I always see self-defense people (rightly) say that “you never know when someone is armed.” Now, I know this is true, and I also know I don’t want to tote around a gun.
This is purely hypothetical, by the way, so no “don’t do this, it’s illegal” sort of stuff. I’m just curious about two points:
Is it possible to find training in fighting with a blade, either a knife or a dagger?
Would this be a feasible art on the street?
Yes, knife fighting is a major component of Filipino martial arts. Look for information on Kali, Arnis, or Eskrima, which are different names for the same martial art. And yes, these are arts that actually get used on the street.
There are probably other martial arts that train specifically for knife fighting, but that’s the only one I can think of right now.
I highly recommend the Filipino arts. Fluid and fast, unlike Karate’s knife components.
Paul Vuunak has an amazing knife series, among others. I can quickly get you a list if you want it.
I’ve trained in Filipino stick and knife fighting for two years and think it’s the most amazing system ever. I’d still be studying it if it was available here.
I think the Filipino approach to the arts is the most street-compatible in terms of weapons. It’s not hard to find something shaped like a stick and it’s easy to carry a knife on your person.
They basically train you to do this: if someone swings a weapon at you, step back and slash his wrist as the weapon passes. Break his wrist if you’ve got a stick.
Simple. Brutal. Easy to train. I love it.
Sure thing. There are some specific knife fighting schools out there. More common are MA schools that teach knife techiques. Try looking for a local kalima or pentjac silat (often just generically called silat) school. Various karate and kung fu schools also teach knifework, although in combination with unarmed defence.
Feasible in what way? Knife fighting is like any type of street fighting. Training makes you better and reduces the chance of getting hurt. However you can be the best in the world, but because any street fight is chaotic you will occasionally get hurt through simple ‘bad luck’. If your are in a knife fight there’s a fair chance that getting hurt will equate to hospital time.
If your are just contemplating learning knife work for defence aganst an unarmed opponent, the best response would be don’t. Knives, while effective, are antiquated. If you are prepared to kill someone get a handgun. If you aren’t then knives aren’t for you and you should stick to an extendible baton, pepper spray, stun guns or similar.
By all accounts it takes a real effort to stop someone with a knife excluding lucky shots. You will need to be prepared to cut or stab a person multiple times to disable them. That takes real mental training and I doubt that most people would be crazy enough to do this to an unarmed opponent. I know that I wouldn’t if I wasn’t sure they were trying to kill me, and if they were trying to kill me they probably wouldn’t be unarmed. Because it is just a knife there is a possibility of an attacker disarming you and using the knife against you, and pulling a knife in defence requires either great stupidity or great confidence for that reason alone.
Knife fighting is also a physical art, so if you aren’t reasonably fit or prepared to become reasonably fit, forget it.
In summary I’d say forget it. It isn’t easy to become proficient even with a handgun. To become sufficiently proficient with a knife is harder still. You are in for months or probably years of hard training before you will become poficient enough to make it work the risk.
You might want to take a look at W. Hock Hockheim’s Close Quater Combat - it deals with unarmed, stick, knife and gun combatives, as well as unarmed response to armed attacks, etc. Its very simple, gross motor skills stuff generally, and takes a lot of stick and knife stuff from Filipino MA. He has apparantly trained a lot of cops and special ops military in this stuff. His head-of-school in Australia, Glenn Zwiers, is a hell of a martial artist, and a good guy…but i cant speak for Hock himself.
If you learn to do what Glenn can, you’ll be able to handle yourself, and then some…
…but i have to put in a caveat i heard from the first guy to teach me knife disarms;
“Knife fighting is like high-diving - once you take that step, you’re committed, and your going to get wet.”
After doing a bit of this sort of stuff, i have NO interest in carrying a knife for self-defense purposes.
If you do train some of this stuff, you’ll almost certainly do the Magic Marker Drill. After you’ve learned a couple of disarms, and you’re feeling pretty good about your bad-ass-ability, put down the rubber knife, and put on a white t-shirt; have your training partner do the same. Randori (that is, do some loose, dirty sparring) using some magic markers as knives - try to cut and disarm eachother with the markers. Then check out all the places you got “cut”…its humbling, to say the least. You might also try it with different color pens for you and your partner - you’ll be surprised how often you’ll cut yourself, especially if you wind up grappling.
IMHO, if i was the type to carry a weapon, it’d be a collapsable baton type dealie, especially if i was an arnisador/escrimador (student of the filipino arts). Knives are messy, they bite back, and once the integrity of your skin get compromised, its really hard to make all the stuff that falls out, go back in.
Ignore Blake. I don’t think he’s ever taken a knife fighting class. If he has studied knife fighting and he roars back, outraged, then I’ll apologize, but my experience is totally opposed to what he’s suggesting.
