To the knife people???

columok

This is a question to people who train with knives as in Dave Joyce, Musashi and any RBSD.

I was buttering my toast earlier (screw you paleo:D ) and I was thinking about delivery systems for weapons training.

Does any body use a boxing infrastructure for delivering knife stabs. As in using a jab/cross to deliver a quick stab? Or use same for comboing? Especially when you guys all train striking a la MT, TKD, Kickboxing etc. Just a thought.

Colum

Michael O Leary

Hi Colum,

Nice to talk to you again.

I have just moved from single stick to double stick in Escrima and it will be a while yet before I move onto knife so I cannot comment with great certainty. However the basic stance and movements that I have been working on in Escrima is similar to Boxing.

Having said that I have heard that Krishna Godhania teaches knife and focus mitt. He states that when the American came to the Phillipines, "they noticed a high on-guard position, usually quick punching and lots of footwork and that this was the result of training with knives".

For example, let's take the jab. Hold a focus pad - in your right hand, and knife in your left hand. If the puncher drops the arm upon retraction, hold the knife at chest level. This will give him feedback. If the punching arm is slow to retract - after hitting the pad, cut it with the knife. If the puncher has a tendency to lean "over" the central-axis when punching with the right cross, put the knife in front of the sternum - this will make him rotate his torso "around" the central-axis. If you want to increase speed of footwork, get the puncher to move into range with the jab and stab the lead leg, so that he moves rapidly out of range - after jabbing.

The above paragraph is taken from www.krishnagodhania.org/articles/boxing.html

I hope you find this useful or at least it points you in the right direction.

Regards,

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie

Musashi

I dunno about the others but I like to train reverse grip edge in "Pikal" or "Pakal" style. So your usually strong side lead and pumping hammerfist type strikes unless blocked by arms, which is when you "Shear to clear" and resume pumping like a Singer sewing machine. This is an awful way to get attacked, very hard to block or prevent being cut, and a godawful vicious way to assault anybody.
If it was done for real the person on the receiving end would be torn apart and bleeding from major arteries, a horrible thing to envision. Some hooking and shearing cuts are used in this style to stuff like hamstrings or renal arteries, not all upper body attacks. Like I said I'd hope to never see it for real.

If you want to see some stuff which would be similar except point down edge out Kerambit work have a look at Ernest Emerson showing applied Kerambit.

fianna.5u.com

When I did S.T.A.B., Drummo and me were the only people grabbing each other and stabbing the face and neck. Everyone else was doing the usual stand, step and stab to the body.

Karl's warm up consited of one person hiding the blade then revealing it to stab, as it was revealed the partner sprinted to the other side of the room. Then repeated.

We had no difficulty defending or running away from any style of attack except one where your being held. Which we did in spades.

As musashi above said, he uses the reverse grip, all knife fighters I know say that unless the knife is held in such a way they are pretty content that they are safe. Weird but their you go.

Peace

silat liam

The Silat Knife

It is said that knife attacks out numbered in sheer numbers all other weapon attacks combined. Virtually every single Martial Art that is street combat orientated has some knife defence techniques. The sad truth however is most of them are worthless. The defences are usually made up of a few varieties.

1. Hit the arm out of the way and than attack the opponent or
2. Redirect the arm and than catch it in some fancy lock to strip the knife.

Some arts like the Filipino styles can look very nice as they flow back and forth and the attacker’s weapon is being redirected here and there. That is as long as the opponents knows the drill and is co-operating completely. All knife defences have a chance of working against a foolish and robotic type attacker, the kind that are harly ever seen in a real situation.

Knives usually come into play in close quarters and the opponent is slashing back and forth and stabbing randomly and erratically. In the 80’s Pendekar Suryadi Jafri would pick the smallest person at his seminar, usually a girl. Then he would ask if everyone knew knife defences. Everyone would say Yes, Yes we do. Than he would get the student he picked a Magic Marker and asked than to go and write there name on the face and body of each person as fast as possible while the other person performed their knife defences. Most students weremarked from head to foot and was left standing in utter embarrassment. So what is the answer?

Keep your limbs in closed to your body to protect your vital organs and through the practices of your training learn how the first strike to your opponents limbs set him up for a second, third and forth strike to the hand holding the knife. These strikes are done in a lighting fast manner and the termed “Kilap – Lighting strikes” is given in some silat schools. This is the key!

Your limbs must be moving in and out extremely fast to intercept the cuts much as an anti ballistic missile seeks its target. No attack is ever, ever done to any other portion of the attacker’s anatomy unless his knife is gone from his grasp. Once contact is made the arm is stuck to with the principle of adhesion, until the knife is gone. This means if at the first strike he starts to recoil the hand rather than stepping back, you move forward keeping the blows raining down on his limbs with viscous rapidity. One way this type of hitting is developed is by playing the drums, like a Congo drum, the short fast loose type strikes to the drum, build the concept within the practioner of accurate fast short strikes which we also call “Poison Hand Hitting” It is call this because to the uninitiated it can appear as though the defender must have poison on the hands in order to take out the adversary so quickly with almost nothing seen.

