BackJack,
All I can say is that every hour I’m workinf on knife defense, that’s an hour I’m not working on some thug trying to beat my head in.
Training hours are very valuable. Fill them with whatever it is you find most relevant.
Sounds like solid advice to me.
Like my invisible friend captain clamchowder used to tell me when I was stuck between watching scooby-do or the transformers.
“Prioritize…prioitize me lady…”
You’ll have to excuse the spelling as he was often drunk on mouthwash and thought he was irish to boot.
me lady?
Anything you’d like to get off your chest BlackJack?:eek:
Are we all talking the same thing?
Are we talking about the damage a knife [and knife-wielder] can do, or are we talking about defending against knives? 
If you want damage, then fine- statistics count, so does experience. Train with a darn real knife, get cut, talk to me.
If you want defense, come up with something-otherwise, we’re talking speculation. Everything in my experience says get distance between you and a weapon of any sort- its that freaking simple. If that means put something [another weapon? a wall?] between me and the oppo, fine. Case closed.
Why complicate matters?
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. 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’m Irish and drunk on mouthwash right now, so i’ve put this here to respond…Machete’s are the least of your worries, esp. if you live in the USA- no decent machetes can found.
Really, a machete is a slashing weapon and doesn’t cut that deep. You really can try it if you dare… Stabbing is the way to go.
Which brings up another point: in the stats how many are slashing, how many stabbing? then: how does your training take that into account, both as attacker and defender?
He was often drunk so I think he was in reference to lad. But he often looked at me funny so who knows and the one time on Halloween when he asked me to put on a micro-mini and pretend I was a Fire Island verison of Bruce Springstein I thought was a tad odd.
Oh well…
Zim–
Essentially, my point was that a knife can do plenty of damage accidentally, let alone when wielded maliciously. The problem is, I think, that there’ s not a hell of a lot of guys who are wizzes at knife fightings and thus, able to either deal massive amounts of damage or hit a fatal area like an artery or a vein. The tools are dangerous, and even moreso in the right hands, but at the same time, I think we’re underestimating the human body’s ability to survive and overestimating the amount of people who are truly dangerous with a knife. I’m not bashing training against the possibility of being knifed, nor am I knocking knife defences and training. I just think people tend to think that blood automatically equals death with regards to weapons.
I’m not sure if my point is really coming across. Does this make sense?
btw-- the machete thing was pure hyperbole.
I prefer to spend my training hours preparing to deal with people who have conversations like this going on in their head
Originally posted by Black Jack
[B]
He was often drunk so I think he was in reference to lad. But he often looked at me funny so who knows and the one time on Halloween when he asked me to put on a micro-mini and pretend I was a Fire Island verison of Bruce Springstein I thought was a tad odd.
Oh well… [/B]
The reason why I think discussions like this are important.
Too many people tend to underestimate knifes/eged weapons and the damage that they can inflict.
Plus, we see all those flashy disarms in movies and in those “fake” SD courses.
Maybe it too has to do that guns have now become such a major part of life.
Not having grown up in a particular rough neighbourhood, I still got introduced to a variety of “weapons” like bicycle spokes and similar.
Many of the younger board members might not be familiar with those.
I’m not sure if my point is really coming across. Does this make sense?
YES! And since you can use ‘hyperbole’ in a sentence, I’ll treat you with respect.
Seriously- it doesn’t matter, IMHO, whther or not the guy is ‘trained’- if he has a knife, he’s dangerous, period. Sometimes untrained ppl can take on a trained one and kick butt, right? same thing.
Why? unpredictablility. The ‘right hands’ only makes it moreso. When we say ‘right hands’ were really talking WILL here- keep that in mind. With a weapon, say a gun, i can point it at you but not have the will to pull the trigger. So I’m not a threat, really. With a knife, we’re talking a bit more will, but not much different…the guy doesn’t have to be a ****z, really.
What I said re: machetes was not exactly hyperbole, BTW… get one. point it at people, slash it at ppl. You’ll figure it out- I got bucketloads of faith in that. I keep two for camping. 
You know what they’re good for? Cooking, digging out rocks, threatening ppl who don’t know better…etc. 
Blood =/= death with weapons… but time may = death…
Not having grown up in a particular rough neighbourhood, I still got introduced to a variety of “weapons” like bicycle spokes and similar.
I did. Several, in fact. It goes back to will, I believe- anything, even a bike spoke, can be a weapon if the will to use it to harm is there… But that just goes back to kung fu 101… a ‘relaxed punch? WTF?’
But is there too much fear of the knife that works against the defender? Most of the photos of the after math of a knife attack are of people who were in a pure reactive and defensive mode. What about those that attack the assailant rather than defend?
As an experiment try the marker drill by going full attack mode with the goal of controlling the arm and using the knife against the assailant rather than disarming him and see who gets cut up more.
Dumb and Dumber
LMAO at every genius offering up their ‘sparring tips’!
jeezuss :mad:
Well it is a discussion forum after all. Do you have better advice to offer?
you don’t need all those fancy drills. Just practice your forms more, the answers will come.
Re: Dumb and Dumber
Originally posted by Shooter
[B]LMAO at every genius offering up their ‘sparring tips’!
jeezuss :mad: [/B]
So what would you suggest? Arrogant pr!ck.
Do you have better advice to offer?
No, Joedoe. I dunno know what I’m talkin about.
Arrogant pr!ck
that’s right
with a few exceptions (being the cma guys with indonesian or filipino ma experience) the last place I would go for advice about knifes would be a chinese martial artist.
Dumb and Dumber Shooter? Of course I a self admitted @sshole so I guess that’s OK.
Toss your 3 cents US in the mix Shooter, can’t be any worse than my pearls of wisdom.
Shooter
Fair enough. But I think it is fair for people to exchange ideas on training methods regardless of how useless you might think they are. As I pointed out, it is a discussion forum.
My 2 cents…
I’ve been doing knife work for 20 years or so, and I still don’t like facing a blade in a real situation, even if I have two blades in play and the other person is untrained and has only one. Knives are definitely bad news no matter how good you think you are.
It is a myth that a good blade man will not show you his knife before he brings it into play. That may happen, but only if he is sure he wants to kill you. He may not want to fight you in the first place if he doesn’t have to and may use the blade to persuade you not to engage. A knife is a very good intimidator and will back down some of the toughest mofo’s out there.
It is possible to disarm a knife-wielding opponent and even not get sliced in the process, but the odds are generally against at least not getting cut up somewhat.
There is some innovative unarmed knife defenses being developed right now. Some examples are Burton Richardson’s stuff, the STAB approach, and a JKD guy in Bellflower, CA, whose name I forgot.