Edged Weapons

You will meet few security professionals and real world operators, who wouldn’t rather face an armed assailant with a gun than one equipped with a knife or blade. A gun is a unidirectional weapon that although packing more potential killing power than a knife is only functional /operational when pointed in one direction; if you can move yourself and/or the weapon offline the threat is dealt with. A knife, on the other hand, can be worked in many different directions and planes making it hard to escape and move away from. Also a gun is a blunt and regular object that can be grabbed, whereas a knife is sharp, edged and irregular and largely impossible to get hold off (there are ways and methods to grab a knife safely however it is not in the scope of this book to discuss or demonstrate them). Add to this that a knife never runs out of ammunition or jams, or requires any specialist training and you begin to understand that a person armed with a knife, and who has serious and harmful intent towards you, is a very, very dangerous proposition. This is not someone who needs to pull a trigger, from distance, but someone who is prepared to get up close and personal with you. Mentally, psychologically and emotionally they are prepared to feel, see, smell and experience the effects of their work and not simply observe things from a distance – something the luxury of a firearm would afford them.

Forget any martial arts demonstrations you may have seen, which involves a choreographed routine where an “assailant” makes large and committed movements, which see the attacking arm/knife hand being left out in mid-air for the instructor to grab. In reality attackers tend to make small, fast, erratic and frenzied movements, which always involve recoil. Anybody can create a reality that will make their system look effective however the true test of a system is when its reality is taken from and reflects the real world. If you spend a lot of time practicing defenses against straight stabs and thrusts you are not making the best use of your time, in reality most people tend to “shank” the knife forward and upward in an arc when making their attacks, or slashing in tight movements (which always see them recoiling the knife). Committed straights stabs/thrusts and the like are taught to and mainly used by military personnel. Although we may like to think that military systems represent the most effective and cutting edge self-defense systems around, they may not always share a reality with that of the street and the real world violence that is committed against and by civilians.

Give me the space, and even terrain of 2000 sq ft of mat space in a studio or dojo and I can create the room in which to do almost any technique I choose. Scale down this space to that of a pub/club bathroom, dim the lights and make sure the floors are coated with various liquids and fluids and the environment within which I have to work becomes increasingly limited. Alter the attack to come from the rear and when I’m least expecting it and what I’m able to make work for me is severely limited. I may have the advantage of objects I can use for my own defense, such as fire extinguishers (use them as impact weapons, don’t try and spray your aggressor with dry powder etc), waste bins and similar but the restriction of space and an unstable surface on which to stand are severe handicaps.

Whilst it is important to initially learn and develop your techniques in a controlled environment e.g. even flooring and with space to move etc, you should also practice what you have learnt in confined spaces where both time and space are limited. Also you should quickly introduce the idea/concept of 2nd and 3rd phase attacks. 

One of the core concepts of Krav Maga is, “Hand Defense, Body Defense” i.e. it is not good enough to just block an attack you need to move the target (your body) as well. There are several reasons for this. Firstly your block may not be 100 % effective, your hands may not be fast enough to get to the strike/stab/slash or the attack is too strong for you to stop. By coupling your hand defense with a body movement that moves you out of the way/offline you may be able to make an effective defense. In Krav Maga we refer to an evasive body movement that utilizes a hand defense as a 200% defense i.e. if your body movement avoids the attack it is 100% effective, if your hand/blocking defense is 100% effective then when you add both together you get a 200% defense. Looking at this from another perspective or angle you can also afford to have a margin of error in both your defenses and still have a defense that is 100% effective.

                In a knife fight you are likely to get cut. How you get cut, where you get cut will largely dictate the outcome of the fight. A stab to the center of your mass that penetrates 2 inches is far more significant than one that grazes or cuts your peripheries to a lesser depth. Simple body movements that assist your blocks can be the deciding factor as to whether a stab or slash is fatal. I am not advocating that you should operate under the assumption that you will be cut, rather I am emphasizing the important and essential part that body movements play when dealing with edged weapons; you should block everything and move away from everything.

Disarming Versus Evasion

                The street is not the same controlled environment of the Studio or Dojo. This is often forgotten where knife disarming is concerned. In truth there is only one time when you should disarm a person of a knife: when you are going to use it against them and/or one of the third parties that is with them. In a high stress situation where your life is at risk – and every time a bladed weapon is concerned you should assume this is the case – you will do whatever is necessary to survive it: if you take a knife off someone, in your emotional/survival state, you will use it against them. In a calm and non-emotional state you may believe that you would never do this i.e. use a person’s weapon against them. Do not be fooled into thinking you can deal with life threatening violence with a Zen Mindset, that sees you disarm an assailant and then disengage; this is not the human condition – once in the moment where you’re  equipped with the means to finish them, you will. If you train to disarm and take the knife in every instance, you should also understand that you should be prepared to deal with the moral and legal consequences of using it.

                The issue is, that once you have disarmed somebody you have in no way taken away their potential to cause you harm; you have their knife but you have done nothing to stop them hurting you either as an unarmed assailant or with another weapon they may have about them. All you have done is to equip yourself with a weapon that can potentially cause them harm – and one that in all likelihood you will use. The simplest strategy is to do what you need to do to exit the situation. If this isn’t an option you need to put your attacker out of commission, either by disarming and then using their own weapon against them, or by using their own weapon against them whilst they are still holding/attached to it, or by controlling them and/or their movement and finish them by launching destructive strikes, limb incapacitations/breaks and the like.

                In the majority of cases your first choice should be to exit the situation if you have the opportunity – there are few occasions where this wouldn’t be the case, such as when there are third parties within the environment that you feel the need/desire to protect. Assuming that this isn’t the case your primary objective is to get as far away from your assailant as possible and/or put some obstacle between you and your aggressor. Parked cars make excellent barriers between yourself and an attacker, as long as they are alone; as long as you keep moving and don’t give up your assailant will soon move from their adrenalized state to a less emotional one and if you have the ability to call the police on a mobile phone whilst you have the car between you, they will soon realize that time is against them. Reality requires you to survive a situation not demonstrate your ability to perform technique. A fight is about controlling the environment you are in, not what you are able to do or demonstrate against another person.