| If attacked with a knife, don’t expect any martial art to get you out of the situation unscathed. Prepare for an injury, and learn these simple principles of survival. This article will not make the martial art student proficient at knife fighting on knife defense. Its purpose is to eliminate misconceptions and provide a basic understanding of the knife as a weapon. Simple principles from which students can develop defensive knife fighting techniques and strategy, using techniques from their art and other arts, are offered. Hopefully, this information facilitates surviving a knife attack. Various instructors have shown me many interesting “Knife Defense” techniques. They work well in a controlled practice situation with a cooperative partner using a prearranged method of attack. In a spontaneous and controlled situation, however, many of their techniques prove to be impractical or unrealistic as will be evident in the outlined drills. The basis of most knife fighting systems is four principles. I have added one more principle. Since I feel this principle is the most important, I will discuss this as principle number one, following the four principles found in most knife fighting systems. These principles are: Expect to get cut. Minimize the damage inflicted on you. Maximize the damage that you inflict. Use the environment. |
| BASIC KNIFE DEFENSE |
| By Master Earl Weiss Published in the Taekwon-Do Times 1995 |
| PRINCIPLE NUMBER ONE: Don’t Get I A Knife Fight My instructor, Dr. Greg Youstra, was fond of saying that if you want to make someone an instant black belt – solely from a fighting-survival standpoint – give him a knife. The ability of a knife to do damage is well understood in the concrete jungles. A recent home box office program called “Life in The Big House” illustrated this when a guard remarked, “There are no fist fights in the big house.” When the reporter sought further explanation, the guard said that when a prisoner wants to hurt someone, he doesn’t waste time punching or kicking, he simply gets a knife and cuts his target. Assume an attacker with a knife will kill you if needed. Consequently, your primary goal is to escape. If escape is not possible, or you must protect others from bodily harm, principles two through five can be used. As many police officers have told me their solution to an offender with a knife is simple but effective. It’s called a gun. Unfortunately, most of us won’t have the luxury of using a gun as part of principle number five. |
| NUMBER TWO: Expect to Get Cut As you will see in some of the practice exercises described later, it is very easy to cut someone with a knife. Most people of average intelligence and physical ability will have no trouble inflicting a cut on anyone, even a trained martial artist. NUMBERS THREE & FOUR: Minimize and Maximize Damage Targets are divided into two groups: Primary and secondary. Primary targets cause death or total incapacity in a short time. Secondary targets will take longer to cause death or total disability, and are very survivable through the application of basic first aid such as the use of tourniquets or pressure. Primary targets are mostly contained in the neck and torso and secondary targets are contained in the extremities such as arms and legs. For example, a cut to the forehead would not be life threatening; however, blood running into the eyes would effect sight and the ability to fight effectively. PROTECT PRIMARY TARGETS FIRST! Try the following empty-hand exercise with a partner of similar size and experience. Face each other in a realistic fighting stance and distance. Take five turns each attempting to touch your partner in the head with our fingernails (for safety, do not aim for the eyes). The partner tries to block. Usually the success rate is zero to one time. Next, do the same exercise, but try to touch your partner’s abdomen with your fingertips. The defender’s hands must start at chin level and not start down because he knows what’s coming. The success rate, or hitting the target, is three to five times. Now you might say that a touch won’t cause much damage because there is no penetration. But, put a knife with a four-inch blade in your hand and you’ll find that your penetration extended one to two inches - enough to cause tremendous damage. The lesson to be learned is the need to modify your fighting stance by pulling your hips rearward to slightly bent forward from the waist. This moves the head slightly forward, but as you saw by the previous drill, is much easier to block the head than it is to block the abdomen. You should also turn the hands so that the palms are toward the face. This turns the back of the forearms towards your opponent to protect the arteries that run close to the underside of the wrist. |
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