You may fling those hard rocks with your Triple-Sling Jigger.
But I, also, now have my hand on a trigger!
My wonderful weapon, the Jigger-Rock Snatchem,
will fling ‘em right back just as quick as we catch ‘em.
— Dr. Seuss, The Butter Battle Book
My opinion only, but I don’t have the time, skills, or inclination to learn H2H combat. I carry a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun for self defense when I’m out-and-about. I certainly do not recommend this for just anyone, of course, but it works for me. (And in many places it’s unlawful, so check local laws.) But I have to assume it’s a more effective tool than H2H, all else being equal.
Have you ever had to use it? Do you think you really would?
As we have all said, it’s best to maintain situational awareness and avoid dangerous confrontations before they even begin.
While gouging eyes, kicking to the groin or knee, et cetera, are theoretically quite effective they require a degree of speed and aggression that most people just don’t cultivate. This is particularly true when considering a (typically) smaller framed defender against one or more larger aggressors; in order to be effective such a defense has to be immediate and unexpected lest the aggressors just grab the defender’s arm or foot, or throw them the ground and overwhelm them. I’ve helped teach self-defense classes to womens shelters, and frankly for the few hours of instruction the most valuable part is the discussion about being aware, listening to that niggling feeling or concern, and demonstrating alertness to a potential attacker. The physical exercises are mostly to cultivate a sense that they can respond instead of freezing, but the likelihood that a smaller woman is going to effectively fight off a larger or highly aggressive man is not great.
While I haven’t trained in Krav Maga, I have sparred with people who have and am at least cursorily familiar with the techniques which are trained, and this just isn’t remotely true. Setting aside that the testicles are only an available target when facing directly in front (unless you want to try a roundhouse kick from the side), a strike to the groin is by no means guaranteed or even particularly likely to be disabling, and fighters who have been in many actual fights develop a tolerance to the pain of being struck in the testicles. Krav Maga is highly focused on disabling an attack with as much speed as possible with a minimum of strike, because the first thing that goes out the window in a fight are the kind of elaborate techniques where the recipient has to be just so for the move to work. Strikes to the knee, elbow, solar plexus, throat, or head are all more likely to assuredly disable or disarm an attacker than a kick to the groin, and are the focus in Krav Maga and other ‘practical’ fighting styles. Also, kicking anywhere above the knee poses the risk of the intended recipient just grabbing your foot, and most people do not have the speed and skill to kick that fast without telegraphing so badly the recipient sees it coming and turns sideway or rushes the kicker.
Having actually trained in edged weapon combat, I am in agreement with @puzzlegal; a knife is a terrible weapon for defense, the potential for dropping it or injuring yourself is significant, and a knife small enough to be routinely carried isn’t especially effective at stopping an attack promptly. It is basically a weapon with all of the downsides of a firearm (potential lethality, legal restrictions, needs to be concealed, drawing it escalates a situation, et cetera) with none of the advantages (use at distance, negates advantage of size and strength, use draws attention). I would resort to using a knife if I lacked all other options, including heavy things to throw or bludgeon with.
If you feel the need to carry a weapon and a firearm is not a legal or realistic option (and carrying a firearm at all times is a real pain in the ass, sometimes literally) the best thing to carry and train with is a cane or walking stick; legal everywhere, can be carried openly, can keep an attacker at some distance (at least, initially), and surprisingly effective in defense even with a moderate amount of training. But really, the best defense is to be aware of a sketchy situation or potential attack and make haste elsewhere.
Stranger
Mistake. Retry.
No. And I hope I never will.
Agee. But I also like to have a “Plan B.” And learning H2H combat is not a practical Plan B for me, IMO.
Anecdotally, I have heard that the most effective hand to hand weapon is supposed to be a quarterstaff?
Can’t recall where I remember this from? Still, a good solid stick is likely to be quite useful!
Probably ought to get one…
Of course a proper cane has a secret catch which releases the rapier within.
No Victorian gentleman adventurer would be without one…
Yes.
Whereas, if i had a solid cane or stick on me, i could plausibly take a solid swipe at my assailant’s knee before running and screaming. And i could totally live with having messed up the knee of someone who assaulted me. Something to think about if i ever decide i ought to carry a weapon.
