Blocks against knife attack

[shinobitribe]

We did a class on various blocks such gedan uke,khake uke, soto uke etc that can be used against knife attacks.In your opinion what is the most efficient and safest block against knife attacks? Cheers

[MasterPain]

Redirect, redirect, redirect. More on this when I get home.

[evergrey]

Running like your life depends on it.

[Drew]

Which blocks work and which don't really all depends on the knife itself and the way in which the attacker wields it.

Is the knife very short, or very long? Is the attacker holding it upside down or right side up?

It is much easier to use karate style blocks against a short weapon being wielded upside down, than say a butcher knife being held right side up.

Not to say that short knives aren't dangerous, or that the upside down grip cannot be used to great effect. Its just that your defense must change with the situation, and I've found karate blocks to work best against the upside down grip.

When fighting the right side up grip, I prefer to take a wrestlers approach and gain two-on-one wrist control of the offending hand, and work from there.

That being said, I like to do the same thing against the alternate grip, karate blocks don't do it for me.

As for the length of the weapon, the longer it is, the more evasive you must be until you have a chance to close the distance and take it away. Think fighting a fellow with a baseball bat or a sword. You have to evade until they are off balance or you going to get clobbered by the weapon. Against someone who knows what they are doing you are almost certain to lose anyway.

I seem to have digressed. My point is that I feel there are better ways to defend against knifes (or other weapons) than with karate blocks.

Coincidentally, have you ever explored using karate blocks as wrist grab releases? Read Shotokan's Secret by Bruce Clayton, very enlightening.

[MasterPain]

Some good points, Drew.

I made a short video on this subject. Bear in mind, when possible, escape is better, but if you have your kids or someone else that can't run depending on you, or otherwise can't run away- perhaps you're a LEO- you may need to stay and defend yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JCblFSVu58

I would look into some of Paul Vunak's stuff. He has some excellent material.

[Zaine]

Redirect, redirect, redirect. More on this when I get home.

Pretty much the long and short of it, absolutely.

This would only be if you had to fight an attacker with a knife though. My teacher once told us to run from a knife, and to a gun.

[MasterPain]

Redirect, redirect, redirect. More on this when I get home.

Pretty much the long and short of it, absolutely.

This would only be if you had to fight an attacker with a knife though. My teacher once told us to run from a knife, and to a gun.

Here's my big thing on this, you were told to run, but have you trained escape?

Have you trained maneuvering around obstacles, using chairs or tables or random implements between you and your attacker to hold range?

Have you tried getting out the door while someone is trying to cut you?

How fast can you run? Can you outrun the majority of people?

Where do you run to?

What if your in your home?

Do you have children that may be with you? An elderly person?

Are you armed to the extent that local law allows? If not, why?

These are HUGE questions when dealing with weapon defense training, and should be given serious thought by anyone who trains these things.

[tallgeese]

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said to date. Nice vid, by the way MP.

One other aspect to consider is that there are three (to my training) factors to deal with an armed attack. You have to think about:

a) control the weapon

b)control the distance

c)esclate weapons

So when we look at controling the weapons, we're usually dealing with redirecting and block type things. This is related to distance, of course, but its own prinicple.

People often neglect to think about or train the next two. Which are at least as important, if not more so, than the first. If you're planning on escalating, you need to practice doing it. Distance can be a fickle thing depending on what he and you are using, so you need to train for it against various weapons and aggressor types.

As for controlling the weapon, my approach is a bit differnt the MP's in that I have much less FMA cross triaining. Very little in fact. I tend to utilize redirections primarily off the backside of my arm and into a two hands on his weapons arm for control. This lets me access my joint position training. I'll dig around and see if I have video.

[bushido_man96]

Some good points, Drew.

I made a short video on this subject. Bear in mind, when possible, escape is better, but if you have your kids or someone else that can't run depending on you, or otherwise can't run away- perhaps you're a LEO- you may need to stay and defend yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JCblFSVu58

I would look into some of Paul Vunak's stuff. He has some excellent material.

Very good stuff. I like it a lot. You do a technique that I've practiced before as the "block/pass/pin." My DT partner is into Hock Hockheim's system, and that is a pretty big staple there, and we've worked with it before. Thanks for sharing this.

[brickshooter]

A while back I watched a knife defense seminar. They gave the attacker a yellow marker to simulate a knife, then they line up "expert" defenders. One after the other, everyone was getting "marked up."

Wrist grabs, double hand defense, traps, etc. all failed. One main reason was that the attacker was using multiple stabs. And some defenders were able to stop the first stab, they were unable to stop follow up stabs. The overwhelming majority of other people were unable to execute their sophisticated yet complicated knife defense while under pressure.

Until they get to the last guy. The attacker starts with a direct stab to the abdomen. The defender responded with 1 basic low block. The type taught in the first day of all Karate schools. The one that no one ever uses after day one including me.

Because of the impact of this low block, the attacker was momentarily stunned and unable to follow up with multiple stabs. The defender immediately punched the attacker, stunning him again. Then the defender throws the attacker to the ground with a hip throw, mounted him and pounded him with one hand while pinning the attacker's knife hand to the ground with the other hand.

This was the only defender who survived the attack.

It was a big eye openner for me who have for years dismissed the Karate low block as an invitation to punch me in the head. Looking back, it occurs to me that the defender probably practiced that simple worthless low block tens of thousands of times.

I remember years later talking to a Krav Maga coach who explained to me that the mechanics of a knife defense shouldn't be any different than a defend verus a punch, except that timing as to be more dead on.

Anyways, that was my experience. You guys can come to your own conclusion.