knife art The people likely to stab you with a knife never studied a 'knife art'. Guys that study kali don't tend to stab people, etc. For example, the people who stab guys in the Filipines just ambush the guy. They grab him and before he sees the blade, it is in him. Ditto in prisons with shanks. Whereas, the vast majority of 'knife experts' and kali experts (trust me, I have met them) have zero real experience. What they do in krav maga (trust me, the Israelis HAVE thought this through), is what is known in JKD as "attack by drawing" -they let the knife wielder think he has an easy shot at their gut. At he tries to stab them there, they will hand parry the stab, and simultaneously do a throat strike, eye poke, punch, etc. If you immediately 'set up' like you know knife defense, the attacker will just make his knife attack much, much more complex, to compensate for that. But most knife attacks never go there. A real knife attack is like this: guy is standing next to you, close. He asks you for the time, and as you are answering him, he grabs your shirt, jerking you forward. At the same time, he brings out his knife - which was hidden behind him - to stab you like 4-5 times. It really is a 'knife ambush', not a knife fight. 95% of 'kali fighters' and 'blade experts' can't deal with that kind of attack, because they never study it.
That sounds more like what an every day guy would do in cuba, im sure they teach you a lot more than that in knife fighting arts, its too simplified in my oppinion. For example why even restrict it to knives, lets not learn how to fight. You know how a fight used to go down in my neighborhood? Ill tell you: Guy comes next to you walking like he lost something looking around and stuff he asks you something like how to get to this or that adress(usually a place a few streets in the opposite direction to where you are going) then you tell him and he starts walking back while at the same time another guy who was relatively far when you talked to the other guy is now closer to you and then he says something random(pretends to be selling something etc) then you hear someone moving fast behind you and you've got yourself in a pretty tight spot. However, unarmed fighting systems dont base their whole fighting method on surprising and ambushing people, why would weapon fighting systems be any different? I know surprise and ambush is somewhat an important element but its not all there is to know about handling a knife. Maybe some of the FMA people could input something?
true true...but my point is, what they teach in 'kali blade fighting', or whatever is not what you will encounter on the street. My point was not that kali guys aren't good. My point is, real street encounters ('ambushes') don't take place the way kali and 'knife fighting experts' train. I try to tell 'blade experts' that a real 'knife fighter' will ambush them, and they will have no time to get their own weapon out. ---------------------------------------------- "What are you teaching them sargeant?" - "Knife fighting, sir." - "You don't teach them to 'knife fight', you teach them to kill. Then, when they meet some guy who studied 'knife fighting', they'll send his soul to hell" - Val Kilmer in "Spartan"
I agree with learning elbows/knees. It's not that hard really, I adapted the mechanics of a cross, lead hook, lead hook to the body, and upper cut to elbows and it works great (at least on my heavy bag lol). You just gotta bend your elbow and get closer. Kneeing isn't that hard either.
I hear you but that happens with every martial art, hypothetically speaking lets say I am very good at what I do, lets say I am so good at unarmed fighting than anyone who squares off against me is going to lose. However, if I get ambushed well enough I wont be able to defend myself no matter how good I am, ambushes have been excelent stratgies since the begining of time, fall in a very good one and you may aswell be dead. But the point I was making is that the technique you described is supposed to counter someone who has already drawn his weapon and your very good points dont change the fact that if he is indeed skilled with his weapon and you are unarmed you are in very deep trouble. Of course not many people in the street are good with weapons nor empty hand for that matter but thats one of those techniques that could get you killed if you come up against the wrong guy.
run If someone pulls a knife on me, I run. Period. I don't care how good my training is. My ego can recover later... The best way to beat the guy with a weapon is to jump on him AS he deploys it. As he reaches into his pants for the thing, you rush him. Or, you run... The worst place to be is 'no man's land' - at 'medio range' as they would say in the Filipine systems. ...but I think we agree on this...
I have seen very few people who think they would do otherwise if a guy pulled a knife or gun on them. I for one would run if I could. That doesn't stop me from training knife and gun defenses (I doubt anything like that will ever happen, but it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it and besides working with weapons is fun), though.
You are both right and wrong to some extent. If someone pulls a knife and I am able to run I will. However, sometimes it just happens when someone puts his knife in a friend of yours and the thought of leaving him on the floor to bleed to death is not particularly appealing at which point you have to do something. Knife and gun defences are fun to do but they are both based on somewhat erroneous principles. Most knife defences assume that either: 1. the weapons hasnt been deployed, but you have knowledge that it is going to be deployed or 2. the person using the weapon is not particularly skilled. Both principles are somewhat lacking. Gun defences on the other hand are very far from battle oriented, they assume that the person pulling the gun is at a very close range which is a range that presents the weapon holder with disadvantages and they also, for the most part, assume that the weapon holder hesitates to initiate his attack. In other words, if someone is out to kill you with determination and skill neither of the two will serve you. If someone has a weapon and is skilled in its use then you must equilize the situation by using a weapon of your choice. Fortunately, there are not many people out there who are skilled so we could get away with fighting armed people unarmed, but is definately not something we should rely on.
Did I say that weapon defenses work every single time? Nope. It's still useful to have some training in credible ones; most of the stuff out there is pure BS. I've seen too many disarms where the 'attacker' just stands there holding the knife half a foot away from the 'defender'. The defender then does some complicated wrist lock (many of which involve turning your back to the armed attacker lol) to disarm the attacker.
Good to see we are kind of in the same page, although I would seriously question 100% of all those "defenses" most of the times if you are skilled enough to realisticly pull off the technique there are over 10 other things you could do with the same effect and less risk. I have had interesting experiences with knife attacks and let me tell you the last thing I wanted to do was get in close and "check" the weapon arm etc etc. More like keep my distance until I see a pretty darn good opportunity to attack.
I'd use the slips, bobs and weaves to avoid punches and use punching combos plus dirty tactics like pushing kicking, low blows, stomping. Do whatever it takes to survive a streetfight.
Kickboxing doesn't cover (I think) the use of chains/dirt/pipes/anything you can use from your surrounding and your head (both in the sence of thinking and physically using it)...
those that do are called reality based self defense (rbsd). **brace yourself, shameless plug coming**<ehem> try kali! it tackles a lot of those things. some (kali) systems' empty hands resemble dirty boxing (mano-mano, tondo freestyle, etc.).**end of shameless plug** besides, if you don't train for it, the likelihood of being ready for it is slim. though the counter arguement is that the body could only move in a limited number of ways, and if your art (boxing included) trains youto move and counter and defend against these movements, then it is effective on t3h str33t. :bang:
That is too true although I see people do some weird sh1t these days when it comes to moves (moving) or the ability to do so... Still the possibilities are finite.
