Defensive Responses with a Knife

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. Let's take a look at some of the applications of the knife as a defensive tool. So we're to look at is based on our understanding of angles, how do we classify attacks coming in at us, how do we deal with those, and how do we understand what we call defensive responses. Essentially, four basic things that we do that can apply to all angles, but in some cases we'll give you more or less tactical opportunities or tactical advantages in particular situations. We'll see how that works.

In this case, what's gonna happen is Rob is gonna take a swat at me with an angle one. So he's striking. My immediate reaction is I want to get out of the way. That's the most important thing. I gotta keep myself safe.

But in the process, I also want to try to take his grip on the weapon. So let's take a look at that again. As I'm fading back, I mirror his action with my action, angle one versus angle one. I cut the flexor tendons of his forearm. He continues through on his swing.

I'm chambered across my body. I'm now looking at my second target priority which is his bicep tricep. In this case specifically, his tricep. I cut the tricep. I'm gonna monitor his elbow.

So now I've taken away ideally his grip on the weapon. Also his ability to wield the weapon effectively. But what I really want now is his mobility. My next target is gonna be his quadriceps muscle. Now, in this case, because of the position he's in, I'm actually pretty lucky in that I've got a twofer.

I could take this leg, this leg, or ideally both. Cut both of those, drop him. Again, that's my sprint to safety. So I'm combining what are natural motions as far as cutting angle one, angle four, angle three. Very easy side to side motion, very natural.

And I'm also combining that with our understanding of targeting. So if we put that together a little bit more fluidly. Rob strikes, I would cut. Cut, cut. Again, that's gonna put him down on the ground.

Put me on my sprint to safety. A little bit quicker. So as you can see, we combined our understanding of targeting flexor tendons and muscles of the forearm as our primary target. Bicep tricep is the secondary target. And finally that quadriceps muscle.

Put those together with some very natural body mechanics allowed us to target all three and take him out of the fight very quickly. Let's take a look at a defense against an angle two now. Now an angle two is gonna be a high backhand strike. This is also gonna introduce the second of our defensive responses. Against an angle one, we use what was called a pass.

We basically intercepted it with the same angle, cut it and let it go past. In this case, we use what's called a meet. So as the angle two's coming in, I'm going to cut and check. Now, I can be checking either with my palm or with the back of my arm. This comes right out of our guard position.

Simply extending this way. Either one is perfectly acceptable. This works a little bit closer up. If I see what is happening and perceive this attack sooner, I can actually reach and check with my palm instead. Again, either one'll work.

So the angle two is coming in. I cut and check. Now from this position, I'm chambered for an angle three. I'm gonna take this low line shot, take his leg first, come back and take the tricep if I can. If I've already got him down, again that's my sprint to safety.

So the angle two, he chambers cross-body. I cut and check, cut. If I've got him in this position, he hasn't gone down yet. If I need to repeat this angle three cut, cut him again. Put him down on the ground.

Again, that's my sprint to safety. Now let's look at an angle three. This is gonna introduce a defensive response we call a crossada, which means a crossing action. Because it's angle three, it's below the level of our elbows. It's gonna put it in a situation where we want to go fingers down and blade down in our defense.

So we're gonna represent that here. Rob is gonna try to stick me with kind of a hooking stab with a screwdriver coming into my side here. Again, I wanna use the most natural defensive action which is basically to hollow out, pull my hips back and try to take away the target area. What that does is it's also gonna put my hands naturally forward. Very natural thing to do, anyone swinging something at your low line.

That's something we do very instinctively. I'm also gonna turn that into my opportunity to not only cut him, but amp up that cut by using a scissor-like motion with my hands. That's where we get that term crossada from, crossing. So when he goes to stick me, I hollow out and I'm passing this through and notice that what I'm doing here is I'm actually cutting his bicep on the first shot, passing his arm through. Now I'm chambered across my body.

Once again, I follow my targeting priorities. I'm gonna take the tricep, monitor and control that arm, prep him and make sure that I have good access to my final target. Take that quad, put him down on the ground and then sprint to safety. Put it together a little more fluidly and then a little quickly. Again, same basic targeting priorities.

The same concepts we actually use for the angle one. If you wanted to use a crossada for an angle one that's perfectly valid, too. The difference between a pass and a crossada is whether you add that live hand, add that scissoring action or not. Otherwise the technique's exactly the same, lots of common ground, lots of common elements to our technique. Let's look at a defense against an angle four.

Just like with the angle two, we want to stay on the outside if at all possible. So what we're looking for here, the telltale sign is him chambering across his body and below the level of his elbow. Once I see that I know what's coming. My defense is he comes in, I'm going to cut with my own angle four and I'm also going to check. Once again, we're doing a meet.

