6 easy steps to master knife-fighting for self-defense

In my blog post "how to use knife-fighting for self defense" (http://everythingselfdefense.blogspot.com/2017/03/how-to-use-knife-fighting-in-self.html), i explain some of the fundamentals of knife fighting. In this blog post i'll explain the more technical details of knife fighting for self defense. Before you can train in knife-fighting, you need to learn some of the fundamentals for training using a knife. This guide also comes with helpful resources.

 * Have a proper knife grip - There are many ways to hold a knife each with their own advantages. For the sake of this post, you'll learn the fist grip. Start by holding a knife with an open hand. Slowly wrap your fingers around the knife like you're making a fist then tuck your thumb on your index finger. This picture should illustrate what it should look like.

* Practice efficient deployment - When carrying a concealed knife, make sure that you place it in an area where you can quickly draw it in combat. Usually you should store it anywhere in the upper body. If you don't put thought into this and just put it wherever, you won't have time to deploy it when you need it. Some knives come with handles and others are strapped. Find one that suits you.  

* Learn the angles of attack - The angles of attack using a knife are very simple. You slash/stab upwards, downwards, side to side, and diagonally as the black lines indicate. The red arrow indicates where you should thrust. Once you understand the angles of attack, you'll need to make sure that you avoid or redirect your assailant's line of attacks while delivering your own.

* Practice controlling distance - Distance is very fundamental to any form of combat. How much distance is needed for a knife to reach you? Have someone extend his or her arm and hold either a fake knife or a pen until it touches you. That's how much distance is needed for someone to do damage. While there's no set "safe" distance, you generally should only stay within a few inches to centimeters away from the attacker's knife. If your too close, you'll get hit. If your too far, you won't be able to attack when necessary.

* Practice keeping your balance - If you don't know how to keep yourself balanced in knife-fighting with proper footwork and efficiency then you'll fall over. Make sure that you're in a comfortable fighting stance. Don't over-lean to any direction or take huge steps that compromise your balance.    

1. Practice knife drills - If you want to be efficient in knife fighting, you'll only need a basic set of motor skills that can easily be applied to any striking melee weapon. Incorporate any slashing and stabbing movements from any martial art such as Kali. You should be direct and non-telegraphic in every knife attack. Slash or thrust just enough to reach the intended target and retract.

Why is this important? For several reasons. If you do a wild full swing with your arm, you waste time and energy. Your attacker can see the attack coming and thus defend against it. If you attack but don't retract your knife, your attacker can injure your arm in the process.

2. Get the proper training equipment - In order for you to get the best results out of knife fighting, you need to train under intense pressure and realism. I recommend getting a shock knife (link to product below.) They are non-lethal but still scary and realistic enough to keep you motivated enough to perform under stress. Keep in mind that they aren't available for civilians in some states so you'll have to resort to other products. The Spring Assist practice fighting folding metal knife folder is a realistic training knife. It has the look and feel of a real knife. Another one i recommend is the Bokken plus Jim Wagner training knife. This type of knife is useful as you can coat it with lipstick or chalk to mark the areas you or your sparring partner have been slashed or stabbed.

I don't recommend getting full body armor and face masks. You'll want to make knife-fighting as realistic as possible. Only use safety equipment that you'll know you'll need such as eye-protection to prevent serious injury. Use other gear and equipment such as shin guards to protect areas you intend on striking.  



3. Practice accuracy - In order for you to defend yourself effectively, you need to incapacitate your attacker as soon as possible. Targeting major arteries and organs will cause blood loss but they won't stop an attacker quickly enough. The same applies to bodily areas that induce pain as your attacker may probably have high pain tolerance.

What are your primary targets? If you sever the radial nerve, this will cause weakness and loss of coordination in the fingers. Your attacker will also have problems straightening the arm or holding the hand. If you slash the the flexor tendons in the hand, the attacker will lose movement in the fingers. Cut the ulnar nerve and the attacker will lose grip strength. Cut the trapezius muscle and it will cause the arm to go weak. Striking any of these areas aren't fatal but will almost certainly cause the attacker to drop the weapon. 

The targets i consider secondary are the triceps, the biceps, the kidneys, forehead,and the subclavian artery. 

4. Begin with a scenario of attack - Alot of schools do drills, techniques, and sparring but neglect one of the most important aspects of knife fighting - knife deployment. You'll need to construct a scenario where you need to hone your skills in situational awareness, creating distance, and deploying your knife quickly. It's not as simple as just pulling out your knife in the face of danger. Doesn't matter how good you are at knife sparring. If you haven't trained to recognize a threat, you won't be able to draw your weapon fast enough against an unexpected attack in combat.

