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Iain Abernethy
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The lies of knife fighting

A superb article from Marc MacYoung on the lies of knife fighting:

http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/knifelies.html

“The only place where the knife fighting fantasy exists is in the martial arts. There is no such thing in the modern civilized world. In legal terms it is attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon or homicide. To the streetfighter it is assassination, not a "fight" at all. To the criminal it is a tool for robbery. Everyone else considers it abhorrent macho stupidity.

…The myth of grappling is that it works everywhere. The fact that it proved so successful in the UFC ring has blinded many people to the fact that there are critical differences between fighting barehanded and fighting with weapons. While empty-hand fighting might easily turn into an endurance marathon, where size, strength, physical shape and ability to endure punishment significantly influence the outcome of an altercation, that is not applicable to weapons work. In that arena, every man bleeds the same.

… Do not attempt to "grapple" with a knifer. Once on the ground, you are not guaranteed to be able to control his knife arm well enough to prevent him from carving you up. If it were a barehanded fight, then you can often prevent him from being able to generate enough power to effectively strike you, but a knife doesn't need power, it just needs to touch you. And if you are attempting to control his arm while on the ground, he will wiggle free and repeatedly cut you until you can no longer continue to resist.”

Please follow the above link to read the full article.

All the best,

Iain

Dale Parker
Dale Parker's picture

This is very graphic, not for the feint of heart, or weak of stomach.

http://www.hipointfirearmsforums.com/forum/f300/why-cops-shoot-guys-kniv...

DaveB
DaveB's picture

Dale, the comments in that link make me glad I live in a place with an unarmed police force. I agree completely that a knife wielder should be taken very seriously, but "just shoot him" is still a bit much for me.

Scott McCallum
Scott McCallum's picture

I was for 17 years an unarmed Police Officer  as a constable and then sergeant in two seperate UK police services.  I am now an armed Police Officer in western canada.  I am trained to respond to a knife with a gun and I am glad of the training that I have recieved.  The link above, whether accurate in context or not still shows the very real consequences of a knife on the human body.

If I am to decide who goes home at the end of a violent, life threatening confrontation, I would be satisfied that I did not create the situation I merely had to resolve it.  This requires that police officers act with good intention, and within the legal contraints of their training.  I can't always promise that this is the case, but I know a lot more good guys in uniform than I know bad guys.

Scott McCallum
Scott McCallum's picture

This was a long clip, shown to us in training, and available on Youtube...

Warning: Not Suitable for Under 18s

Now in this video there are inumerable problems with this, and although tradgic, ultimately it's incidents like this that cause developments in police training.  Now there are many opinions people have of those in my profession, but in confronting real violence, which is unpredictable, explosive and terrifying and then add in the officers mind, legality, operational necessity, the need to protect the public, their thoughts of family, (is this the day i dont get to go home?) and roll them up into a tight little bundle, add a perseption reaction time of approximately 1.25 -2 seconds and expect the officer to make a snap judgement that will resist peer analysis, court trial, monday morning quarterback second guessing, and the opinions of people who's only experiance of violence is watching the A-team, I'm just amazed we get it right as often as we do.

It is the exceptional character of most officers that allow them to get a lucky roll of the dice but when it goes wrong the whole world hears about it....

Just as an interesting exercise try this...if you've seen it before then forgive me but i think it makes a good point.....

Often people re assessing a judgement call ask them self why didnt the officer see such and such, or how can you expect us to believe he didn't x, y or z.

Lt Col Dave Grossman has some excellent work on the effect of violence on the human body, On Killing, etc. It explains some interesting effects that occur to individuals in extreme stress events.  It's worth reading for anyone looking to understand their own body and likely effects of real fear and adrenalin in a life or death situation.

I hope this doesnt come across as a rant.

Scott

Dale Parker
Dale Parker's picture

DaveB, I was just passing information on.  Most police in the USA are probably trained to use gun's against knives.  Personally I don't condone it.

I live in the State of Iowa, in a particularly rural area.  I have lived in large cities, and often miss the convienance, but the violence is considerably less here in rural Iowa.

While I don't condone violence, with guns or knives, I do still use the old adage, "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight."  I firmly do believe in being prepaired.

Can I ask where you hail from?

Steve Gombosi
Steve Gombosi's picture

Dale Parker wrote:

DaveB, I was just passing information on.  Most police in the USA are probably trained to use gun's against knives.  Personally I don't condone it.

As a result of the Tueller Drill (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill) and the 1989 FBI study on handgun effectiveness, I believe most departments in the US adhere to the so-called "21-foot rule" (the "6.4 metre rule" for those of you in rational countries ;-) ) when dealing with knofe-wielding suspects. It's very easy for an officer to be overwhelmed and severely injured (or killed) by an attacker inside that range, even if he manages to shoot his assailant. As the FBI study noted, even mortally wounded assailants can continue to attack for a considerable period of time before they're incapacitated by their wounds. For the text of this study, see: http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf.

Scott McCallum
Scott McCallum's picture

When I transfered from the UK to my current police service that (use of force responses to a knife) was part of our training. In one scenario we entered a room with a distressed male who as the incident progresses ended up attacking us, we were each armed with simunitions and about 80 percent of us were contacted by the assailent before we were able to incapacitate the threat. Most handgun calibers, although capable of lethal injury are not "Man-stoppers" by any stretch of the imagination. They are not high velocity rounds due to the risk of over penetration and certainly our .40 cal rounds will not guarentee to stop a determined attacker with a fixated mindset.

