The two biggest problems with using a knife for personal protectiion

[mercop]

You are more likely to face a convicted felon high on meth than a "trained" knife fighter. In that case you have a few things going for you.

First, most edged weapons the goblins carry are either good at slashing or stabbing and seldom both. This coupled with what I have found to be primitive vs trained motion will have them attack violently and repeatedly in one of two basis ways.

Angle #1 which is a slash traveling high right to low left for a right handed attacker. Will look like a round house punch.

Angle #1 is a stab at any angle. It will most often be overhand but in some cases underhand.

Once they make contact it is likely that task fixation will set in and they will continue the same angles of attack. Here his something I wrote a while ago on dealing with edged weapons.

[Cesiumsponge]

My question with the knife training out there is that a lot of it starts off as a scenario with two people with knives in their hand facing one another. It comes from the assumption this is some sort of mutual combat or duel when a reasonable and prudent law-abiding citizen is never going to agree to mutual combat. Does this come from the sporting mentality of martial arts?

[mercop]

Traditional knife fighting has its roots in cultural martial arts and the military. Neither had laws or civil suits to worry about. They also allowed the used to be on the offensive. Another key element is that they all used fixed blades....big fixed blades. You can see how this is a radical departure from our reality.

We have to worry about departmental (police), criminal, and civil issues.

We are going to be on the defensive.

Because of state or local laws, company/departmental policy, and easy of carry the vast majority of people carry a folder of some sort.

The one on one training your are referring to, with both people having exposed blades and starting at a distance is what I call "knife dancing'. And boy, does it sell.

My thing is open hand, stick, edged weapons, and the pistol within seven yards. This is what I call 7 X 7. If I had to pick one thing that we concentrate on more than the other it would be open hand skills. The will allow you to deal with the vast majority of situations, provide the initial response allowing you to get deploy a weapon, and are you final option if your weapon fails.

Since I started teaching full time over the last five years I have found that people who turn up at classes are either guncentric or knifecentric. They have put a lot of time and money into one of the other and during force on force have a tendency to try to shoehorn them into every scenario, even when it just does not fit.

I would imagine that even those reading this who do not consider their knife as a weapon would not hesitate to use it as such to survive. That said can you imagine carrying a pistol around that you had never attempted to draw under stress and engage a threat? Silly right, but most people carrying knives are doing exactly that.

I have not been around this forum much, and don't want to be seen as self-promoting when I am only trying to provoke more discussion on training over tools. However I did create something called Inverted Edge Tactics as down and dirty option that is fast to learn for anyone who wants to know how to effectively cut someone off of them. It all started a few years back when buddy of mine who worked for a federal agency that only allowed them to carry a Spyderco Rescue Jr came to me asking how he could use it as a back up weapon.

I will write more about it soon for those of you who don't want to study cultural knife fighting but rather gain a skill set to use what you already carry.- George

[WillBrink]

The thing that pisses me off with all the knife fighting BS out there is that they continually to ignore the two biggest issues when it comes to using a knife for personal protection.

Thanx for that info. My limited experience made me conclude a knife was not a good choice as a defense weapon. The short course work I did made me feel I was better spending time learning empty hand defense for a knife, then viewing it as a defense tool per se.

I will say the instructor was very honest about that, and mirrored much of your comments. You were very unlikely (at least in the US) to face a well trained person, and as a rule, unless trained with a knife to a very high level, best not get into knife/knife encounters, and best to work on empty hands.

I will say, growing up in Brooklyn NY in the 70s, seen my fair share of knives with ill intent. Didn't like it one damn bit.

Going slightly OT, one observation I have noted (and I'm sure it's not an original observation) is that those with a gun when faced with a knife, become "gun centric" and it puts them at a serious disadvantage in that under 21ft distance.