Make a scenario with a partner where he/she'll try to surprise attack you with a lethal weapon be it through a conversation or walking past you on the street. If you don't have a partner, visualize one. If you want to learn more on how to do that, check my blog post "how to train for combat realism" (http://everythingselfdefense.blogspot.com/2016/12/train-combat-realism.html). Start by learning how to read violent and aggressive body language. Signs of an attack may include dilated pupils, open mouths, tight and raised shoulders, a tense body, heavy breathing, placement of feet, nervousness, etc. Where are your potential threat's hands placed? Usually people planning an ambush with a concealed weapon will place their hands in their pockets before they strike. Make sure that you keep a safe distance away from the potential threat and you raise your level of alertness based on hostile body language.



5. Transition to knife sparring - When knife sparring, you need to have two different sparring sessions. One is for the untrained attackers and the other is for trained attackers. For the one involving an untrained attacker, either you or your partner need to mimic his or her movements. When someone is playing the role of an attacker, have him or her engage in various reckless attacks at different speeds. Could be a sewing machine fast stabbing or slashing. Have him or her rush in towards you. Be creative and use different types of attacks.

For the trained knife fighter, now you have to be more tactical. Remember that in knife sparring for self defense, you ought to have no rules. Use whatever is necessary to survive. When faced a trained knife attacker, you'll need to create an opportunity to put him or her at a disadvantage. You can do this through improvised weapons, feints, the environment, distractions such as kicks to the legs, and "slicing the pie" or "fighting on the blind side." This involves using your footwork to get into a superior position where your closer to the body and farther away from the knife. From there, slash and stab at vital areas then quickly retreat.

6. Keep practicing - All that's left is that you consistently practice maintaining proper balance, footwork, timing, speed, redirecting and avoiding the line of your opponent's attack, the list goes on. With consistent training, you'll be a skilled knife fighter in no time!

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www.shocknife.com/




      
  

Myths on knife fighting and knife attacks

Unfortunately there are many myths about knives in combat circling around. I intend on debunking some of them in this blog post. Being ignorant about how knives work is what's going to get you killed in the streets. That's why it's important to understand knives so you can better use it or defend against it.

* "A knife attacker is going to point the knife at you " - Alot of martial artists and self defense instructors do demonstrations where an attacker is pointing a knife at you like in this video. This is unrealistic. The reality is your attacker won't reveal the knife to you until the time of attack. Even if you are dealing with an armed robber, he or she will likely hold you at knife point. Some will stab you regardless of whether or not you have valuables. Some will just walk up from behind, put you in a chokehold, and slit your throat. Others might pull out a knife in a multiple attacker scenario. You don't really know 100% how someone will attack you a knife.  

* "A knifeman will lunge forward to stab you once " - Another unrealistic scenario that people teaching knife defense do is use the knife as a long range weapon like in this example. In most knife attacks, your attacker will land a barrage of quick uncommitted stabs and slashes. Plus, he or she will keep pushing forward until you fall over or back up against a wall. In many criminal cases involving knives, there are multiple stabbings.

* "You will be able to kick the knife out of an attacker's hand" - Some people teach that you'll be able to kick or shoot the knife out of someone's hand as shown in this video. The chances of this happening is very low if your attacker is moving quickly in and out of range.

* "Your going to be able to use pain compliance to disarm a knifeman" - Some schools namely Krav Maga like to have their students redirect the knife hand and strike the groin repeatedly until the knifeman drops his or her weapon. This might work but if your attacker is determined to kill you and is high off of adrenaline, pain compliance isn't going to work. Your knife attacker will get hit but that might not be enough to get him or her to release the knife. While your striking your knife-wielding attacker, he or she might be stabbing you in the process.

* "Your going to be able to apply a fancy disarming technique" - Alot of schools like to teach knife disarming techniques. Under high pressure where a knife attacker is stabbing and slashing away full speed, the chances of you applying a fancy technique is low.

* "One stab = one kill" - Some people believe that one stab is all it takes to kill someone in self defense. Not so. It depends on where you strike, how deep, how fast, and with how much power. Deaths from knife attacks result from blood loss, shock, and loss of a vital organ's functionality (see link below). It's going to take a while for your attacker to bleed out. In the meantime, you are going to be attacked at full force especially if your attacker is high on adrenaline due to the body's natural pain killers. Against an attacker moving around quickly, it's going to be difficult to land a fatal stab.

