Originally posted by Laughing Cow
[B]Adding to that.
According to a research I once saw, the most common knifes used in killings were the standard cooking kitchen knife & cleaver.
Cheers. [/B]
very true, a good reason to keep your kitchen knives in a not so obvious place (I should practice what I preach ). I wonder what the percentages are in people killed by their own kitchen knives by a home invader.
How much more dangerous than “frequently fatal” do you need?
With the rubber practice knives, I was told to put lipstick on the blade.
I love this! “Oh, hon! I found lipstick on my husbands shirt, and it wasn’t my color. I think he’s been practicing his knife fighting again.” (collapses into heartbroken sobs.)
Originally posted by Laughing Cow
While not a bad training method, it has one major drawback.
A Knife consist of a point and an edge along the blade, the marker only has the point.
Originally posted by apoweyn
[B]
I’m not sure I’d consider that a major drawback. It’ll still make the point. (Pun unintentional, but tolerated) Spar with the pen, see how badly you get ‘marked up’, and then figure on it being about twice as bad with a full blade. Simple.
Stuart B. [/B]
As with any training tool, it has its limitatons. However, probably 9 times out of 10 even a marker pen will get you marked unless you are highly skilled in disarming.
Don’t forget one of the most common stabbing weapons causing death is the plain old screwdriver.
Hi all,
You’ve got nothing to worry about. If someone with knife-fighting experience decides to attack you with an edged weapon, you probably won’t know he has it until it’s in you.
and if he’s trying to intimidate you (in a mugging) then throw your wallet in his face and kick him in the leg, and figure something out from there.
I understand the use of a marker as a training tool, but it’s too easy to start dueling instead of knife-fighting.
There are some FMA types discussing the “reality of a blade” on defend.net…
Knives are very bad 
Specially the trained people.
:eek:
If someone with knife-fighting experience decides to attack you with an edged weapon, you probably won’t know he has it until it’s in you.
So true. If someone shows you their knife, kill them with it.
A real knife fighter will kill you before there is a fight, or pop the knife once your engaged and not thinking (or seeing) - whats in his hand.
:eek:
Very bad mojo.
Lets go beyond the attack and not forget about the dangerous elements of going into wound shock if you happen to survive the assualt.
Besides wound shock which may result in a circulatory faliure which could lead to death their is a hemorrhagic shock which is caused by a massive internal hemmorrhage with miminal injury. When a key blood vessel that does not seal itself but continues to leak blood under the skin or into the body cavity without any immediate symptons the result could be coma or death within twenty-four hours if this sort of shock is induced.
Their is also septic shock which can be caused by infections from a tainted blade or as a complication to the injury even weeks after the attack.
On the topic of thrust vrs slash don’t discount the slash as a fight stopper. A loss of consciousness or death can take place if an artery is cut and proper medical attention is not recieved in time. People can often take a extreme amount of punishment but loss of blood and the severe stress of getting slashed can effect anybody’s abilities.
Arteries like the Brachial, Radial, the Carotid, Femoral, nasty stuff.
I was half joking about how dangerous a knife is and was inspired by this months Black Belt magazine. And considering that I’m finally getting back into knife work I figured I’d stir something up.
Spar with the pen, see how badly you get ‘marked up’, and then figure on it being about twice as bad with a full blade.
A problem that was shown to me about the marker/chalk/lipstick demo, is that the people are usually sparring not engaged in commited h2h, more so when both have “blades” and are having knife “fight”. I’ve noticed that the number of “fatal” cuts during the demo drops if the defender attacks the attacker in a commited way rather than play patty cake in knife range. Also it seemed to me the faster the defender attacked the more success they had. But if you screwed up you “died” quicker.
The other thing I was shown is that the defender tends to concentrate on the knife and knife arm only as targets and forget all about the normal ones that you’d attack if the guy didn’t have a knife. Even the knife fighter tends to forget about getting kicked in the shins or in my case getting kicked in the gut with a driving front kick.
Very dangerous, of course.
Black Jack, who I don’t always agree with, brings up many excellent points, here. Don’t focus on precision strikes, 'cuz thats not the deal- septic shock from a gut stab will shut down your system quicker than anything. Get punched in the stomch- do you drop or stop? same thing x 10.
I’ve been stabbed in the hands doing stupid disarms as taught by stupid sifus, in a real situation, and I’ll just say, “your dead if it goes any further than that.” I was dam ned lucky as the guy stopped. I think he was just as shocked as I was.
You get stabbed in the hand [this was a kitchen steak knife] it feels like a combo of punch and an electric shock*. You WILL stop for a moment- just long enough for him to plunge the thing into your gut, throat or heart.
Best defense is to run- most dedicated knife fighters are PSYCHOS, after all. Next best is the classic ‘hold a light chair in front of you’- there IS a reason its a classic, it works. LAST is to fight him either bare hands or a knife, and i’ll bet you’ll come off badly…
WRT knives as extensions of the hands- thats a TRAINING metaphor. Most training does not teach knife fighting realistically, tho.