As i said above, i really don’t think of knives as weapons at all. So my knife skills are not really related to attacking with a knife. But I’ve killed mice with a blade, dissected small and medium sized animals, and taken apart a lot of large chunks of meat into smaller chunks of meat. I was at a physical therapist’s office shortly after breaking down a leg of lamb. A human leg has all the same bones, muscles, and tendons as a sheep, and most of them are in approximately the same place. If it weren’t for the “don’t want to pull a knife in a fight” issue, and the related, “don’t want to kill a human being” issue, i could totally open up a human and cut important parts. (Also, i keep my knives sharp.)
Martial Arts as arts and even sport versions can be misleading. Light contact point karate is fun, but there can be negative training value for self defense. For starters, point karate establishes techniques that are great for scoring points but won’t be helpful for SD. Like a backfist strike to the head.
There is value from moving around, learning timing and distance, and getting hit. Learning to read the opponent. But don’t mistake a sparring match for a fight.
Self Defense techniques derived for practical defense can be useful and effective, but it depends on the situation.
Primary self defense is situational awareness, paying attention to surroundings, and avoiding bad situations.
If you go to a bar and they check everyone at the door for a gun, and if you don’t have one they give you one, that might not be a place to hang out.
Yes, size is a huge advantage factor. Reach means longer range for strikes or grabbing from further Away. Weight is hugely tiring.
Knowing vulnerable targets helps. Punching someone in the chest is pointless, as opposed to poking eyes or busting a nose.
Knowing some release moves its good.
Yes, mental preparedness is a valuable take away. Know how to hit and kick with force.
Self Defense is dirty. If you have to use it, be prepared to bite, scratch, scream, pull hair, whatever. Yank an ear off. Slam then into objects, fall on top of them. Grab a finger and break it.
Yes, surprise is on the attacker’s side. Practicing defense let’s you shorten your reaction time - drilled in techniques don’t need to be thought up. Conversely, a lot of times the attacker is not prepared for actual resistance, and a fast overwhelming barrage can throw them off and encourage them to depart instead.
Students have reported having successfully defended from an assault using techniques my style teaches.
Dealing with multiple attackers ups the challenge. You want to get out of the middle, and try to use one to shield you from the others.
Weapons are effective, of you have them ready. But a gun in your waistband won’t help if they surprise you from behind.
Running away is great, but I’ve always been slow, now more than ever with bad knees and asthma. Break their knee, and it’s much easier to outrun them.
In combat, if someone is attacking you in real time?
You may know anatomy, but that’s a quite different case.
I don’t think these are the same ‘knife skills’ that you think they are…
Please read my posts. No, in combat, i would never use a knife. But it’s not because i lack “knife skills”. It’s because i lack combat skills, and also, because i think i would rather be killed than kill someone else.
If i didn’t mind killing people, and i learned any other type of combat skills, I’m sure i could transfer them to knife fighting. That’s not going to happen. But i still claim “knife skills”. Knives are shitty weapons. But they are terrific tools.
The one time someone attempted to rape me, i bit him. Somewhat to my surprise, that worked.
I witthdraw my post and sit corrected.
Do you know anything about Hapkido cane fighting?
Good for you! 
Yes, I have. We seem to disagree on the ethical issues of whether you would use lethal force to defend yourself or your loved ones against violence.
That’s your prerogative. So be it.
Sure. It is great to teach seminar attendees such general concepts to avoid being the weakest member of the herd. I guess that is somewhat different that what I consider to be “martial arts.” I’ve encountered too many women who say thinkgs like, “I carry my keys in my fist with one sticking out”, as tho that is all they need to know to defend themself.
Kitchen skills are quite different than knife fighting. But I suspect you know that. Do you know where to cut someone to make them bleed out the fastest? Do you repeatedly train drawing your knife and striking multiple such targets? As I was trained, using a knife is something more than “one stab/slash and you’re done.”
