A few "Knife Myths" that can make you victorious... or get you killed!
Myth: You can fight unarmed against a knife.
Fact: Knives kill, in many cases (such as close range), much faster than guns. NEVER take on an opponent with a knife if you are unarmed. Get a weapon if you have to stay to protect your family or a fallen officer, but get away if you can. You can succeed with a baton, frying pan, hammer, axe, or even a rock against a knife if you are very lucky and highly trained, but NEVER unarmed. Systems and teachers that teach "knife control," "unarmed knife defense," or "knife disarming," are stupid, inexperienced and foolish and will get you killed. Your advantage: what is an "unarmed expert" called who tries to take YOUR knife, gun or baseball bat away? Answer: dead! Read why below...
Myth: You can pull a gun and shoot a knife attacker before he can kill you if he's at least 20 feet away.
Fact: If the knife combatant is wearing a vest and already has the knife quietly drawn, he can kill 95% of even the top gun combat experts. Reason: in closing the distance, halfway there, your option to shoot to the head is gone or diminished. If you got even briefly stuck in clothing in your draw, had to chamber or take a safety off, had to set a trigger (eg. either mentally, or on a revolver), you'll be dead. If you got a shot to his vest and he took your throat out, you lose. If you are a police officer and not trained in immediate head shots, you die. If your shot does not immediately sever his spine or motor cortex (very unlikely in a fast draw/shoot situation), he is VERY LIKELY NOT to miss your eyes or throat, as a knife is FAR more accurate and certain, in it's range, than a gun. The more highly trained you are with a gun the more danger you're in. First: Mozambique will waste two shots center mass and you'll be dead before you can get to the head shot. Second: "Highly trained" means you're constantly worried about the legal ramifications of shooting someone who is unarmed. If the knife thug screamed "I'm unarmed" and charged you, your external carotid, subclavian, throat or eyes will be severed by the time you decide you can shoot. Worst of all: a gun might tempt you to stand your ground, when the safest option was to get the hell out of there!
Myth: You can "size up" a knife fighter by whether he slashes or stabs, his posture or stance, or the way he moves.
Fact: Anyone with a knife is deadly, and the best trained are only SLIGHTLY more likely to kill you than a hostile, drugged or psychotic thug. Taking ANY time to evaluate an attacker WILL get you killed. What are the odds you'll be attacked by an Escrima, Lethalo, Haganah, Krav Maga or Applegate combatant, vs. a drugged criminal out on bail? The street attacker doesn't duel, doesn't "lead with the knife," and doesn't "show expertise by slashing." As President of the largest Prison Security company in the US, our founder has interviewed and worked with hundreds of convicted knife killers. "I hide it till the last second, then shank em" is a typical quote. When asked about slashing, a prisoner will tell you "the sharp end of my toothbrush don't slash." Prisoners don't use their left hand to cover their heart, cover their throat, or "block", they use them to gouge your eyes, stab your throat, and turn your weak side to them for the multiple shank stabs that last about 1.2 seconds.
Myth: It is unfair for a cop or citizen to shoot a criminal who is "ONLY" wielding a knife.
Fact: We hear this BS in IA hearings all the time. Those "Citizen shooting review boards" (as in San Francisco) are the WORST. These IDIOTS don't have a clue how lucky an officer was to have stopped a knife attack with a gun in the first place, and we tell them so in non diplomatic terms. Use this to your advantage: kill your gun attacker with a knife, and breeze by the stupid jury!! Moral: if you do shoot a knife wielder, watch out!
Myth: Use the biggest, heaviest, baddest looking blade you can get your hands on.
Fact: Tactically, big blades can be awesome, but are only marginally more deadly than a small palmed razor knife. Fancy designs like the eagle claw etc. stick in bone and cannot do successful (and critical) comma cuts. Knives named "The Terminator," are loved by prosecutors. Knives (eg: swords) too big to conceal lose the biggest advantage of all knife combat: deception and stealth. In your dark house, you behind the light, you with a vest, thug IN the light, ok, use that Katana or Kukri, but he'd better of had a really big gun, because the DA will hold up both the "long knife" and severed head in front of the jury box! Your poor defense attorney will "only" have the teensy .380 to show-- to 12 people too dumb to get out of jury duty. Even in the weapon-friendly state of Arizona, the Phoenix knife carry laws say that your "folding pocket knife" cannot "be proved to be designed for self defense." Luckily, this doesn't apply if you have your CCW, as AZ is a State where State law overrides local regs, but NOT all States are the same! Even a thumb stud or lock back have been deemed "defense weapons" in NY and hundreds of people have had to fight the State of CA over whether a Balisong is a "dirk." It isn't, but why pay 10 grand and rot in jail while proving it isn't?
Myth: Draw your knife to threaten, then get away.
Fact: If you "show" your knife, you've already lost. The knife is a stealth/deception weapon. You can be shot (rightfully) for just pulling it. Always have it ready, but hidden, even in your palm, behind clothing or groceries, etc. Use it only to kill or disable if in a kill or be killed (ie: can't hoof it out of there) situation, THEN get away! If you have a .22 mag NAA derringer in your palm instead-- ok, but other than a direct shot from 18 inches in the eye, what if you shoot a bystander?
Myth: Martial arts knife proficiency can take years to master.
Fact: One of the leading Israeli knife combat instructors in the world says that "world class" knife combat proficiency can be achieved in 4 months. At the beginning of a chess game, there are more possible moves than there are atoms in the universe. By the fifth move, near certainty can be reached with existing databases, and by the endgame, 99% of the options are rote and cataloged. Keeping it simple and deadly is MORE effective than unrealistic martial arts systems that fail to account for the shutdown of the cortex under stress. Go ahead and check out all the squares, circles and pyramids, but CHOOSE the few basic keys that will function with gross motor cortex and automatic unconscious controls.
