purchase small craft knives, which (at least initially) have the same properties as a scapel. Scapel and razor blades are also sold in pharmacists.

I suppose you must think of intent. Psychologically I would suggest that the larger the blade, the more intimidating it looks. This will suffice for most attackers. However, although the visual impact of the smaller craft knives is lacking, the psychological aspect of being threatened with a smaller, potentially sharper blade has just as much impact. In short perhaps we think stab when we see a large blade and slash when we see a small one?

It is for this reason that the blade is in many ways more deadly than a firearm. A knife can be used repeatedly without running out of ammo and never jams.

Another point that I wish to raise is how the blade is used. Although I have never been attacked with a blade (only threatened) I have been told that the attack tends to be a frenzied slashing/stabbing movements. This said it would make sense that, due to the natural movement, the slash would be primarily to the neck and head, whereas the stab would be to the abdomen.

Thoughts?

Budo.

 

Judderman,

I think your're right about where the slash would go. Basically, people will fire that like a "street" roundhouse. As for the stab issue is how the knife is held. If the knife is held in a "hammer" grip then there are two possibilities:

1. an upward uppercut pattern
2. a "hooking" motion to the neck/face
3. a straight "jab"

However, if the knife is held in an icepick grip then it's probably going to be an overhead attack.

As far as the dangerousness of a knife vs a gun, I totally agree. In fact, that's why police (at least here in the states) can shoot a knife wielding person at a distance. Most people don't realize that the person holding a knife can cross that gap far faster than someone can draw or fire.

That's why knives and machete's are being used in the Philipines for jungle combat. Juratumundo can write a lot more aout that.

- Matt