Knifefighter, here are some of my own current thoughts, for whatever they are worth, their are many different schools of though on the matters of knife defense, so each to his own.
Topic 1: I agree that people are often very intimidated by knifes, to an extent which is often overdone, but on the aspect of lethality in a knife attack, it is a lethal weapon, every situation is different, are you facing someone who is not really commited, a guy with some actual experiance, maybe even prison experiance, a classical trained knifer, a group attack, someone who is in a zoned out rage, their are to many physical and psychological variables to list, but as Waterdragon said, their is potential, IMHO great potential for serious harm and death, not to mention that when a person is cut they can also die from hemorrhagic or psychogenic shock if not treated.
Topic 2: The medieval euorpean systems actually use this method a lot, it can been seen in many different classical manuels, it can be a viable option, but their can also be serious drawbacks like loosing your grip from sweat, blood, fatigue and pain, those older systems often had gloves on, either leather or metal, their weapons also were not sharpened as ours are now, there blades were more thrusting based than slashing based, I disagree that this would always be the best option with every type of knife, I think it is unrealistic to expect to catch the arm, hand or knife from a determined attacker, its simply moving to **** fast, if its stationary thats one thing, I turn to more of the re-direct/off center the knifing arm and attack the vital targets, but be opportunistic, if I can grab a arm I hang and still attack, pain can be a disarm, i.e broken knee.
Not to mention that by grabbing the blade, hand, arm, I am then locked into a wrestling match, if he is stronger, faster, more aggressive or more skilled then me I am in more trouble.
Topic 3: This also matters on where you grab the blade and what kind of a knife, a folder, a fixed blade, a push dagger, what basic grip are they using, foward or reverse, their are such a things as tip rips, the blades of today are so sharp it that I would not always hold this idea true, just lightly touch a spyderco to your forearm out of the box and you will bleed, grabbing one would slice your hand to the bone and IMHO make holding it very, very hard.
Topic 4: See number 2.
Topic 5: I 100% disagree, their goes that wrestling match thing again, a knife is a close quater weapon, by doing this you are bringing that weapon into its zone of use, you now have no where to run, no escape method, your awareness is for ****, you are open to multiple attackers, its good to train in these unconventail circumstances but to take a unkown attacker with a blade to the ground is bad mo-jo, this being if you can control the flow of the confrontation, not everyone is a duellist, a amush or bulldog strategy is more often what you will see, people interested in killing you are not going to step out from the shadows, cross-draw their knifes and go “on-guard”!
Topic 6: I 100% disagree again, ditch your weapon!! I like the dog brothers but come on, that is just distrubing, again we have the wrestling match strategy, this time telling someone to actually loose their weapon, would you advocate this to a women, to drop their advantage and start street grappling.
OT: Tell me one thing, why do the dog brothers in their tourneys/training, not allow two handed thrusts, this is what I have heard, I heard these were outlawed because of the fear for damage.
Topic 7: On this one, for certain reasons, I am baised to the European systems myself, but its not the style behind the knife, its the man I am worried about, their are some good non-duelling fma systems out their though, Sayoc Kali comes to mind.
Topic 8: Disagree, real knife fights are ambushes, fast, dirty and quick, its rare that both people have deployed weapons, duelling can build good attributes but if it is not averaged with scenario-based training it can can lead to bad habits, most of the western systems do no duelling, and the better combat task oriented FMA and IMA dont as well, IMHO if you want to do research on real knife fights one should research prison shankings.
Its a stupid movie but a good example is “Urban Cowboy”, when John Travolta tries to go after the guy who was flirting with his girlfriend at the bar, all you see is the guy kinda blade his stance off a little bit and taunt him, Travolta gets grabbed by his friends before he can tackle the guy, what John does not know and that we now see is that the flirting guy in the bar had with one-hand unfolded a small buck behind his back.
Its a good example of misdirection.
Topic 9: I agree, their is a big difference between hand and knife techs, not angles and basic structure but in its application.
Sorry Knifefighter, I have trouble agreeing with a lot of whats posted here, I am an expert by no means, take what I say for whats its worth, my only knife experiances are once being attacked with a butcher knife by a drunk relative and being an outside witness to knife altercation where the knifer/punk kid got his ass beat.
Just my two cents,
Peace
Incidental impacts should always be added as a part of the flow.