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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.