how to defend yourself against an attacker with a knife

teentendo

Imagine you come face to face with a mugger, or furious ex of your girlfriend, or murderer etc. and they reveal a knife: here's a few steps to defend yourself.

Doug Cartel

Forum Charter wrote:

1B. Creating an account to simply advertise your club whether it be genuine or not, will result in your thread being deleted and you treated as a spammer - Banned for either a number of weeks or permenently. Boards.ie is not a directory. It is known however that members who contribute to the forum in a constructive manner may advertise their events and their clubs if such a martial art is being sought by a poster.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055797135

Even though you don't seem to be directly promoting a club/product, your post is a bit close to that for my liking. How about you try contributing to the discussion here for a while before you post any links to your own stuff.

thegreatiam

Pull your gun. If he sticks one of your guys in the hospital, stick one of his in the morgue

Be like Nutella

teentendo wrote: »

Imagine you come face to face with a mugger, or furious ex of your girlfriend, or murderer etc. and they reveal a knife:

If escape is not an option and the blade is already out i.e. you are cornered or protecting somebody else

a good knife attacker has a high probability of hurting a poor knife defender

and similarly

a good knife defender CAN beat a bad knife attacker if he is forced into defending a knife attack but one single mistake could mean a sliced wrist artery etc so the skill/talent of the individual is the deciding factor... that and luck.

Learning awareness and how to reduce tension in a conflict situation is probably worth a lot more to you than advanced knife defense training especially when you understand that most fights happen in places where there's drink involved which can easily turn all self defense theory into wild swinging chaos and the likelihood of you executing the perfect knife defense move reflexively against a chaotic drugged or drunk attacker violently slashing or stabbing at you is incredibly small - IMO.

If the blade is not out but you genuinely fear he may have a blade then this is a good vid methinks - very simple... requires preemptive action and no hesitation.

Jamming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLyA2AF433E

You can teach the above part but I don't believe you can effectively teach the average unarmed person to defend against a violent knife attack because you can never simulate that situation in a class... it can never be truly tested... so there is almost no point in trying IMO and as I say the chances of you being attacked by a violent knife wielding druggy etc is so small - time would be better spent learning how to punch, avoid punches and take a punch which CAN be tested using progressive sparring.

Just an opinion that occurs to me every time I see another ad for knife defense seminars etc..

None of this applies to those who in the line of work come into increased risk of knife attacks such as door men, Garda or Bodyguards who by virtue of wearing expensive stab vests are clearly at an increased risk of being attacked by a knife and therefore the type of person who would clearly benefit from any sort of combative training which might give them 1% more chance of surviving or dominating an attack.

Mellor

teentendo wrote: »

Imagine you come face to face with a mugger, or furious ex of your girlfriend, or murderer etc. and they reveal a knife: here's a few steps to defend yourself.

Some smooth choreography for discharging the knife. But that's all it is. Choreography.

The defender knows what kind of strike is coming. So he has his defense mentally (and probably physically) rehearsed. This makes it total unrealistic.

The attack itself is very unrealistic also. In they vid they only attack once and then stay pretty still and complies with with takedown. That's never going to happen. If you manage to parry the initial attack, they won't stop attacking. Unless you are attacked by an olympic fencer they aren't going to lunge in like that.

Attempt to defend a attack from a fully resisting opponent and see how it goes. You opponent should be genuinely trying to stab you (rubber knife obv)

Be like Nutella wrote: »

You can teach the above part but I don't believe you can effectively teach the average unarmed person to defend against a violent knife attack because you can never simulate that situation in a class... it can never be truly tested... so there is almost no point in trying IMO

Do you mean you can't simulate the mental aspect of a knife being pulled or so you mean you can't drill with full intensity?

Dyr

Mellor wrote: »

Do you mean you can't simulate the mental aspect of a knife being pulled or so you mean you can't drill with full intensity?

It's funny someone was asking me about this only a few days ago

if you're drilling against a knife attack how would you do it with "full intensity"? A knife attack is basically a murder attempt so it justifies the highest levels of force so either someones going to be damaged or you're not drilling at full intensity

Be like Nutella

Mellor wrote: »

Do you mean you can't simulate the mental aspect of a knife being pulled or so you mean you can't drill with full intensity?

IF
you had a selection of decent moving different sized training partners
using a rubber knife
progressively drilling various angles and attacking techniques
appropriate parrying etc
you could go a long way to develop muscle memory
even possibly delete 'flinch' reflex

but again no matter how you break it down into micro steps and build up the resistance even after 6 months of 2 by 2 hour classes a week you would still make some mistakes in training with your training partner that you know and are conditioned to psychologically and so when it came to the unlikely event in your life when an attacker has removed your option of escaping and attacks you with a knife in a stabbing, jabbing or slashing attack with a blade anywhere from 2 inches to a machete sized you clearly need to be right, first time, every time or you've got any variety of life threatening wounds. I only explain the process to describe the challenge a bladed attacker represents.

There are all sorts of variables to take into account - is it dark? Is there space to work or are you confined? Are they stronger than you and willing to easily absorb any punch you might hit them with... which is the one element in self defense I find most overlooked. Most people can't throw good punches. I probably like yourself have hit sparring partners or punching bags millions of times so if I unleash any decent strike a guy goes down probably first time but most people don't hit hard so even avoiding the blade strike and delivering your own might be pointless unless you can bang! I don't see a small guy avoiding and disarming a bladed larger stronger guy who can take a punch - it just ain't gona happen most times and I stress 'most' because again to me the whole point of training to fight/defend is about using what works, what you can train and test and develop technique through muscle memory. Training to block or avoid a kick to the head wearing MT training pads can be drilled progressively with the ultimate test being 80% sparring with head gear and so the worst penalty for failure is a good kick which levels you and possibly brains you a bit but you'll shake off and take a day or two to come back fresh.

The highest level of 'sparring' in knife defense can only be full speed rubber knife attacks in street clothes in a half lit dojo big guy v small guy with head gear and groyne guards on with paint on the knife right? well although if it was some kind of grading you'd be a bit tentative there is so much space physically and mentally between that scenario and a guy who stands between you and the wall behind you in an underground car park holding a 5 inch bowie who's got 2 stone on you and will slash that knife with full intent leaving you nowhere to go forcing you to fight. Small guys don't beat big guys that's a myth unless you learn how to hit and be hit and how to grapple a bit so in that scenario I genuinely don't see drilled knife defense giving the smaller guy much more of a chance at surviving his 80's style car park murder.

I CAN however see a 17 stone 6'2'' bouncer with previous martial arts exp learning how to deal with a knife as best as possible while wearing his stab vest given enough progressive sparring but it ain't happening in a weekend of KM in fact I would say you'd want a few thousand successful 'training' attacks built into your mind and muscle memory over a fairly intensive period to have any real effect on successfully defending a real knife attack in a split second at a door in the dark with people around and one chance to get it right. IMO

Peetrik

^^^^^^

Great post.

Dyr

except for the rubber knife bit. Horrible yokes

RoboRat

If you can, run like fcuk.

If you cant, try and arm yourself or provide some kind of shield. A few somewhat decent options are

(1) using your belt, if you have a good buckle it can keep distance
(2) fist full of coins thrown at the face, it gives you a 2 second distraction
(3) using a jacket as a shield or wrapping it around your arm and using it to take the jabs of the knife (this I am not too hot on as I would do whatever possible to stay as far away from an attacker)
(4) Always look for something you can use, in built up areas there are a lot of things that can be used to at least give you a small chance.

Niall Keane

Draw your sword!:D

or a set of these:



as long as you know how to use them of course! ;-)