One of the defensive responses. Cutting his arm, checking his elbow, monitoring that elbow. Now because of the situation here again, I want to go low line first, come back and pick up that tricep if I can. So I see the angle four coming. I cut and check, cut, pick up the elbow.

And again, that mobility kill is really what's doing the work on this. If I can take that quad out of the fight, put him down on the ground, that's what's really gonna keep me safe. One more time. So you see that the elements of the angle four, very similar to the elements of the angle two. Lots of crossover, lots of overlap.

Fewer things to remember under stress. Now let's look at a low angle five. Any kind of angle five coming straight in at you is really dangerous because it's coming in a straight line. Trying to move your body offline is very difficult. If Rob is thrusting at me here and I try to move my whole body, all he has to do is rechamber, reorient, and stick me again.

So the idea of body motion to get out of the way of that, it's very difficult to learn, very difficult to pull off under stress. What I really need to do though, is to make sure that I change the angular relationship of my body and his hand. Basically what I do is I knock it off center line and force it into one of the other zones. Ideally forcing it to the point where I can get to his outside. So if we go back and if you remember what we did against an angle three, he was thrusting with the angle three coming in this way.

We did a crossada motion. Well in the middle of that crossada motion, if I simply reorient his weapon so it's pointing straight at me, we've got the same exact structure here against an angle five that we would have against the angle three. All I'm gonna do is jump in at that point. The operative part of this is the deflection with my hand which is one of the fastest things you can do. One of the most natural things you can do is simply swatting stuff with your palm.

If he goes to thrust here, the idea of knocking that aside, very effective. At he same time, I'm also hollowing out. If I add the cut into it and put all those elements together, he thrusts, there's my crossada. Cut the bicep or forearm. Either one is fine.

I'm now chambered cross-body. I cut his tricep and again, monitor his elbow. Now at this point, we're gonna go to the low line, make sure we hit our third target priority which is his quadriceps but we're also gonna amp this up a little bit. Remember when we talked about thrusting, the idea of thrust palm down, turn, and then come out palm up. This is a beautiful opportunity to employ that.

What I'd be doing is thrusting into his leg here, turning in the flesh, cutting out, coming out the other side. Now you may say well why would you want to do something like that? One of the things we need to be concerned about in employing all these techniques is what type of clothing our attacker might be wearing. The idea of being able to cut his flexor tendons, cut the forearm muscles, cut the tricep. It's all valid.

It's all sound. It's all been proven over centuries of use in the Philippines, Indonesia and other places where these techniques came from. But one of the things we have to look at is also, let's say we put it into North America. Now we're in a situation, I live in Colorado. You got somebody wearing a heavy jacket.

The idea of being able to access those targets when he's got heavy clothing on may or may not happen. But you look at something where, let's say Rob was wearing a heavy jacket. The jacket would end somewhere about here. Even if these didn't have their effect, I still get out of the way of his attack. Now I've got a single layer of clothing here.

Something that's easy to penetrate but just to make sure I use the point of the knife to penetrate and get into the underlying tissue. I then rotate, orient the edge, and then cut out. So it allows me to get through essentially the armor of his clothing and get to the underlying tissue that I need to cut to take him out of the fight. So adding this comma cut in is also a very effective way of amping up your technique, making it even more efficient. So one more time, he comes in with the angle five.

He thrusts, I crossada, knock this aside. I cut and check, stick, and cut with that comma cut. It's gonna be a very decisive cut. Literally we can take the quadriceps muscle down to the bone. When that is cut, that's gonna take his leg out of the fight.

It's also gonna take me safely out of that situation. We talked about angle fives being any type of attack that comes straight up center line. We looked at that primarily from what we would consider a standard grip where the knife is extended from the thumb side of the hand thrusting forward this way or thrusting forward this way. But what's important to understand is it's a center line attack. So when we look at our defenses, this could be and could include an overhead attack.

Something like this, where Rob is coming in trying to stick me here. This would still be an angle five 'cause it's coming right down my center line. I deal with it the same way. Again, if we think of what we did for an angle one, we looked at a pass. We said we could also do a crossada.

We look at where our hands end up in the middle of that motion, puts us right back into this same reference point. So when Rob comes in with that strike, crossada, cut and check, take the twofer, get both of his thighs at that point. Again, it depends upon his position, where his legs end up. Whichever leg is closer. If both of them are accessible, take 'em both.

With this particular defense, what you have to do is really make sure that this hand is working efficiently. Cutting him is actually secondary. This defense is what's gonna be primary. That's what's gonna keep you safe. And then you follow up from there.

So let's put this together one more time. He thrust. Again, same basic concepts. Lots of common technique, lots of common elements with everything else we've done. That'll allow you to keep reinforcing the important aspects of your training, drilling that in over and over and over again.

And that's how you develop reflex. That's how you develop skills that you can actually use in a stressful situation. Check out more videos, just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.