I did my MA training before legal carry became so common. Nowadays, if I were really worried, or if my life regularly took me into dangerous settings, I’d probably look into a carry permit. But - you’d better be prepared to use the gun, not let it be taken from you, etc. Same as with a knife.
Well, we disagree very strongly. (I certainly hope your comment that you “actually trained” suggests any other poster in this thread hadn’t.) I trained quite a bit of FMA for several years, and I strongly believe knife skills level the playing field tremendously against an unarmed opponent. You disagree. That’s fine. If you and I were facing off in a life or death situation, knowing nothing about your skills and ability, I’d rather that I had a knife and you were empty handed. And a whole bunch of FMA practitioners would agree.
You have the option of having a knife on you which you are familiar with, and you know where it is and how to draw it and use it effectively. But you’d prefer to look around for sticks and stones “to throw or bludgeon with”? Good for you.
And I don’t understand the comments such as “you’ll drop it, it’ll be taken from you…” Wouldn’t that apply to a gun as well? Part of the reason to train with any weapon is so you don’t drop it, and you don’t let it get taken from you. If you don’t think a 3" blade (legal length in IL) will give you tremendous advantage, well, your experience and mine differ tremendously.
Try maneuvering a quarterstaff in a hallway or an elevator. 
Or carrying it with you everywhere you go. But a stick does give you range. If you have a 3’ stick, you can strike from 3’ further away than someone who in unarmed.
I haven’t studied Hapkido cane techniques but looking at the video (and a few others online) shows the techniques are about the same as those I’ve learned. The spinning the cane from the hook end will work but I honestly wouldn’t try to use it for blocking in that way because it can be knocked out of the and or flip around and strike the user in the face. The most effective striking techniques are to use it two handed, poking the ground end into the solar plexus, ribs, face, neck, et cetera; using the hook end to the neck, shoulder, arm or leg (especially effective if the cane has a bevel end); or one handed side strikes to the knee, shin, thigh, or forearm. It can be used for blocking by rotating the hand holding to inside and under the hook (with the length of the barrel of the cane along the forearm on the radius side) and then flipping the tip end out to strike, and you can demonstrate and drill someone in these techniques in an hour to the point that they are basically capable.
Just to be clear, your quotation is not what I wrote. What I said was ”…the potential for dropping it or injuring yourself is significant, and a knife small enough to be routinely carried isn’t especially effective at stopping an attack promptly.” Most folding knives suitable for daily carry do not have very good grip for positive control, and even if they are designed for one hand opening will require shifting the grip after opening. (A 6” or longer field knife is a different class of weapon but unless you are Rambo or are out in the backcountry you won’t be carrying that kind of blade around, and many states and municipalities have substantial restrictions on carrying fixed blades of any length.) Small knives aren’t particularly intimidating, and lack sufficient blade length to penetrate to organs (and it is surprisingly hard to drive a knife into the chest) so they are basically slashing weapons, and unless you know where to hit to disable an arm or a leg (or can get to the throat), they’ll do bloody but superficial damage. I guess you could carry one of those folding karambits that the tacticool crowd really like (a knife with a concavely curved edge designed for deep penetration slashing) but other than slicing out someone’s intestines it is pretty useless as a general purpose knife and is not what I would want to stand before a judge and jury to explain why I picked that particular knife to carry.
My training assumed an armed opponent, and one of the first things we learned was that it is nearly impossible to engage with someone armed with a knife without getting cut yourself in some way. I don’t know how you would explain that you used a knife against an unarmed opponent but from a legal standpoint you’d be on shaky ground. And unlike a cane, staff, improvise baton, or even a firearm, you can’t use a knife without being at intimate distance. If you have experience with kali or eskrima, you know how effective fighting with batons can be, and I would honestly rather have a a 16 inch stick (or two) than a little 3” flipper knife.
Edged weapons are kind of fun to train with (although you quickly discover how much bullshit you see on movies and television about it) but they would be almost my last choice for a weapon. I mean, I’ve also trained with axes, too (and they are quite devastating) but frankly I don’t want to stand there hacking at an attacker with a tomahawks even if I could come up with some excuse why I’m walking around like I just fell out of a James Fenimore Cooper novel.
Stranger
Thanks!