*ah yes, the pain of experience and vice versa. Stick your finger in a lamp socket while getting punched in the stomach or yarbles. That’ll do. 
I’m going against the grain here and saying they’re probably no where near as dangerous as people think. I’ve seen the stats on guns (80 % of gunshot victims survive) I have a friend who was shot 6 times in the back with a 9 mm a few years ago. He DJ’ed a party I went to last Friday.
I’d love to see some knife attack stats, but I would think the survival rate would be somewhere around 90 %
Knives are Old Skool. All the kids these days use hatchets.
An example of their seriousness for this discussion.
Forensic Pathology Pics- Please use mature attitude as this is a deceased person. Have Respect. I wounder if this is not a mistake.
Stab wound victim.
http://medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPath/FORHTML/FOR025.html
Defensive Wounds of a victim on hands and forearms who tried to ward off and block the incoming knife.
links don’t work
Yeah, the links don’t work. But the graphicness (is that a word?) of a pic does not necesarily reflect reality. I could find some nasty pics of fatal car crashes too. Those pics would be indicitive of only a minute number of car crashes though.
I tend to think that a pic does help represent the graphic nature of reality. It puts into presepctive what everybody is talking about.
We are not talking about cars being used as weapons so I don’t really see the connection? Though I agree stats are a must as for a complete picture.
You decide if they are nasty or not:
about 2 years ago, maybe less..one of my friends was up here having some drinks with his buddies at a local pub on a weekend afternoon. They left at about 4:30 and he followed them outside. For background, my friend is an boxer, and he is built well for it too,..I think he weighs 155, can bench over 300 and hits like a mule…anyways..one of his friends gets in this smack talking match with this street kid for whatever reason, and then they start to scuffle…my friend goes to break it up and the street kid swings at him…He decides to just drop him and lays one into his jaw, but the guy gets back up and has this wild look in his eye..they sort of clinched up as they scuffled for a sec, and then my friend just steps back, a dazed look on his face and he is all calm, which is weird..the kid takes off running and then my friend looks down, and his guts are hangin out…he got slit from above one side of his pelvis to the other, literally like 10 to 12 inches or so…the knife used…smaller than a small swiss army knife..maybe 2 inches…because he was in good shape..the knife cut his muscles like a tight rope, and severed an artery too..he is better now..but it took like 9 months for him to not be in constant pain…They did catch the kid..2 days later..he was bragging about it to an undercover cop no less. I think knives are scary…period.
It’s a part of the whole gross paranoia syndrome in martial arts that cause people to overeact and create their own fantasies.
Here’s a better examples. I have read on this board and others that the goal of Shuai Chiao is to throw people on their heads and kill or cripple them. The whole I’m-so-deadly syndrome. The goal of SC is to “take the fight out of the other guy” Most throws just hurt, plain and simple. A lot of times, someone will get up and still want to fight, even on concrete.
Does the possibility of injury/death exist from a throw? Well yeah, but it’s a very small part of what’s going on.
Same deal with knives.
What is the probability that you will ever be attacked by a knife?
What is the probability that ou will die from a knife wound?
I think everyone knows that a knife can kill. Why create paranoia about it?
WD-- I agree that survival rates for knife attacks and guns are probably higher than we think. The human body is remarkably resiliant, so excepting massive amounts of trama (multiple wounds/injuries) or one good shot to very sensitive areas (e.g. the femoral artery) your chances of survival are better than not. Furthermore, there’s much less of a chance of dying of infected wounds or blood poisoning in this day and age, so there goes another main danger of a knife attack.
However, the damage knives can inflict is just about as impressive and potentially lethal as I can think in a weapon. So for me, it’s not as much paranoia about knives and knifefighters but forcing myself to constantly remember how dangerous these things can be. I mean, I have a high tolerance for phyiscal pain and a bad habit of being absent minded, so I have to continually remind myself what these things can do and have done to my poor hands before, accidentally. :o But as for being attacked by a machete-weilding assailant who has studied Gray’s Anatomy extensively… well, let’s just say it’s not high on my list of dangerous things that I might run into.
I understand your point but I still don’t see the paranoia.
Is it better to be a little more self-aware on what knives can and can not do than just go…“yeah they can kill but so what.”
Don’t you think it deserves a little more self-study than that. Even more so when martial artists are talking about knive defenses, techniques, how they can do this and that if someone dares attack them with a edged weapon, as if knives are not a big deal because it is such a far off possibility “percentage” wise.
Here is an article by Darren Laur on knife assualts
I know this is way late to really jump in, but it seems like ZIM has hit the nail on the head. Run, pick up a chair, or go for it.
Knives, like any weapon or tool for that matter, are only as dangerous as the wielder.
Personally, I’m probably not going to face off against someone wielding a professional’s knife (balisong, K-bar, etc.) correctly, but I might just engage some jackoff with a pocket knife or a leatherman.
But I wonder, with 9-11 in mind, how dangerous can a box cutter really be?