* "A knife attacker is going to be tactical" - Many schools teaching knife fighting take two people of the same skill level and have them spar such as in this example. The chances of you coming across a trained or tactical knife fighter is rare unless you consent to a fight. If you are attacked by a knife-wielding assailant, chances are he or she will strike at moderate to high speed (stabbing, slashing, cutting, etc.) It will probably happen so fast that you won't have time to draw your own weapon and will have to resort to alternative means of self defense.

If want to learn more, read my post "Ineffective knife training for self defense" (http://everythingselfdefense.blogspot.com/2017/04/ineffective-knife-training-for-self.html). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabbing

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Ineffective knife training for self defense

You've probably seen Filipino martial arts such as Kali engage in drills as shown above or similar knife fighting techniques for self defense. While it looks practical for self defense, i'm going to give you a few reasons why it's not. This post isn't to downgrade Kali or any other martial art that practices knife fighting. It works in the martial arts world. It might even work at least once in a real situation but you shouldn't rely on them for self defense. We need to be honest and not allow our preconceived notions of "art" get in the way of effective self defense. Here's my list of reasons why knife training in martial arts don't work in self defense with some helpful resources.

* Impractical training drills - Alot of masters like to teach traditional Kali "flow" training drills where two people stand in front of each other with knives and coordinate their movements. This type of training is ineffective for self defense for several reasons 1) It's static. In a real life violent encounter, your attacker is going keep moving forward with repeated strikes. 2) There's no intent to attack. In a real life attack, your knife attacker is going to throw alot of strikes to a point where you won't be able to deflect them all as taught in flow drills.

* There's no knife dueling in self defense - Alot of knife fighting in Filipino martial arts is geared towards knife dueling. Realistically, someone who intends on attacking you isn't going to wave a knife around and challenge you. He or she is going to surprise you by having the knife concealed then draw it and attack when you least expect it. By the time you realize the danger, it's too late. There's a difference between knife duels where you know it's going to be a fight and a knife attack where you probably won't expect it.

* Unrealistic knife attacks - In some martial arts self defense demonstrations, you might see someone put everything in one stab as you are taught a technique. In real knife attacks, your knife attacker is probably going to repeatedly stab you in a "sewing machine" fashion at various speeds. He or she might grapple to hold you in a firm position as he or she stabs or slashes away. Compare the knife attacks you see in Filipino martial arts to the knife attacks that have actually happened in the street.

         
* No situational awareness or distance control being taught - Very often, you will find a knife attacker conceal a knife before deploying it at the moment of attack. Situational awareness and reading body language are what's so crucial in saving your life in a knife attack. Someone in a crowd or store can walk close to you before quickly drawing a knife and slitting your throat before you'll have time to react. You surely won't have time to draw your own knife if you don't know how to create distance. If you don't know how to read a potential attacker's body language in order to recognize the threat, you will get seriously hurt or killed. Situational awareness and reading body language are two essential skills that you won't learn in a martial arts setting.

* Ineffective sparring sessions - Some schools like to teach point systems and rules (ex. no striking the face) or only making light contact with your knife. The result is when a real violent situation, your slashes are not going to be powerful enough to cut through muscles and tendons. They are only going to cut your attacker. Point systems are useless if they don't teach you how to end the threat efficiently. There's no rules out in the streets so following rules in training will only limit you when an attack happens in the real world.

There you have it. Knife fighting is alot more chaotic and intense than martial artists make it out to be. You don't have to take my word for it. Test it out in unrehearsed sparring sessions as you mimic an untrained knife attacker repeatedly stabbing you quickly as you try to apply Filipino martial arts then see the results. Knife-fighting is not a dance. It's a matter of life and death.

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How to use knife fighting in self defense

In self defense, it's very important to learn when exactly to use knives in a lethal situation and the laws surrounding them. If you pull out a knife on an unarmed attacker, it will look very bad on you in the court of law. This is because it might be ruled as "unreasonable force." Use of a knife should only be used if someone is clearly trying to kill you be it with a deadly weapon. Once you understand the legal consequences of using a knife in self defense, you are ready to begin the fundamentals of knife fighting.

* Disregard the unessentials - Throw out all the fancy knife techniques and false ideas that people teach on knife fighting. Forget about knife-fighting for sport. Forget about Kali, Escrima, and complicated movements that martial artists teach. In a life or death situation, you won't be able to perform all of these complex motor skills under high levels of stress. For example some might teach you to block a downward strike as you simultaneously punch or stab. In reality, an unresistant attacker might pull away and slash your arm in the process then slit your throat. When you simplify knife fighting and hone your reflexes, you will be better equipped with recalling what you've learned in training. Your goal should be to incapacitate your attacker as quickly as possible and then flee to safety.