Regarding the first bolded statement:
I only have experience with Karate knife movements (yes, I know karate means empty-hand) and Filipino knife movements, and the two are worlds apart. Karate: you block the incoming blade and step forward to strike your opponent’s chest with your own blade. The downside to this is exactly what Blake said. Filipino MA: you step back, maintaining a safe range, and as the blade swings past you cut his wrist. You might think this is harder than it sounds, but go take a Fillipino class or two and I promise you the first thing that will cross your mind is, “Holy crap! This is so easy! The guy is practically asking for me to slice his wrist!”
Regarding the second bolded part:
It is virtually impossible to strip a knife away from someone. What do you grab it by? The blade? No, you press your hand or bony wrist against the flat side of the blade and strip it against their thumb. Everyone trains knife disarms, but I have never, ever heard someone even condsider it as something you should look for in combat. If it comes then you won the lottery and it comes, but it’s definitely not something you should count on.
A knife is not a weapon that is easy to have taken away from you, especially by someone untrained.
A past issue of Black Belt magazine studied a multitude of police reports re: blade attacks on martial artists and found that there was only one instance of a knife being taken away without the martial artist’s hand being mangled and that was by a wrestler. It had other fascinating facts, such as the overhead Friday the 13th attacks were totally uncommon and shouldn’t be trained for in great frequency.
I have a feeling Blake isn’t going to take this lying down and we’re never going to agree, Speaker of the Dead, so I’m telling you to ignore us and go take a Filipino martial arts class so you can decide for yourself.
You might want to take a look at W. Hock Hockheim’s Close Quater Combat - it deals with unarmed, stick, knife and gun combatives, as well as unarmed response to armed attacks, etc. Its very simple, gross motor skills stuff generally, and takes a lot of stick and knife stuff from Filipino MA. He has apparantly trained a lot of cops and special ops military in this stuff. His head-of-school in Australia, Glenn Zwiers, is a hell of a martial artist, and a good guy…but i cant speak for Hock himself.
If you learn to do what Glenn can, you’ll be able to handle yourself, and then some…
…but i have to put in a caveat i heard from the first guy to teach me knife disarms;
“Knife fighting is like high-diving - once you take that step, you’re committed, and your going to get wet.”
After doing a bit of this sort of stuff, i have NO interest in carrying a knife for self-defense purposes.
If you do train some of this stuff, you’ll almost certainly do the Magic Marker Drill. After you’ve learned a couple of disarms, and you’re feeling pretty good about your bad-ass-ability, put down the rubber knife, and put on a white t-shirt; have your training partner do the same. Randori (that is, do some loose, dirty sparring) using some magic markers as knives - try to cut and disarm eachother with the markers. Then check out all the places you got “cut”…its humbling, to say the least. You might also try it with different color pens for you and your partner - you’ll be surprised how often you’ll cut yourself, especially if you wind up grappling.
IMHO, if i was the type to carry a weapon, it’d be a collapsable baton type dealie, especially if i was an arnisador/escrimador (student of the filipino arts). Knives are messy, they bite back, and once the integrity of your skin get compromised, its really hard to make all the stuff that falls out, go back in.
sorry for the double…
R-Con has some really good points. It’s generally better to run than to get into a knife fight with someone. If the guy has training then you’re going to lose even if you win.
The collapsable baton is illegal here, otherwise I’d carry it, but I carry two knives on either side of my belt. I’m confident in my ability to use them against anyone because in the marker fights I generally do really well against trained opponents and whenever a beginner shows up, it’s a good indication of how well you’d do against an untrained opponent.
No offense (I hope) against the arnis exponents on the thread, but I have to agree with Blake.
Most knife-fighting systems begin with both fighters facing each other, holding their weapons and ready to start. If someone really wants to kill you with a knife, he doesn’t let you know about it in advance, so you don’t get a chance to pull out your own knife and get set.
If you are worried about knife attacks, wear a leather coat. And carry a gun.
Knife defenses are usually harder than other kind of weapon defenses. You can’t lock the slide on a knife.
Practically any weapon is better than nothing, but some weapons are better than others.
Regards,
Shodan
** Anal Scurvy** I have no intention of getting into a pissing contest here because the only way to prove this would be to engage in a sparring event using marker blades. Were we to do that I can assure you that your confidence in your ability would be terribly shaken.
Knife fighting is not formulaic despite what you suggest. It is terribly simplistic to suggest that a retreating defence somehow garauntees that “you step back, maintaining a safe range, and as the blade swings past you cut his wrist”. Real life doesn’t work like that. People who attack are also allowed to move. I’m sorry there is no other way to put this: such a belief in the effectiveness of a single move is simplistic and silly. It implies that over thousands of years no one ever bothered to figure out a counter to such a move. That’s absolute rubbish. There are any number of counter moves to a retreating defence and counter attack on the weapon arm, the simplest of which is to attack into the 45 rather than straight on. If an attacker does that then the manouevre cannot even be applied, much less be successful. But I promised I wouldn’t get into a pissing contest on this. Suffice it to say that listening to your advice will get a person seriously hurt since it is clearly learned form training with people who cannot counter even such a basic move.
