[younggunz]

Originally Posted by KravMagaLuv

I have to tell you thats what i was asking myself for quite some time. Untill i spoke with some people who have actually had to use these techniques in real life. There is no question thats the techniques they have learned saved their lives. Ofcourse you can never be 100% ready for everything... but you can come very close to that if you learn from the right instructor who actually knows and has used what he teaches.

I personally love this site: www.kravmagabootcamp.com I recently joined and have to tell you that they cover tons of different possible scenarios. Its amazing how many different situations you can be ready for.

also, I'm comfortable over there because i know an Instructor can't get more legitimate then the head of the Israeli Defense Forces Krav Maga school.

Hope this helps.
Thanks,
noob.

P.S- found this on youtube for ya.

unfortunately self defense in the military is used as a way of culturing instinct and confidence ,rather than true to life principles. This applies to all special forces, special operations, special warfare, etc...This is a verbatim statement from one of of my instructors talking about unarmed vs knife combat.
" the first thing to realize when you are engaged by an assailant with a knife is, choose the area in which you will be cut".
In short, defend yourself with a weapon, move, or limit the damage and react accordingly

[Ranger]

Fma

[pittelp]

Wow.

[nekopanfan]

i train pekiti tirsia kali, which roughly translates as close quarters combat. one of the main things we deal with is extreme close-quarters knife attacks. I've never had to use it in a real life situation thankfully, but I have faith in the training to increase my chances should such a time arise. our style is used to train the filipino marines who combat muslim rebels in the northern jungles of the country, and it also the basis for the training received by the texas highway patrol. I myself have only been training a couple of years, but some of the guys I have had the opportunity to train with are simply phenomenal in terms of both speed, strength, and technique.

as a general rule, don't go for disarms. with adrenaline running and your heart upwards of 160+ in the event of an encounter with a knife, your motor skills dwindle significantly and you can only really rely on gross motor movements. the idle would be to either verbally diffuse the situation or flee before you had to actually deal with the knife, but things don't always work out that way. knife fights aren't about honor or any silly shit, they're about survival. no one wins in a knife fight, and if you do engage you are very likely to bleed, armed or not. best strategy if you have to is to engage an attacker is to pass the knife, stun, and run.

[Gregster]

Originally Posted by Jermaine Andre

This is Jermaine Andre'. I train personal bodyguards and police officers and one of our main concerns is disarming attackers armed with a firearm. There were recent tests done on how long it takes to draw and accurately fire a firearm into a target and the average was two seconds. It was also determined that an individual with a knife at ten feet would make it to the person drawing the firearm and cut him before he could fire and this was drawing from the hip. Hence, a person who knows how to strike properly could take down a person with a weapon before he could draw and accurately fire. Furthermore, it does take time to draw a weapon and I train agents to go for the weapon while the person is attempting to draw it. Now I would never put hand to hand combat up against a drawn and properly aimed weapon unless you had no choice but to take a bullet and hope for your "dead man's ten seconds", but a properly trained and quick thinking unarmed individual does have a chance at taking down an armed individual. Especially if that armed individual puts all of his faith into thinking that he is automatically going to win just becasue he has a firearm. Remember also that a weapon has no loyalties to it's former owner.

Ah, good to have the perspective of a professional here. Welcome, sir.

And I'm glad you brought this up since it raises what I think is a valid question: what is entailed with drawing a gun and firing "aimed shots"?

I ask because I've seen the infamous vid where some police officer goes through a variety of scenarios where he tries to draw his/her sidearm and take down a knife-wielding attacker. If you've seen it, then you know how the story ends 100% of the time: the knife-wielding attacker manages to close the distance and skin, de-bone, and filet the cop before his weapon is at the ready. Looks pretty scary.

Here's the thing: in almost every instance I recall, the cop draws his/her weapon and (per their firearms training, I assume) and begins to assume a proper "Weaver stance," which is great for engaging targets at a distance or when you have the drop on them but absolutely idiotic when someone is charging at you full-tilt-bozo and brandishing a knife. I had thought more and more departments were teaching "instinctive shooting" and other techniques for-- I hate to say "hip-shooting," but I can't think of a better term-- engaging targets close enough to smell their breath and tell what they had for lunch.

Example: think of the scene in Collateral where Tom Cruise ("Vincent," the hit-man) retrieves his attache case from the two "homies" in the alley seconds after they jack Jamie Foxx while he's flex-cuffed to his taxis' steering wheel. The "alpha dog" approaches and once he's toe-to-toe with VIncent, Vincent parries the guys' gun hand while leaning back slightly, drawing his gun just enough to get it parallel to the deck, and double-taps him in the torso before turning and performing the "Mozambique Drill" on Thug #2 as he's fishing his gun from his waistband. With the exception of Cruise raising his hands as if surrendering (thus putting them in the bad-guys' line of sight) I thought that the whole gambit looked pretty textbook.

And, I thought, this is what you do when someone is sprinting at you with a knife. It was my understanding (not to flog the point to death...) that more and more departments, having collated and analyzed hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands) of officer-involved shootings and-- upon finding that the majority were taking place the distances ranging from a few feet to the sort of distance most of us engage others during sex-- were adding such tactics to the marksmanship curriculum of their officer training courses.

But I agree, overall, with the sentiment that bold/direct/decisive action can overwhelm an armed attacker. My buddy, back in his bar-bouncing days, disarmed and rendered helpless a handful of guys who tried pulling pig-stickers or other such weapons. This included an incident with one fool who-- while confronting and shit-talking another bouncer-- jammed his hand into his pants, making as if to have a gun, and he RNC'd his dumb ass to sleep so fast he didn't know what hit him. Another individual-- my father-- has a nice Italian-made switchblade he took off a guy over 40 years ago in a fight that took place in Germany during the beginning of his Army career.