The vid posted shows exactly that it seems. Other observation not in favor of the person with the gun, via that vid is, the vid makes two assumptions that figures 21 ft min distance to draw and get shots off effectively:

(1) the shooter will actually hit the target, which charging at you trying to kill you much easier said then done. My experience using things like air soft, moving targets coming at you quickly in IDPA, etc, has shown me it's not hard to miss at all from that fast closing distance

(2) That those shots that hit meat will actually stop the person who is charging at you. As you know, many perps have been shot before, and don't just fall down on being shot, and unless the shots hit something that forced them to stop the attack, will not.

The above makes me want to be about 100 yards away, but that's not possible of course.

Thoughts?

[Cesiumsponge]

People get too fixated on 21 feet. Tueller never claimed that 21 feet is a magic number. It was his average findings during that particular exercise he developed. It's really the fault of the gunrag writers and such that gave the 21 foot "rule" a life of it's own. As mentioned, that radius is going to grow or shrink depending on environmental factors. It also doesn't take into account how individuals will react to your applied stopping power. Like you said, some folks are going to keep fighting until the last drop of blood is gone and some folks will see they've been wounded and mentally shut down. It's an unknown.

Taking legalities into consideration, the only thing you can do is react on your training as each situation is different and dynamic. Ultimately the responsibility falls into your lap to articulate to law enforcement and the legal system on your course of actions, how it was legally justifiable, and back it up with training and education that make your decisions credible. Most training systems concentrate on the fighting part and not so much the legal aftermath. I've seen some batshit insane "systems" where you go on to attack downed threats with lethal moves, which would be considered murder because the lethal threat has ceased. Seems some folks are bringing old school military combatives to the civilian side haven't bothered to modify the program to properly fit in a civilian role. We can't go around snapping the necks of sentries

[mercop]

Using the 21 foot drill as a tool

[sandsunsurf]

I believe it's a bad idea to have anything in your hand when making a subject stop, even if you train to drop shit, it slows you down.

I look at the knife as a last resort tool- either close range and I'm slashing and stabbing the guy to get him off me or if somehow I've allowed a bad guy to get close enough to pull a gun and rob me. Almost the same response as with a gun: pin the attacker's hand/gun to his body and drive forward like a freight train. Shoot or stab/slash violently and aggressively.

[maximus83]

Interesting thread. I really appreciate the realistic discussion on having people work through the scenarios when (or even IF) you'd deploy a knife. I think there's a tendency for everybody to carry a folder thinking I'll use this as a last ditch defense, but then when you realize how long and clumsy the process of deploying it is, if you're truly in a "last ditch" situation, you have to wonder how realistic it is that you could even deploy it in time. We've had this similar discussion here in another recent thread.

Along with that, I don't believe that "gear" is really the answer to how you analyze or solve this tactical challenge. But a PART of the answer might be in how you set up your gear. Recently, I've started experimenting with moving away from the idea of a folding knife as a "last ditch" fighting tool, mainly because I don't think it's realistic that I'd get it deployed in time in the kind of situations where I'd need it.

What I've done instead is go to a short fixed blade, and currently I'm carrying it Mercop's own "Mercharness" which is a paracord setup with a few rubber keepers that lets you sling a sheathed/fixed blade across your shoulders and hang it under your arm. It is very, very quick to draw my small fixed blade from this position, and because there is not an additional step of "opening" the blade, the deployment problem is much improved. This doesn't help you answer the question of WHEN (and in what situations) to deploy your blade, but if you have to, at least this carry method makes it fast enough to be a viable alternative. And I'm not sure if the traditional "folder clipped to the pocket" truly is a realistic alternative.

[drsal]

I have taken a few 'knife classes' always got cut, always got hurt, extremely difficult, to say the least,if not practically impossible to defend against a surprise attack, instructor, 99% of time, got student first, BUT instructor also got 'cut'. Stay alert and keep your distance, edged weapon defense/mastery is rare.

[Hwikek]

The fact is that proficiency with edged weapons is much harder than using a firearm.