If you can find information on the death of Trooper Coates. A US State trooper you may find it interesting. Due to unfortunate shot placement he died as a result of a .22 cal round severing his aeorta. Whereas the offender was struck by 5 round .357 to centre of mass and survived. Its a roll of the dice. As such I can wholeheartedly accept the reluctance of any sane person to subscribe to a mindset of shoot first ask questions later, a knife is a grevious bodily harm or death type weapon and anyone who carries one and choses to become a threat to others is responsible for the outcome of their actions. I would be interested to hear what alternative options individuals would prefer to see officers use and then see if they confirm that choice would be the one they would want the officer to use if that officer were someone they were close to.

I have used communication and negotiation, I have used non lethal alternatives, and have on one particularly entertaining situation found myself withing 10 feet of a man high on crack and seen moments earlier with two large butcher knives standing with his hands behind his back when my colleagues taser failed to discharge correctly. In all of these situations my ultimate use of force was drawn to control the situation and protect myself and others, it has not yet been the method by which I resolved the incident.

Thankfully

Scott

Russ
Russ's picture

Marc MacYoung's article should be essential reading for all martial artists and for instructors in particular. I would be interested in hearing what type of training is conducted by instructors or received by students. Today, I consider the training we received years ago to be irresponsible in that the training was very irregular and purely against specific thrusting or slashing attacks. As the article points out, these are totally unrealistic but the students are left with the impression that what they did against an attack with a wooden knife will be sufficient to save their lives. 

Because I teach defence against someone with a knife I have attended a number of seminars by people who claim to be experts in the field. To be honest, for most people they were mainly a waste of time and money. Many of the techniques are suspect, they are all against a specific attack and unless they are drilled constantly, they are never going to work under pressure.

How does knife defence fit into your training and if it is part of your training, how often do you train it and how do you make it realistic?

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi Russ,

All very valid observations. I did a podcast on weapon defence a few years ago that gives my thoughts on the topic:

http://www.iainabernethy.co.uk/content/weapon-defence

Russ wrote:
How does knife defence fit into your training and if it is part of your training, how often do you train it and how do you make it realistic?

Our whole “knife defence” system can be taught in a mater of hours and it’s very simple. It’s made up of four elements primarily drilled live:

1 – Awareness of potential weapons. Jamming on the possible / attempted draw, impact and flee

2 – Slapping away the arm that is presenting the weapon (weapon is being used to threaten / intimidate), impact and flee

3 – The weapon arm is too far away to get to, but the enemy is too close to make running a safe option. We have a talking posture we assume to limit attacking options and give the best chance of moving offline should an attack be launched. (This needs taught in person, because if I describe it is it sure to get misunderstood).

4 – The scrabble! The previous elements have not worked / have been rendered irrelevant and all hell has broken loose. We have a position we take to gain control over the weapon arm in order to prevent further stabbing. From there, we can impact and escape. (Again, this needs taught in person).

Absolutely no disarms are taught (too complex) and the close, frantic and chaotic nature of such situations are acknowledged. As I say, it’s very simple and we reject 99% of what is presented as “weapon defence”. I’ve taught the full “system” in under 1 hour and from there it’s just a matter of regular practise.

All the best,

Iain

Scott McCallum
Scott McCallum's picture

One tool I found very effective in the police training here in Canada was the use of the 'Shocknife' this is an electrical discharge tool that mimics the pain of a slash and induces a very realistic desire not to be touched by the blade. The ability to possess it would vary depending on your location but unlike the standard rubber or wooden knifes it does introduce the parasympathetic responses during training.  they are expensive, but for a group that is considering this kind of training on a regular basis it might be a good investment.  It certainly takes a significant amount of the fantasy away after you've been bitten by it a couple of times.

Just an idea for those able to obtain and train with it legally.

Scott 

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Scott McCallum wrote:
One tool I found very effective in the police training here in Canada was the use of the 'Shocknife' this is an electrical discharge tool that mimics the pain of a slash and induces a very realistic desire not to be touched by the blade.

Definitely a great training tool and the video below explains more for those who’ve never seen them before.

Scott McCallum wrote:
The ability to possess it would vary depending on your location … Just an idea for those able to obtain and train with it legally.

Worth pointing out that this excludes those of us who reside in the UK. I’m unsure of the rest of Europe, but it would be an illegal item under our weapons laws. Scott knows this as a former UK police officer (who trained with me and whose old home I can see out of the office window J), but I thought I’d underline that before those in the UK got all excited, only to be disappointed.

Is it legal for civilians in Canada Scott? Or is it solely available for law enforcement training?

All the best,

Iain

Scott McCallum
Scott McCallum's picture

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view point), Civilian possesion of conductive energy weapons (CEW's) are prohibited by law in canada, however I know you have a number of international contributers to the forum and I believe the product is legal in the majority of the US and certain countries in Europe as I expect it to follow the same legislation as taser and other CEW's.  This being said, I understand the US company will only sell the product to Law Enforcement/ Corrections and Military clients. The US company showns an number of European distributors of the product however .  European and US members who fit the bill might be interested in the product and having been bitten by it I know that it certainly focuses the mind.:)

As in all things I would hope that anyone looking to purchase one would check their own state/province/countries legal stance on the product.  As a Collision Reconstructionist in my department, my current specialty is in dead bodies and car crashes, and so the usual internet caveat applies.....dont take my word for it--- people should make their own informed decisions ! :)

Scott

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Thanks for that Scott - very useful.