As for your suggestion that it is virtually impossible to strip a knife off someone, I can only suggest that you need at least 5 years more training in various styles before you contemplate using this stuff in reality. This is horribly apparent in that you can only think of attacking the weapon hand as disarming moves. You give no consideration to joint locks, nerve strikes or simple muscle damage as being highly effective manoeuvres that can disarm an opponent. You appear to need to cross train more. You have a very limited perception of what moves and countermoves are available out their in reality.
If you won’t believe what I have to say then perhaps you will take note of what R-con says. Marker blades are better than magic markers because they allow the full use of the edge. However magic markers work well. Try this exercise sometime and see whether your experience differs from mine and his. If you are correct then a simple retreat and counterattack on the wrist will always work and will not need to get marked at all. If you do get marked this will tell you that you must be prepared to use more than that one strike to disable and opponent.
If you learn just that one point form this thread then some ignorance will have been fought here today. It just could save your life as well.
Yes, as already pointed out the Filipino arts are your best bet. Perhaps an instructor who is ex-combat arms military soldier would be a good choice as well, just tell him that you’re interested in learning to knife fight. I learnt most of what I know about knife fighting, which is vanishingly small, from an ex-infantry officer, who was a student of mine.
If knife fighting effective? You better believe it! There’s a reason why when you teach knife self defense that you tell you students “When you fight against a knife, expect to get cut”.
Do you think your are going to be attacked by someone with a knife?
Maybe you do. Do you want to respond with a knife? To someone that already has the drop on you?
You don’t want to carry a gun, and I don’t blame you. It’s a big responsibility and while you may win the ‘day’ with a gun, you might get a few hundred stitches for it.
Drop your wallet and run like the wind.
I’m comfortable with guns. And if I was worried that I might get attacked. I would carry one.
If I was worried about being attacked, I sure as shit would not choose a knife as a defensive weapon. Carry a cane, or a bottle of Merlot.
The guy that brings a knife to a gun fight will almost always lose.
My point is. You have a choice, would you dare get into a knife fight with someone that probably has some buddys of his around?
Drop your wallet and run.
Pull a .45 and you may have a chance to save your wallet. And your life.
Don’t get into a fight with people that fight with knifes.
Perhaps a differant place to live?
What would they want? Your money? Your body?
It depends what you mean by effective. I would suggest that an effective form of self defence minimises danger to the user. In that respect knife fighting is ineffective since, as you say, you will get cut. More effective than being bare handed I guess, but much less effective than a handgun.
Not if follow Anal Scurvy’s suggestions apparently. You can always just “step back, maintaining a safe range, and as the blade swings past you cut his wrist”. Never any need to use another cut and so no risk of being cut yourself. 
As someon mentioned, getting into a knife fight is an all or nothing propostion.
If you go into it, you’re going into it with the intent of killing the other guy. You might get ‘lucky’ and only disable him, you might not. If you’re not fully in the mindset of killing the other guy, it’s likely you’ll be the one who ends up dead.
So count my vote for runnign away too! 
As a student of Medieval Martial Arts, dagger combat is something I do study. Medieval and Renaissance dagger combatants did not bother with disabling techniques. It is all about killing your opponent as quickly as possible while minimizing damage to yourself.
Well, first you have to go over the rules.
But really, would a move that involved a leather jacketed wrist grabbing an opponents wrist while delivering a knee to abdomen work?
In the UK if you take a weapon to someone and the police get involved you’re in deep s**t even if it is in self defence. Don’t know about the system in the US so what I’m gonna say is based purely on how things work over here:
Weapons training is all well and good but if you carry around a weapon you’re breaking the law, if you use it and get caught you’re going to prison - there’s exceptions, but that’s the general rule. If someone pulls a knife on you throw your wallet at them and run like hell screaming “HE’S GOT A KNIFE!”
Although, Shodan raised an excellent point - if someone wants to hurt/kill you with a knife then the first you’ll know about it is them stabbing you with it, they don’t brandish it around. If they want something else from you (money etc) then they’ll brandish, and the best technique is simply to give them what they want and get away.
For armed and unarmed responses to a knife, there’s stuff which works well enough but like Glitch said, prepare to get cut.
Asking weather a “move would work” in a real situation is kinda like asking “Would gravel, paprika and squid ink taste good if i was a goat…and drunk?”. It may, but who knows until you try it, in that situation? If it does/doesn’t work once, who is to say it will again? When someone is trying to stab you probably isnt the best time to experiment.
That isn’t what I meant. I meant would that be a part of any training, or an effective counter attack?
Instinctively, most people if they try and fight a guy with a knife will grab hold of the knife-weilding hand at the wrist and hang on to it for dear life. Sure you can train yourself not to do this, but I say why argue with your instincts? Develop them and make them more useful. Grab that wrist (hey, at least you know where the knife is) and try and headbutt/knee/bite the guy, smash his kneecaps, stamp on the instep, anything to get the upper hand. Grappling could work quite well here (especially if there’s a wall you could smash them into) but it has the disadvantage of putting your body in close proximity to the knife, therefore increasing your chances of being cut.