This particular article is important and timely, it is also likely to cause some controversy (once again). So firstly I am going to do something I don’t normally do, and that is ‘defend’ myself somewhat.
Normally I don’t ever feel the need to quantify and defend my writings and views, as they are no more than my own opinions based on my own experiences.
However, I just KNOW that I will be causing some degree of feedback with this article, so I am going to answer any criticisms I may receive first … the perfect pre-emptive strike.
I teach, speak and write from my own years experience in the combat arts, and I am a blunt Yorkshireman who says it like it is. For that I don’t apologise… I never set up deliberately to upset anyone… but I manage it anyway. “C’est La Vie”.
However I am going top give you some details about my background etc, for those of you who don’t know much about me, (and why should you?)
I started the combat arts in 1961 with both western boxing and wrestling whilst still at school, I boxed a couple of times for the school in 1963.
I started the martial arts with a combined Judo/Ju-Jutsu art in 1964, the year I left school. I have been involved in the combat arts since.
I hold 3 separate 8th Dan Grades, one 7th Dan and a couple of lower (3rd and 4th) Dan Grades in other styles.
I have studied ONLY those styles and methods that were/are best designed for realistic self-defence and street combat.
I have absolutely nothing against sport combat styles or ‘traditional’ training such as Katas etc.. They are just not for me personally. But I am full of admiration for anyone who trains hard and achieves a high level.
Any ‘reputation’I may or may not have achieved over these 45 years has been in the realistic styles, and I have been fortunate indeed to have had many ‘top’ names in the martial arts world come to me for tuition.
People of the quality as “Geoff Thompson” … “Jamie O’Keefe, and even “Bob Sykes”, have had tuition from me. What an honour and very humbling.
All I am trying to get across here is hopefully not a self-glorification (God forbid), but merely to show I do have some VALIDITY in my views and have a fair amount of experience in these fields.
Secondly, because the subject of Youth Knife Crime is so ingrained in our culture, with hardly a week going by without hearing about it, it needs what I believe to be a very honest and direct approach to dealing with knives on the street.
Although I have used the term ‘knives’ up to this point, let me say that the advice and any methods mentioned are also aimed at other ‘edged weapons’ which is actually a more accurate term. After all the actions, intent and results of being stabbed by a knife or a sharpened screwdriver are almost identical.
Thirdly this article is NOT a training article per se, instead I intend offering comments, advice and pointers that I genuinely feel are the best ways of dealing with the very serious problem of having to defend against a knife on the street.
RIGHT, let me start off by my first comment that may upset some readers…
90% of the techniques taught as workable knife defences are sheer garbage!
It wouldn’t be so bad if they were just garbage, but they are DANGEROUS garbage. Trying these ridiculous defences for real could get you killed, and that AIN’T funny.
I see so much that is good and also much that is bad in the martial arts… especially when discussing and/or teaching REALISTIC self-defence and self-protection.
BUT when it comes to knives I get really upset…
I constantly get DVD’s or articles from all kinds of sources asking me to look at their ‘knife defences’, and frankly there is so much tripe out there I feel awful answering them back.
So, what is the answer, if there even IS one? … Well the reason I mentioned at the start of this article that it isn’t a ‘how to do’ one, is that what is important in defending against knives isn’t the techniques used, but the PRINCIPLES that are applied.
Therefore let me start with my first bit of combined advice and observation…
“There are NO methods of defending against a knife that can guarantee your TOTAL safety”
I don’t care WHO the instructor is or what he or she tells you, the above statement is 100% FACT.
Play with water you will eventually get WET … Face knives (and other edged weapons) for real and you WILL/PROBABLY get harmed.
The sad impression we get is that if we practise a few simple little techniques, stick them into gradings done with no real intent and slightly choreographed then we are ready for the street. Knowing a blade is coming at you held by a friend who doesn’t actually WANT to kill you, and in many cases will co-operate with your ‘defences’ is not conducive to surviving the street blade.
You simply cannot mess about when dealing with a blade, and that is if you even get the CHANCE to deal with it.
There are a few instructors in the country who really do understand blades, and have produced some excellent work. Alan Charlton for one does an excellent course.
The problem is two fold however in that because the principles and techniques of defending against blades are AND SHOULD BE quite simple, and of few numbers, many instructors ‘pad’ out their techniques with what my old instructor called “Unfunctional Bilge”… why I don’t know.
Better to have a few tried and tested methods and principles (the second being the most important) rather than a myriad of flashy techniques that may LOOK good, but are useless.
To get to the meat in this article, there is a list below of statements of FACT, these are true, later in the article there will be a few statements of fact that are in fact (sorry for the puns) not factual in fact! … get it?
- Knives do one or more of only THREE possible actions, the CUT, they STAB, and they TREATEN.
- A great majority of people cut or stabbed didn’t know they HAD been attacked with a knife. A blade is one of the FEW weapons that in fact can be used both OVERTLY and COVERTLY. But you can’t THREATEN someone with a knife COVERTLY. However you can be stabbed or cut without seeing it coming. This is a topic not covered enough.
- Knives are nearly always (in fact probably a high enough percentage to state 100%) used in the DOMINANT hand of the attacker. Very few people will secrete a knife somewhere where their DOMINANT hand can’t reach, and a right handed man will invariably hold and use the weapon in that hand.
- He or she has in fact TOLD you some facts that can aid in your defence ONLY if you see the knife BEFORE they stick it in you.
- A knife doesn’t have to cost £100 and be a ‘super-dooper Rambo Devil Blade’ or other such stupid tags … If it’s LONG enough it can stab you and if it’s SHARP enough it can cut you. You can stab someone to death with a bloody pencil, or cut them and they bleed to death with a broken credit card.
- “Twisty-Wristy” manipulative type defences are utter tripe, and should be banned and will simply NOT work in real situations. I can accept that for certain styles etc, in a grading situation that ‘demonstrating’ some form of weapon defences may (and only may) have some validity, but at least students should be told that these techniques are training moves, not ones that will work in reality.
- Controlling the knife is simply NOT as valid as controlling the person holding it… the focus is wrong and puts the emphasis on the wrong moves.
- Do it wrong in training you have a second chance. Do it wrong on the street and you could DIE
Dave Turton 8th Dan, Head of the Self-Defence Federation
