indiucky
Grandmaster
As I get older, I may look more into stick fighting. A cane fighter is a force to be reckoned with when TRULY good at it.
[video=youtube;eyjrUAimzZg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyjrUAimzZg[/video]
As I get older, I may look more into stick fighting. A cane fighter is a force to be reckoned with when TRULY good at it.
Nearly never. In roughly 10 years in LE, I've yet to see what I would call an actual knife fight. I've seen gun vs knife, knife vs unarmed, and plenty of stabbings but an actual knife fight? I can't think of one.
Knives are great...and they suck. Nearly every cut is relying on a psychological stop. With bullets we all get "shot placement" or it's a psychological stop until they bleed out. I don't see many stabs to the CNS. If you can cut tendons in the hand or something, sure, physical stop. The one really physical stop I can think of lately was a self defense stabbing where the victim slashed the suspect's belly and the suspect's intestines started to roll out, preoccupying him a bit. Knives are pretty effective and psychological stops, though, the human brain fears it on a more intuitively level than a gun. However someone who fights anyway, you've got a problem. I've talked to guys in the ER with multiple slash wounds who didn't realize they were cut during the fight. The adrenaline counteracted the pain and had little to no affect on the fight.
Personally, I am not a fan of knives for self defense. I believe they require more training to be good with, they are less effective, and suspect that they are less pleasant for jurors if your self defense is questionable and goes to trial. IF you are TRULY good with a knife, then it's like any other self defense tool, you have options that most people don't have. Personally, I'd rather put that training time into firearms or unarmed defense. As I get older, I may look more into stick fighting. A cane fighter is a force to be reckoned with when TRULY good at it.
As a person who has studied modern pocket-knife techniques, including deployment, for over five years (Michael Janich's Martial Blade Concepts learned from his oldest student), I wholeheartedly agree with the Wave concept. . .HOWEVER:
Do not count on that Wave opening your knive every time. Under stress, it's easy to pull the knife and "miss" the catch on the blade. Be ready to utilize a manual opening method, including one-handed, just in case.
This is akin to practicing a one-handed semi-auto pistol slide-rack. You gotta know how and practice before you need it.
The Professor
Personally, I am not a fan of knives for self defense. I believe they require more training to be good with, they are less effective, and suspect that they are less pleasant for jurors if your self defense is questionable and goes to trial. IF you are TRULY good with a knife, then it's like any other self defense tool, you have options that most people don't have. Personally, I'd rather put that training time into firearms or unarmed defense. As I get older, I may look more into stick fighting. A cane fighter is a force to be reckoned with when TRULY good at it.
After watching some of the videos, perhaps my mishaps with blades are good preparation in case someone attacks me. I know what it feel like to be cut. And cut. And cut.
I also know what a karambit will do if it's really sharp. and not from cutting hunks of pork. Heh.
As I'm reading through this thread, thinking to myself, "All this talk of knives and their cutty/slashy/woundy, and no Rhino?", here he comes.
I feel ever so much better with input from our resident ER regular
One of the things I would push into my students heads is the fact that if you DO end up using a knife as your primary weapon, you WILL end up in court, even if the Prosecutor dismisses his case with you. I promise you, the family will pull you into civil court.
p.s. Now with my arthritic knee I am much attracted to the idea of canes for SD as well. I am going to have to look into this seriously.
If I may interject here, and I do realize I'm new to the forums, we have to keep an eye on the realistic. How often do "knife fights" occur? I'm not talking about gang fights or prison/jail incidents. I mean honest, mano-a-mano, unchoreographed, squared-off knife fights?
They happen about as often as old-west-style one-on-one gunfights/duels. Not using this as THE definitive collection of real-life incidents, but go look at YouTube and pull up videos of real knife attacks.
Having a Kali/escrima expert attack you is frightening. Once he goes into a replicating flowdrill that he's (or she's) practiced tens of thousands of times, yeah, he's going to slice and dice you. Even against another kali expert, both fighters are going to walk away looking like they tried to tongue-kiss a giant shredder.
While videos like this are cool to watch and do the job they were made to do (frighten and scare and make you feel as if your training was incomplete or incapable of dealing with this scenario), they're about as realistic as my chances of a date with Jessica Alba (unless she likes bald, old, broke guys).
Being in EMS they happen quite often actually. At bars, at house parties or on the corner. Lots of people are to poor to get guns, almost anyone can get a 1$ knife or box cutter. Hell, even a kitchen can be used to great effect against a person with a gun, seen it all first hand.
A small blade is MUCH easier to deploy and use in a clinch/ground situation than a gun. It is also reliable as to repeat use when compared to a gun (contact shooting induces malfunctions a LOT).
One of the big reasons is to compliment firearm retention. If my dominant hand is hindered because I am keeping a forearm or elbow lock on my firearm, I can deploy a small knife with my support hand to create space or establish a dominant position to transition from.
The bottom line is that guns are just hard to use when the fight has already started up in your face.