My buddy was a 3rd-Dan, and Dad was schooled in nothing more than the lessons learned growing up in a blue-collar section of Pittsburgh that was adjacent to some even rougher neighborhoods back in the old days when interpersonal disputes were likely to be settled with fists, or (worst-case scenario) knifes, bats, brass "knucks," or improvised weapons like a roll of quarters in a balled fist or a belt with a heavy buckle on it. Both men prevailed by doing the same thing: essentially, as soon as their opponent moved as if to grab a weapon-- BOOM!-- hit 'em like a freight train, end of fight.

(Whoops...I may have mentioned this already in this very thread...that last part, anyway...;) )

[Halls]

After reading the last few posts on gun vs. knife I thought I'd post again pertaining to this scenario.
Dog Brothers Die Less Often 2 : Bringing a gun to a knife fight trailer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=THW-c6E5nvs

I own DLO 1 and look forward to buying DLO 2. Gabe Suarez and Guro Crafty did a great job on this aspect of functional martial arts for LEOs and gun carrying civilians.

As far as knife vs. empty hand Pekiti Tersia and Sayoc Kali are hands down the best methods out there. Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje gives many seminars during the summer all over the country. If you are at all interested in knife training I suggest attending at least 1 day of a seminar. A FMA backround will help but not necessary for these seminars. Just be prepared for a strenuous workout.

[Flexwave2003]

Originally Posted by Halls

After reading the last few posts on gun vs. knife I thought I'd post again pertaining to this scenario.
Dog Brothers Die Less Often 2 : Bringing a gun to a knife fight trailer
YouTube - DLO 2 Trailer

I own DLO 1 and look forward to buying DLO 2. Gabe Suarez and Guro Crafty did a great job on this aspect of functional martial arts for LEOs and gun carrying civilians.

As far as knife vs. empty hand Pekiti Tersia and Sayoc Kali are hands down the best methods out there. Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje gives many seminars during the summer all over the country. If you are at all interested in knife training I suggest attending at least 1 day of a seminar. A FMA backround will help but not necessary for these seminars. Just be prepared for a strenuous workout.

Hey Halls,
How have you been man? Good to see you around, your opinion holds alot of water in my book.

As for my personal opinion on knife disarming, yes ofcourse its possible to train to disarm a blade weilding opponent. But it should be your absolute last option to try to disarm an opponent with your bare hands, no weapon. Your first idea should to escape, or run away. You dont want the stress of dealing with someone with a knife, trust me. If running isnt an option, then look for a weapon. If a weapon isnt available, then its a good idea to know what to do once the attack happens. A majority of the time you're going to be in a load of trouble, but its better to be prepared to disarm an attacker then to not be. Ive had the oppurtunity to train in AikiJitsu and have learned quite a few disarming techniques as a result. However Im not foolish enough to think Im invincable and that it is fair to fight someone with a knife while I am disarmed because I learned"what to do against someone with a knife". Its a dangerous task to mess with someone with a knife, but sometimes this shit happens in life and you may want to know the basics of what to do.

[WestSideBJJ]

Unless you can find a Filiphino Martial Arts school, Krav Maga is your best bet. They have schools in almost every large city. And you guys shouldnt forget about running away. The second I see someone pull a blade on me, I'm running at full speed. Avoid being falling to the ground, or getting cornered by all means, if either happens you gonna get cut for sure.

[Gregster]

Originally Posted by Jiu-Jitsu Cop

I do carry a baton and a ASP ( Collapsable baton). To answer your question about being forced to use them against a knife. Yes I feel fairly confident but that is based off of my martial arts training (29 years). I would not want to go baton against knife but given the scenerio of no other choice I would do what I have to do. I teach Police tactics and have a website www.KibunInc.com

The reason cops go one up in the use of force is that the law allows us to. The bottom line is that I want to go home to my family at night. I am of course not looking to get into a knife fight but my job requires me to confront people who are armed. I have been in many confrontations in which a person has fought with the Police (I work in a tough area), and most of the people when I see them a week later they apologize and say they were drunk or having a bad day. For this reason (along with many others) if we do not have to escalate the use of force to the point of using a gun we try not to.

I carry a decent knife made by Beaver Creek. There are better knives out there but everytime I spend $100 or more on a knife I lose it.

INteresting.

If I may sidebar here a sec: I'd be pretty stoked if an actual cop-- and not some know-it-all dingbat who's never spent a day on the job-- would start a thread and get an intelligent discussion going on Tasers. This occurred to me when I read your post and thought of all the War Room threads (and believe me, it ain't just this board) where people whine about them like the po-pos are just going around looking for any chance to jump-start someone for any reason.

Specific areas I'd like to see covered:

1) Are they really over-used? IN your jurisdiction, or others?
2) Do cops like them?
3) How well do they work?
4) How bad does it really suck to get tased? I'm pretty sure all cops get tased once before they get signed off by their departments to carry one; every cop I know who'se carried one says it sucks, but not bad enough to cause some of the hysterical reactions one sees in a lot of the dash-cam videos from police traffic stops that end in someone getting zapped.

P.S. I got an ASP that goes with me in my car everywhere; an extended, 2-hand model. I love it.

[sleepwalk]

Best knife defense is keeping your wits when you get cut. It will happen. Other than that, I say bait and trap. You may still get cut. But there's only so much they can do if they're limited to wrist or finger movement. A Chalk stick makes for a great practice knife because it marks and does so with indication. If its a faint line, you got lucky or did good. If its thick and distinct, try something else because you just got gutted.