Defense against knife attacks

I DON'T TEACH DEFENCE AGAINST KNIFE ATTACKS!

Your survival will not be dependent on your "defence against a knife" class, it will not depend on you running. Most knife attackers will leave you very little chance of a 'safe' exit. Your survival will be dependent on your ability to become brutally violent in a millisecond, merciless and unforgiving. It will depend on your ability to attack.

There will be consequences!

I have myself been in several physical altercations against knife-wielding adversaries. I have been cut or stabbed 11 times, only once was I cut by the same person twice and that was in a case of ego on my part which I learned from immediately, and I have never repeated such childishly stupid behaviour since.

By far the majority of mainstream defence against edged weapons classes, workshops, etc are a complete misrepresentation of the facts, and some might say, they don’t work at all. Anyone who tells you they have a technique or tactic to defend against a knife attacker is a fool or a liar. A blatant liar, and a dangerous person to be around.

Now, in all fairness to them, they probably don’t know they are lying because they are teaching what they were taught. That is a huge problem in these communities, their techniques have never been pressure tested to the extent necessary for real-life replication, they have never been confronted by a knife attacker, or if they have it was someone who had no intention of doing them harm, deliberately, and just wished to cause sufficient fear to achieve their goal, which was probably some type of robbery. With a “don’t tell anyone or else” type scenario, included for show.

I have attended numerous “knife defence” courses and workshops over the years. I have ‘killed’ every instructor without fail, and have even been asked to leave several seminars, presented by 'industry experts' because I refused to attack the instructor in the way they wished to show their perfect defence!

So, if the instructor can only defend against an attacker who attacks him how he wishes to be attacked, cannot defend against spontaneous assaults, cannot defend against multiple attackers then quite simply he has no knife defence technique that will help you in the real world. Although he might look cool.

More importantly, he will give you a very dangerous self-confidence that will almost definitely get you killed, should you choose to implement his strategy in, your self-defence plan during a real, life-threatening assault, perpetrated against you.

Caution here, it may just be the 'threat' with a knife scenario in real life, an assailant who has no wish to stab you, and just wants your wallet. However, because you have this newfound knowledge of how to defend against or disarm a would-be knife attacker, your newfound confidence, you may choose to risk all and overconfidently attack the knife hand, in the hope of pinning it to the side, (standard practice in knife defence classes), and you succeed only to find out he has a friend and you’re dead anyway!!

Sorry, but reality can be kind of harsh.

Have people successfully defended against knife-wielding assailants, YES, they have. Have they done so using any technique taught to them in a conventional Saturday morning, four-hour class alone? None that I have seen.

So, what am I selling?

I am afraid I'm not selling anything most will want to buy! No magic tricks, no super cool Bruce Lee, type techniques.

I gained my knowledge of edged weapons by studying prisoners, in their natural environment, usually violent criminals before entering the prison system, who got no less violent whilst within the system and many of whom will, one day, be getting released from the system, habitually with no rehabilitation taking place, no money in the bank and no support family system in place.

This is not the place to get into whether or not the countries of the world have the right attitude toward offenders, re-offenders, and rehabilitation. I am sure you all have your views on that subject, very few will be based on more than emotion and Hollywood bias, but for now, that is outside the remit of this piece.

Reality is what I may be trying to sell you!

Knife defence is about avoidance. Avoidance is about awareness and, awareness comes from being ‘in tune’ with your surroundings. Situational awareness is the key to avoiding knife crime as it is to avoiding all sorts of other crimes, and general everyday accidents too.

Being situationally aware will make you competent and increase your confidence in your own abilities, it can be fostered with very little practice with the right techniques. It can be learned quickly and efficiently. I started teaching my children, as my father taught me, at a very young age with a little twist to the family game of "I Spy" with my little eye, something beginning with? It can be as simple as that for you too.

Will your assailant be a knife-wielding “martial arts” expert, who just happens to have trained in the same kind of Kali (or whatever) as you, and has the same morals, standards, and ethics as you and your knife defence training instructor?

I doubt that very much!

It more likely he will be a career criminal? Knife-related crimes are seldom the first crime one commits, violent crimes generally take some building up to. Your knife-wielding assailant will likely have had much practice in the art of “committing crimes”, this is not age dependent, I saw a 9-year-old boy stab another older schoolboy when I too was nine years old. His victim was 17. I also know a policeman who was stabbed 5 times by a ten-year-old!

It is however much more likely that he may well be an ex-con and pay special attention here; in jail, cons give classes to other cons, they interchange ideas, they discuss what worked best for whom and why, and they have 8 to 10 hours a day to practice and very little to deter them from that practice. Believe me, they put a lot more effort into it than the average martial arts/combat sports practitioner.

They study the Art of War, the 48 laws of power, the 33 strategies of war, and much more and they practice killing, often with great success against other inmates, before some of them will be coming to the streets near you!

Knife attacks are often from a surprise attack. I have heard some “professionals” in the self-defence world say you cannot beat (win) once ambushed. That is false, completely false, and also dangerous to assume. I have seen an ambush victim fight through 32 stab wounds to prevail, escape, and survive.

You 'CAN' beat “win” in ambush scenarios, you may even implement a counter-ambush, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Their surprise attack may have been badly planned or executed, a signal may have been telegraphed to you, your intuition may have picked up on something, or your desire to live, to not surrender, to fight to the very last drop of blood, your Mindset, attitude, may help you prevail.

Your assailants will almost definitely be “professionals” at violence. I would wager that you and your instructor are almost certainly not.

Unfortunately, or indeed, fortunately, I am.

I have spent my whole life surrounded by violent people, working and sometimes living in life-threateningly violent, hostile environments. I have a great wealth of personal violence experience, both giving and receiving, I have taught violence to specialist Military units and I have also taught violence prevention to police and peacekeeping forces, in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. I have worked, and lived, at the lowest and highest extremes of the social scale and know well the full spectrum of violence available to undesirable felons and Govt. agencies alike.

Some preparatory and academic classes are available online, contact me for details.

I highly recommend that you watch this 20-minute video to see some of the realities of real knife crime and the defences against it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t69XMB-PINM

I would suggest you pay special attention to the comments made by “Icy Mike” at around the 09:35/50 mark and also to what @Jeff Phillips has to say at the 12:07/20 mark.

We provide Governmental, professional, and civilian security and protection training in Spain and Latin America. Options are available to those who wish to increase their personal security and safety, the safety of their loved ones, staff, and clients, or who wish to advance their careers in the Close Protection Industry with professional, no-nonsense skill sets.

I also teach private online classes, and I teach in-person; private, family, and group classes in Cádiz province in Spain. The subject matter I cover includes, but is not limited to: My D.A.D.A. program. Detect, Avoid, Distract, Attack (CQC). The psychology of violence; Situational awareness and avoiding problematic situations; People profiling for your personal safety; Situational control and tactical conversation; Physical solutions for violent situations; Home security and protection solutions.

In-person classes include in-depth predatory physical combative training in the use of physical violence for your safety and security.

If you would like information on any of the above subjects feel free to DM me and we can have an informal "chat" old school style!

Alternatively contact me at: www.insafehands.net

mike@insafehands.net