* Learn the basics of using a knife - How you wield a knife, how you conceal a knife, how you grip a knife, etc. all influence how fast you are able to defend yourself in combat. If your knife is positioned in such a way that you can't draw it quickly enough, you will get shot or stabbed. If you don't know how to grip a knife properly, it will fall out of your hands which puts you at a disadvantage. Understand the weapon you wield and you will be able to use it well in combat.

* Create distance to draw your knife - In order to effectively defend yourself with a knife, you must learn to understand how to create distance. Attacks can happen at lightning speed. If you don't know how to create distance, you won't be able to draw your knife and you will get hit in the process. How do you create distance? Using footwork and the other weapons in your arsenal - legs, arms, head, etc. You will need to identify the threat and keep the line of attack away from you to give you enough time to draw your knife. Let's say someone tries to ambush you out of nowhere with a lethal weapon and tries to land deadly blows. You could create distance by landing kicks to the legs when your attacker is striking high as you move back and draw your knife quickly. You could also use an attacker as a human shield when faced with multiple attackers and draw your knife quickly that way. If you don't have distance, you don't have reaction time.

* Intercept your attacker's weapon hand first - When your engaging say a knife attacker in a knife fight, it's far easier to attack the hand controlling the knife. If you try to reach forward and strike the body, you will get hit in the process. If you intercept your attacker's knife hand and attack it, you will do damage to a point where your attacker might question whether your worth it or not. Your attacker might simply drop the knife due to the pain or be incapacitated from the strikes to the arm. When your attacker is for example stabbing at you like a sewing machine, you quickly move back or to the side as you slash his or her hand. If your attacker tries to slash your body, you slash the hand or arm. If your attacker tries to slash your body, you repeat the same process. This picture is an example and a video on the side will help you understand more. Once you strike the closest target, you can strike the vital areas.

* Attack from the blind side - The blind side is defined as the position where your attacker cannot attack effectively with all of his or her limbs. Once you've attacked your attacker's primary line of defense (the knife hand), you close the gap and attack from a position as shown in this photo. The reason being is if you choose to directly engage your attacker face to face, it's your skill against your attacker's. If your attacker is skilled or too violent, you will likely get struck. By attacking from the blindside, you can trap and strike your attacker while he or she cannot do the same.


* Understand how to trap - Trapping as shown in this picture involves grabbing your attacker's weapon hand to briefly immobilize the limb as you strike. I strongly advise you to learn how to trap your attacker's elbow as you can easily control your attacker's limb. As long as you control the arm wielding the weapon, you can quickly strike while your attacker is completely defenseless. Trapping is important because it's a safer way to end the threat than risk getting hit in the process.

* Know where to strike - You cannot simply attack anywhere the knife and expect the fight to end. You will need to realize which areas are non-lethal and which are lethal. You should not strike to kill your attacker unless you have solid proof that he or she intends to kill you or you might face time in prison. Therefore, you should strike in non-lethal areas to incapacitate your attacker. Target the muscles in the legs, arms, the armpits, the biceps, etc. Once your attacker is disabled, you can quickly flee the scene and call the police.

* Protect your body - You ought to expose as little of your body as possible. I prefer turning my body sideways with my knife hand pointing directly at my opponent, my chin tucked in, and my other arm preferably wrapped in cloth to protect my vital areas. Your knife hand should be positioned in such a way that it creates distance between you and your opponent. If your knife hand is too close to your body, you risk getting struck in other body areas such as your throat and you won't have enough time to react. If your knife hand is too far extended outwards, your arm is vulnerable to getting struck and your attacks won't be as powerful. You'll want to strike or extend your arm then retract to the original position not just for power but also to defend your arm. You'll want the knife to be positioned as shown in this picture. Don't block with your other hand as it exposes it to attack. If you do, this allows your attacker to retract and slash the arm.

* Use your other weapons - Don't get so focused on your attacker's weapon and your own knife that you forget about your other weapons. If someone tries to grab your knife hand, attack him or her with the free hand. Could be a finger jab to the eyes, a chop to the neck, a hook punch to the jaw, etc. and then strike with your blade. Use your kicks to keep the distance between you and your attacker. Use your free hand to trap, distract, attack, and defend as well. By combining your skills in hand-to-hand combat with your skills in knife fighting, you put your attacker at a severe disadvantage. Using improvised weapons and the environment also puts you at an advantage. If you manage to momentarily blind or distract your attacker with any object, that will give you a split second to strike in a vulnerable area. This picture illustrates an example. Don't overuse your other weapons such as a leg or your attacker might seize the opportunity to strike at a vital area.         