Myth: Women should never use knives, as the thug will just take it away and stab you with it.
Fact: At 30 feet, is it easier to take a knife or gun away? Answer: neither, you can't reach either! In a grab, grapple or struggle, which is easier to take away? If you try to fire your gun in a scuffle, the odds of hitting an unintended target, or missing the thug, skyrocket. A knife is far harder to "take away" than a gun in trained hands! If the gun isn't fully drawn, or your mind-trigger not set, the thug's eyes, arteries, hands etc. are in much greater danger if he tries to take a knife away, regardless of your size, sex or physical fitness! Notice one thing about most "Knife Expert" advice: they warn you about cuts, warn you about dangers, warn you about legalities-- and always take the position of the knife "victim." The other side of the story is FEROCITY: a small or elderly woman, the handicapped, and other "victims" become nearly as dangerous to an unarmed THUG as a trained knife assassin, without needing years of training or physical prowess. The "other side" of the coin is taking the perspective of the assailant, which can be justified in many jurisdictions against superior size, multiple attackers, etc. especially if you are infirm, disabled or elderly.
Myth: Knives can only be used in lethal attacks.
Fact: Using reverse blade, flat blade, pommel, pain, forehead, knee tendon, and snap slash techniques have been extremely effective non-lethal options for countless centuries. Japanese Sais were originally unsharpened, not as "recent" martial arts training tools, but as primarily very effective defensive tools. Knowing where, when and how to use a tool is the key! Don't forget: knives ARE deadly, and a two inch difference between side knee and back knee can mean dead vs. disabled. Part of this myth is true: ALWAYS consider your knife, and his knife, deadly. HINT on WHEN: NEVER, if you can get out of there instead!!! Imagine ANY tool you use being paraded in front of a jury. How will it look? And if you're exonerated, do you have $100,000 to retain counsel for the ensuing civil suit? After all, your attacker was a convicted mass murderer, but his mom is a New York litigation attorney who still loved him...
Myth: With the right combination of speed, accuracy and technique, a knife pro can teach you to win any knife fight.
Fact: Any "knife fight" begins as a zero sum game, as it's got to, by definition, have a winner and loser. No one "wins" a zero sum game, as both the old "prisoner's dilemma," and newer game theory models teach. From a 9/11 terrorist view, it was a negative sum game, as everyone lost (including the Arabs). From a social viewpoint, sacrificing 3,000 plus lives to send a few psychos to hell so they can't bring a suitcase nuke into a city, might actually be a social "positive sum" for many US residents. "Winning" a blade encounter can only be positive sum if you kill an attacker and get away undetected and unharmed, and save all the other lives he would have taken. It's never a "duel" -- or it degenerates back into zero sum. What's the probability of that? At that level, it's about stealth, assassination, experience, attitude and "picking your enemy before he picks you," as the 101st Airborne would say. Technique, form, style and tactics take a far second seat to strategy and awareness in that arena.
Myth: The "old secret" arts have a lot more to add than newer, modern systems.
Fact: Dancing around like a ballerina might amuse a street thug, but COMBAT today also is about having a modern high-tech EDGE. From the fields of forensics, emergency medicine, emergency preparedness, cortex shifting and anatomy, to modern metallurgy and knife design, today's fighters have tools available never dreamt of in the past. The Blade Combat course includes an astonishing update of "lethal scoring tactics" by two British emergency room docs who are also fencing experts. Their analysis of "speed of death" and "disabling realities" just can't compare to "old forms" that didn't even know what a kidney was! Hundreds of autopsy and ER reports also are compared to the relatively newer Fairbairn/Sykes "death tables," and update them for the first time ever, exclusively at BC.
Example: Fairbairn and many other older systems, relying on flatter spear points, suggest that a flat blade grip between the ribs will be more likely to pierce the heart or other vitals. Both modern forensics and newer, more effective blade designs have modified that: the ribs are rounded, and many newer designs "follow the curve" right to the vitals. The clip point also is designed, very effectively, to come "under and up," and is held completely differently than Fairbairn suggested.
The "old Samurais" would be dumbfounded at what we now know both in blade design and medicine. Jay Fisher has a great section on his site debunking the need for "200 folds of steel" popularized by the Highlander movies. Movies and reality have about 1% in common on a very good day. The movie hero who is a "gentleman" and hands the thug's knife back (after disarming him without a weapon of course), is the crash-test knife autopsy dummy in real life.
Myth: Run away after you stab the guy, you don't want to deal with the law.
Fact: If a street gang jumps you, you grab, stab and get away, odds are slightly better they won't call the cops, although other witnesses may anonymously call in your plates if you were parked nearby. You're rolling the dice if you don't call yourself, which can make your situation much worse. The odds change drastically if you're coming out of a bar in a nice neighborhood vs. being on a 9/11 flight, on what you'll "get away" with, if ever, if anything. The advice to run away or not report the incident, is as dangerous as the knife fight, as courses, instructors and books that advocate it don't care that it can't be applied to many real life situations, and is therefore unrealistic if applied as a blanket strategy. Are you going to bury the home invader in your back yard? This ain't the Sopranos, tiger. Bravo if you do, you get 10 more points on the Ferocity scale, dumb and dumber if you forget the lime, get prints or DNA in his car moving it, and/or a biodetector or dog sniffs out the nitrogen / a Raman Spectroscope finds it 20 years later.
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