Traditionally, kempo teaches knife defenses against basic thrust or slash attacks, but I have changed my thinking to a more ‘Filipino’ based paradigm. Since arts like Modern Arnis and Kali fit so well with Kempo, it seemed natural to blend in their knife defenses. I’m not the only one, as demonstrated by John Geyston in these clips. The first one is where he outlines some basic attack angles to consider:
And this one shows an example of one of his techniques:
I felt that the traditional defenses were too static and relied on compliant attackers. They might work on an inexperienced attacker with a highly committed strike, but when tested (with a training knife) against a determined attacker with just a little experience, the defender tended to get sliced to ribbons.
I’ve actually gone a step further with how I teach knife defenses, in that I don’t tend to teach ‘Techniques’ any more. What I’ve done with my classes is break down the problems inherent in a knife encounter, and try to have the students apply the principles to solve those problems. The defense becomes a flowing process, rather than a step by step rote routine that crashes as soon as some unexpected variable comes in. We use the same mindset to evaluate existing techniques that we see. Did we not get cut on the initial strike? Did we begin to control the movement of the knife, and then the person? Did we seal off the next attack? Did we finish solving the problem / neutralizing the threat? If yes, than the technique might be okay, if not, chuck it.
How do you teach knife defenses? I think it is one of the hardest things to do, and naturally low percentage. It can get discouraging some times.
Knife techniques are some of the hardest things for me to teach also. The more I learn the blade arts, the harder I find it to defend against them. The first approach you spoke of was exactly how the SKK schools taught them. ‘Stab —- Block— do some kind of technique—finish.’ I will say this though,, at least they were teaching something against knives, other schools do not teach any defenses for weapons at all.
Then SGM Pesare taught us about blade fighting, we put on the fencing gear and went at it. Fact was, everyone died (if it were real). That was a rude awakening to my beliefs, I now teach fewer techniques and only to older students. Another instructor, Guro Dan Donzela, has taught me a completely different approach to it now. He prefers to teach the blade first and the defense later. Guro Donzella has a quote that goes something like this -“How can you defend something you know nothing about?” Which makes perfect sense to me now, because that is what we do in Kempo. We usually teach the basics of the kicks, punches and stances. Then show them defenses to them…hmm.
Jesse
Every time I teach a knife defense the very first thing I say to the student is “winners drip, losers gush”. It is hard for me to say we need to toss our knife techniques because we get cut in practice. I think we need to look at our knife defenses the same way we look at our open hand defenses, they are a starting point. The plain fact of the matter is in any confrontation the likely hood of pulling off an entire technique from beginning to cross and cover out is extremely unlikely. The same I believe true for knife defenses. As we grow as martial artists we should be more cognative of the danger of the blade and of the practitioner who knows how to use it. There for we should increase our knowledge in these arts to know how to better defend against it. So I think rather than discard techniques allow them to be influenced by each step you take to better understanding the weapon. Again to paralel the open handed techniques my #6 is far better today then it was 16 years ago when I learned it and I could easily teach an entire class on all the different intricacys. Hopefully we will be able to do the same with the more advanced material as we better understand the motion, variables and outcomes behind them.
agreed Justin,
I am not saying toss all knife techniques, just the ones where i get cut to much. A lot of the original SKK knife techniques where taught on false pretenses. I still cringe when i think of someone teaching a right crescent kick to the attacking arm. ahhhhh.
Jesse
oooooohhh, yeah absolutely!! I forgot about ever seeing those to be honest. I was taught a handful of knife techniques most with solid principles some need a little more work then others.
I would be interested in hearing more of the knife defense philosohpy you are teaching. Like Justin i have a few knife techniques with solid basics andwe learn them static but progress to something more dynamic. I also teach that in a knife confrontation you will likely get cut…how badly depends on your training…and mine as a teach i guess. So help me to get better,please.
respectfully,
Marlon