* Don't under-commit nor over-commit - If you telegraph your knife strikes in say wild slashing, you will automatically allow your opponent time to respond and your attacks will be poor. Wild slashing and over-extended arms might compromise your balance, causing you to fall over. If you under-commit meaning you don't put enough power in your strikes and use only tight knife attacks, you also won't do enough damage. All you will do is cause a few cuts but not incapacitate your attacker. To do maximum damage, you must understand how to use your body weight to drive force in your attacks while keeping your balance. You must also be quick with your strikes, removing unnecessary movement and reaching your intended targets. Generally, you should attack forwards, sideways, diagonally, up and down at different angles. Once your strikes reach the intended targets in quick motions, you retract your hand to defend your body. Anything beyond that is wasted movement and will likely give your attacker an opportunity to hit a vital area.  
 
* Control the line of attack - The real danger is the line of your opponent's attack which is the blade. Make sure that you either avoid it or redirect it away from you. For example, if your opponent tries to go for a stab - you can side step out of the way and slash the arm as shown in this picture.

Practice this with a sparring partner using a rubber knife or marker. If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my blog for updates, more advice, and exclusive content in the near future. I'm proud and excited to offer a FREE sample chapter of my E-book "Jeet Kune Do: How to build your own fighting system for self defense!" It's essentially a step-by-step guide on how to make your own self defense system suited to fit your own needs using Jeet Kune Do. If you would love to receive your FREE chapter of my e-book, click on the link below and share a post via. social media then it's yours for FREE! Be sure to also fill out the survey on the right and provide feedback on my blog. Leave questions, comments, and suggestions below.

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Why martial arts does not mean self defense

Most people (including myself at one point) have a mistaken assumption that to learn self defense, you must practice martial arts. Self defense and martial arts are almost two completely different fields. Here's a list of things that make self defense different from martial arts.

* Self defense is about survival, martial arts is about the art - Not every martial art was created for the purpose of self defense. Tai Chi for example was originally designed for health benefits. Self defense is about survival whereas martial arts is about the preservation of the art whether it's applicable in self defense or not.

* Martial arts has rules, self defense doesn't - Many martial arts practiced today such as Karate, Judo, Jiu Jitsu, Taekwon Do, etc. are being used for purposes other than what was originally intended. Many martial arts are sports based as they have point systems and rules such as no kicks to the groin. Self defense has no rules. That means anything goes such as biting, hitting below the waist, eye gouging, weapons, etc.

* Martial arts has form, self defense is fluid - In martial arts, instructors are concerned about you learning proper structure and technique in sparring. In self defense, you survive by any means necessary whether you perform techniques correctly or not. Many martial arts are bound by the limits of their art. If your martial art specializes in close range fighting but not in other ranges, you cannot go beyond those limits without breaking tradition. Self defense is about taking what works effectively and applying it to real combat.

* Martial arts training is unrealistic, self defense isn't - Many martial artists aren't prepared to deal with all sorts of encounters. They practice katas, drills, forms, and fancy techniques that are unrealistic in actual combat. They don't intensely train for armed robbers, weapons, bullies, rapists, killers, all the situations that our modern world faces. Martial artists use tradition or mysticism to come up with solutions for tradition's sake. For example, much of Kali knife fighting has no real world application but is practiced for the preservation of the art. In self defense, you find practical modern day solutions to real problems.

* Self defense teaches the dynamics of combat, martial arts doesn't - Self defense trains you to deal with many variables of combat such as situational awareness, avoidance of conflict, weapons, multiple attackers, stress, adrenaline, emotions, the environment, and so on. Traditional martial arts doesn't and if they do, it's not as extensive as it would be in a self defense setting.


* Martial arts has ranks, self defense doesn't - Many martial arts have a sash or belt system to identify the rank and skill level of it's practitioners. They also instill awards to those members who are most improved. While this is good for improving self confidence and esteem, it doesn't mean anything in the streets. Self defense is about reaching your uttermost potential with no regard for rank so you can survive.

Can you use martial arts for self defense? Yes but you must ensure that you are training for self defense and may have to modify the martial arts you practice for the streets. If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my blog for updates, more advice, and exclusive content in the near future. I'm proud and excited to offer a FREE sample chapter of my E-book "Jeet Kune Do: How to build your own fighting system for self defense!" It's essentially a step-by-step guide on how to make your own self defense system suited to fit your own needs using Jeet Kune Do. If you would love to receive your FREE chapter of my e-book, click on the link below and share a post via. social media then it's yours for FREE! Be sure to also fill out the survey on the right and provide feedback on my blog. Leave questions, comments, and suggestions below.

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