Now what if you are fighting with the knife also? The role of the empty hand is now replaces with the same quick fast snap cuts and slashes of the knife. A snap cut is a technique in which the edge of the blade is snapped with an action of the wrist quickly forward so the edge is driven to the bone at once severing tendons and ligaments on the way. . Both forward and reverse grips are utilizes. A person who is confident and assumes the Cimande Silat on guard knife position is less likely to even be attack than most other ready positions.

Nothing is guaranteed to work every time but this is the best insurance policy I know of when faced with a knife Wielding assailant.

Hope this helps with your understanding of knife training


Liam
www.silateurope.com

columok

Thanks for the replies all.:)

Some very interesting thoughts/comments etc.

Roper

Some interesting stuff here.

I have a question, would anyone here consider carrying a knife or edged weapon on a regular basis? Disregarding legal implications for a moment of course.

Dragan

Roper wrote:

Some interesting stuff here.

I have a question, would anyone here consider carrying a knife or edged weapon on a regular basis? Disregarding legal implications for a moment of course.

Nope, whats the point? You only carry a knife if you have the intention of using it, which i would not. Also, if you add up how many times in your life you walk down the road, and how many times you might just need that knife, the percentage would be too small to warrant the risk of turning self defence into man slaughter.

silat liam

Totally agree with Dragon on this. The only reason you would carry a knife, would be that you intend at some point to use a knife. I know you said forget the legal point of view, but this is very important the minute you start carry a blade, you have no protection from the law and have a very much increase chance of starting a row which a blade enter the argument very quickly. You dont need a knife to defend against a knife. At a seminar I taught in the UK to secruity people I showed them how to use a pencil or pen to disarm a blade attacker. Its a totally legal item. Its not the item which is important it more to do with the delivery system you are learning and can it deal with a knife attacker. Since most serious injury to men in street violence is by a blade or by a kick to the head when you fallen or ended up trying to take someone to the ground. These are the two areas of street defence which seem to be very lacking in today martial arts. When it comes to the fairer sex, dealing with strangulation and punches to the head are the most common, but few girls want to learn how to really defend themselves from this , but instead just concentrate on Knife defence or go along to a one day workshop which doesnt really give them the skills to deal with an overpowering attacker

Degsy

À reasonable(and legal) defence against a knife is your BELT!Whip it off quickly and wrap the buckle end around your dominant hand,use the free end to flick rapidl;y out wards and use your other hand to control the movement of the "live"end of the belt.Aim for the eyes,throat,hands or the weapon itself.With practise an ordinary belt can become a fearsome weapon,it also has use in a strangling and restraining role.

Dave Joyce

Does any body use a boxing infrastructure for delivering knife stabs. As in using a jab/cross to deliver a quick stab? Or use same for comboing? Especially when you guys all train striking a la MT, TKD, Kickboxing etc. Just a thought

Hi Colum, its a good question and in FMA there is a direct corrolation between boxing and blade work namely Panantukan. There are a number of DVD's on the market, but although Sayoc Kali haven't released one yet, I would highly recommend Guro Harley Elmore's DVD on Panantukan. Ironically enough, this past weekend we were working that with Tuhon Tom Kier and Guro Chuck Giangreco at a seminar in Lille along with other material. Maybe Guro Harley has some downloads on his site www.warriorswaytx.com of the panantukan dvd.

Some arts like the Filipino styles can look very nice as they flow back and forth and the attacker’s weapon is being redirected here and there. That is as long as the opponents knows the drill and is co-operating completely. All knife defences have a chance of working against a foolish and robotic type attacker, the kind that are harly ever seen in a real situation.

Well Liam, I have been fortunate enough to have seen some senior Guros in Sayoc Kali tap and your above descripsion is far from what I have seen. This past weekend Tuhon Tom got Guro Chuck to tap while he attacked him randomly and continually and as anyone who has seen Tuhon Tom in action he does not lack conviction when he "demonstrates" and what I seen was extremely effective. Bear in mind Guro Chuck was confined to not retaliating during this exchange, so that would have had further effectiveness to the demonstration if he had been so allowed. I also seen during a weekends training with the Navy SEALS, Guro Harley Elmore, tap against 3 SEALS who were given a trainer and told stab or kill him (in a training context obviously, but once again if you've ever met any SEALS, they WILL test you) and without countering he neutralised two of them and the third guy eventually got in a vital strike during their exchange. Btw these were attacking one at a time in quick succession not simeltainous. However, Liam I would agree with you on one point believe it or not and that is Pikal or Sak Sak grip (forward or reverse grip that is) does not make a blind bit of difference.

Millionaire

interesting thread...

me personally,I train for unarmed defence against a knife.

just did a little on using one. its scary stuff me thinks.

even defending against knife..be prepared to be cut!

Michael O Leary

The thing is, yes, be prepared to be cut but do so in a way that limits the damage. For example, there would be a big difference in getting cut on the front or the back of the arm.

And yes, training with weapons in a self-defence context can be scary at times. I remember when I first started Escrima being attacked with a stick from different angles and even though my partner went slowly it was very difficult to defend and I just felt like freezing. However a few more months of training different angles in isolation and together I found myself defending with relative ease.

One theory is that fear comes from a lack of knowledge. Weapons training gives you the knowledge to deal with the particular situation.

Regards,

Michael O'Leary
www.wingtsun-escrima.ie