Weapon defense principles

[tallgeese]

I was wondering what view everyone took out there for dealing with defending agaisnt weapons. What framework do you use to deal with the situation?

Being the prinicple guy, I'll start off with our approach.

Again, we stay away from prescribing x defese agaisnt y attack. Not to say movement training isn't important, it is. We just mean that end result is what matters, not which response you pick to deal with the situation. To do this we again focus on principle rather than specific technique.

Our principles, or considerations or even options, when dealing with weapons are:

1) Control the weapon

That is you somehow put hands on either the weapon or the limb weilding it and work it in a manner that you decide whrere the dangerous part of the weapon will be.

2) Control the distance

Here, you either focus on disengageing and moving beyond the weapon's effective range or penetrating to take control. Eitehr way, you do not stay in the range that allows the weapon user to maximimze the range that his weapon grants him. It also makes it easier for you to escape in most casees.

3) Escalate weapons

This means that you either control the distacne or the weapon long enough to access a weapon of you're own. Either one with suprior range or one that you are comfortable or anything that might give you a tactical edge.

If you work to do one or more of these three things, it becomes easier to frame your response to a weapons attack. It also becomes easier to define what it is that you are training for.

How do you accomplish each. Well, we usually apply the evade, stun, unbalance, control prinicple that I talked about in another post. Outside of that framework, everyone here can easisly come up with movments out of their systems that would accomplish each for point of reference.

Anyway, there are my thoughts, or at least those that I've been taught and seem to work for me. What else does everyone use?

[bushido_man96]

I wish that I did more weapons defense training. In time, I feel that I will, but not at my current TKD school; we just don't work with weapons. When we do, they are the standard "self-defense" joint manipulations that tend to run in MA schools.

I think that your idea of using concepts as opposed as certain techniques is a very key component. Whether it is a bat, knife, or gun, it has to be something that is adaptable to many situations in order to secure things quickly.

[tallgeese]

Sorry, haven't checked this thread for a bit.

Thanks, bushi, but in all fairness they're really not my ideas. As with all else, I've taken it from someone else and called it research . At least these come out of my principle art.

Thanks for the kind words. Maybe with a little bump here, someone else will throw somthing in.

[cross]

Those are good principles tallgeese, i follow a similar approach. A copy/paste from this thread: http://www.karateforums.com/knife-attackers-vt31738.html?highlight=neutralize

For knives specifically:(the principles come via Richard Dimitri at https://www.senshido.com).

1. Clear your body.

2. Secure the weapon hand.

3. Neutralize the attacker.

Whilst these are reasonably broad(which i feel is a good thing), they still provide provisions for all types of knife attacks you could face. Because of the dynamic nature of the attack, you cant try to attach specific techniques to the situations because the techniques used with be incidental.

Those 3 principles are the same for defense against any weapon, but obviously these is some things you do that are specific to the kind of weapon, e.g, baseball bats you understand where the weakest part of the swing is going to be(the handle) and attack that. But with those 3 principles basically everything is covered.

[tallgeese]

I agree, nicely covered. Good take on things and sufficiently broad to encoporate not only any attack by numerous response movemnets as well.

[Tiger1962]

I wish that I did more weapons defense training. In time, I feel that I will, but not at my current TKD school; we just don't work with weapons. When we do, they are the standard "self-defense" joint manipulations that tend to run in MA schools.

I think that your idea of using concepts as opposed as certain techniques is a very key component. Whether it is a bat, knife, or gun, it has to be something that is adaptable to many situations in order to secure things quickly.

I agree. My weapon training is also limited at my school, however, I plan to pursue in the future somewhere...

That being said, my thoughts would be to attempt to control the weapon through whatever means (distance, redirecting, etc.) & use it against the attacker.