Defending the committed knife weapons attack - Part 2

In defending the committed knife weapons attack part 1 for Military, Law Enforcement and civilians we’ve defined the 3 basic but important keys for successfully dealing with real life threat encounters. We also discuss that after first hand experience and with training with thousands of Military, Law Enforcement and civilian both unsuccessful and successful in life threatening encounter. A knife attack or better called an ambush is far more brutal, nauseating and faster than they ever thought and the overall physical and psychological results are devastating.

Now that we’ve addressed knowing what you’re up against thus the reasoning that during training you’ll need tools that can give you accurate feedback on your skill set. This is why the marking training knife is key to the learning phase, it visually links the lethality component to direct action.

We’ll look at a few tactics that if used correctly can assist greatly in defending the edged weapons attack.These knife defense tactics are just a few of many, however with the thousand of field active Military, Law Enforcement and civilian stories these are common denominators’ to the successful survival in knife attack encounters.

1. Situational / threat awareness and analysis- What I mean by this is don’t let yourself be caught off guard, every little thing counts. What’s around you, who’s around you, how many are around you, what are they wearing, were are their eyes focusing on, what pockets are there hands touching, what facial expressions are they making while talking with you? Make no mistake this is a topic subject you should get to know well. History shows us “things started poorly tend to end poorly conversely things started well tend to finish well”.

2. Create a gap/ space – What I mean by this is creating a gap/space equals time. That time gives you a better chance of getting behind something (a barrier to entry), choosing your responses and more cleanly executing your entry angle.

3.Using WOO (weapons of opportunity) – This means any or all items within reach to slow down or stop the knife attack. One example would be if in Law Enforcement and in field interview stance tossing your clip board or writing pad to create gap/space or attack the eyes, throat or groin area. Remember this talk of a peaceful response or sport defense systems, against a red hot ambush is not only laughable but irresponsible on the instructors behalf.

4.Controlling the weapons bearing limb or shutting down the subject with the knife – This is really a course in itself however for purposes of this article, capturing the arm holding the knife and taking the target down without getting stabbed with his knife. In the statement shutting down the subject with the knife, use and do whatever it takes to stop him.Remember he is using killing force, better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

One of the great benefits in training with a proven Instructor or system is combat experience. We know that all people must react in some way to visceral reactive targets. The eye, throat and groin area targets.

In this short contextual knife training segment we covered the very important need to know what you’re up against. Not knowing would be like going on a blind date. What’s this person going to be like, what’s this person going to look like and most important what’s this person going to smell like? To many these unknowns set fear, hesitation and other disempowering factors into motion, which generally result in bad actions and for our purposes can mean death - Not good.

We looked at having some way to monitor and measure your progress via use of a marking training knife. This would be like going to school and not getting grades, we must have some memorable way to measure our progress that accurately records information so that we grow in our case we use a marking training knife.

Finding what works can be tricky, because if you don’t know what your up against and you don’t have a way to monitor your progress you can easily be faked out. Go out and do the homework, then get a marking devise. You know when you’re not marked on the vitals your grades are going up. Stay Safe.

I would highly suggest the work of my colleagues like Jim Wagner, Ernie Emerson and Marc “The animal” Mac Young these guys know the truth in knife combat at an expert level that you can put your life behind.

Author Hank Hayes is a contracted US government senior level combat educator and has instructed over 10,000 operators. He has invented tools for the US Military and Law Enforcement defense commands and has authored numerous articles. This and other articles can be found with extended versions and sequenced pictures at nolieblades.com and knifewise-edgewise.blogspot.com.
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Hank Hayes is a senior level - 35 year veteran of the combat arts. He is contracted by the US Military and Law Enforcement agencies. He invented military defense training tools, produced Law Enforcment training articles and writtem several articles for books and industry magazines. He can be found at http://www.nolieblades.com, http://knifewise-edgewise.blogspot.com and emailed at hankh@nolieblades.com.