KNIFE SURVIVAL 101

To a lot of martial artists, self-defense specialists and street-fighters, knife encounters represent their most feared challenge. The superiority of a gun in a street mugging is an accepted fact but the potential devastation of a knife is so distinct its terror quotient is unrivaled in close quarters combat. A gun is unidirectional. Its advantage is in distance. But its unidirectional character is more manageable in close quarters than a knife. A knife will cut you from any angle conceivable. It can travel at 95 miles per hour like a baseball fast ball. In close quarters the knife has its advantages over a handgun.

In muggings the knife is so fearsome, the most macho dude can cower like a bullied grade schooler and the most muscled gym freak can be reduced to a crying wimp. A lot of dojo trained martial artists lost their lives to a street knife fighter. Facing the knife is indeed one of the greatest enigmas in self-defense studies.

We must thoroughly understand the nature of the knife and how it is wielded before we can entertain how to defend against it.

The knife does not need much power to inflict damage. Mere contact with its edge and point is enough. It moves in all the possible angles where the arms of the wielder can go. It can come from a curved thrust like a Kali knife lunge.

Having to face the knife is basically enterring the point-of-no-return. It is enterring "deathground". Sun Tzu once said that on "death ground fight!". So if you engage a knife wielder you are basically in the area of combatives and not in  a low level threat situation.

A lot has failed against the knife because they engage the knife fighter with a mere self-defensive mentality. Second, one does not engage weapons with an empty-hands approach. As much as possible, you must try to equalize the situation by deploying your own weapon. In fact, always try to stack the odds in your favor. If he pulls a gun, you pull a cannon, if he pulls a cannon, you nuke 'em!

When a samurai uses jujitsu aganst a sword, it is because he lost his weapon and is hoping against hope to disarm his opponent to equalize the situation. A samurai would always prefer to have his sword.

Let us remember, in a knife encounter we employ empty hand techniques as a means to deploy our own weapon or to disarm the wielder before an attack can be effectively launched. But given a choice we must use weapons againsts weapons. We must use metsuboshi techniques to distract the knife fighter so we can deploy our own knives.

However, a knife encounter sitation must be avoided at all times, unless you are a soldier commanded to search and destroy the enemy.

Your threat management must be effecient enough to prevent you from getting into such situations.

Once you are in an "ambush site" like dark alleys, crime-prone areas, etc. a knife attacker will not show his knife at a distance. You will be introduced to his weapon at close proximity. If that happens that means your threat management has failed you and you are now in deep shit. 

Once you enterred the point-of-no-return, only one comes out alive. In some cases no one comes out at all!