Alessandro Padovani

Knife Defense Session 13: Clear, Control Counter and Closest Target Drill

Alessandro Padovani
Duration:   17  mins

Description

This Session provides techniques for fending off an attack either before accessing a defensive tool or if a defensive tool is not at hand by clearing the line of attack, controlling the attacker’s weapon, and countering with defensive strikes and other means. Once control is gained enough to access a defensive knife, the Closest Weapon to Closest Target drill develops the ability to spontaneously recognize strike points to stop the threat. Following the drills presented in this Session develops the ability to think dynamically and react quickly in the chaos of an attack.

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Up until now, we have mainly focused on developing skills that would allow us to defend ourselves with a knife. It's also important to address the fact that we may not always have a knife with us. We may not always be able to get the knife before we come into contact with the bad guy. So we're going to introduce a concept and a drill that will help us deal with that. So when we have to defend from an attack without the opportunity to go for our weapon first.

The concept here is defined by three words, clear, control, counter. Clear meaning, clearing the line of attack. Moving laterally, pivoting on your hips, hollowing out. Whatever it takes to not get stabbed, right? And we can develop that in isolation first and then we're going to apply with everything else as well.

But after the clearing that, you know that line of attack, after getting off the X, right? We are going to talk about controlling the arm limb because it's still going to be danger if I start to strike the bad guy and he has his tool in his hand, like a knife in his hand. He can still do a lot of damage even as I'm damaging him. So I want to be able to control the limb as much as possible before I start my counter. Which mean before I start to attack the bad guy himself.

So from the defensive, I now go on the offensive, and I can do so with you know, empty hands, maybe I don't have knife with me, or maybe I cannot reach it because of the situation that I'm in. And I can also develop some skills so that I can try to get my weapon into the fight with the most amount of control possible. It's important to realize that clear is the first thing that we need to do, frankly. Controlling and countering, they can interchange a little bit you know, given the situation and so on. So these are principle, you know, they're not hard and fast rule.

The situation that you may find yourself in, I cannot predict so it's going to be up to you to apply the skills that you learn here in the most beneficial way. So now we're going to have Jeremy come in and we're going to go through that drill and explain it to you. So at first we're going to be face-to-face, right? It's going to be at a distance where he can actually stab me in the stomach. You know.

So go for a stab, right? So for the first iteration of the drill, I'm going to have my hands behind my back so that I take away everything else except for that lateral movement that pivot him out of the way, that clearing the line of attack. And so we're going to go, he's going to attack and I'm going to try to pivot, right? I may move laterally, right? I may move a little slow and get caught, that's good to know.

Now I can move a little bit faster 'cause I don't want to get caught, right? And so we go a couple of times, you know and once we reach the edge of the room, we can switch around. Right. We go back to there. So this really helps to work that avoidance, that clearing the line of attack.

Even if I can move anywhere, I can still pivot it out of the way. I can still hollow out of the way, right? Hollowing out exposes my head so it's not my favorite, but at the moment, I may not be able to control that, right? So realize that if you're doing this, then you still want to get out of the way because you don't want to leave your head there for him to catch. Now, the second iteration, we recognize the attack with a little bit of time.

So, we're going to flinch. So we're going to flinch in front of the flinch again. I'm going to just try to like move out of the way, right? I may intercept this but it's going to be incidental accident. I'm not really going for intercept or controlling.

I'm not trying to strike him. This is like, I recognize the attack, oh crap! And I'm getting out of the way, the hands are coming up in a natural manner. So here we go. Then on the next iteration of the drill, we start to integrate that control, right?

So from clearing the line of attack. Now if find myself here, I want to grab onto him, right? I can establish control better with two hands. If I have a handle like this, that would be great 'cause I can squeeze down on this and I can exercise a lot of control here as well. So then we reset, you know we are here.

You know and there. And try to change it out, right? Try to see what you need to do to actually get that monic mobile control. Coming again, right? And it's important to go from the flinch, from that surprise and then convert that in that control action, right?

So here, there, I can even go here, right? It just important to practice it and not try to make it perfect. Where I don't want to see is this when you attack comes, right You know it's coming so it's going to be easier to anticipate an intercept it. But if I'm really talking to him, you know and I don't see it coming, I need to get out of the way, start to protect myself and then go to try to establish some control. So don't cheat yourself.

Now, the last iteration is where we go from clear to control to counter. And we can do this with empty hands, right? So the attack comes, like I'm clearing, I'm trying to control them from here. I need to realize what I can do. I could kick here, right?

But I may want to shorten up the distance so that I can use my forearm, so I can use my knees, right? I can go and you know attack his face. Here you go. It's from here. And again, I can step in here, throw some knees, throw some knees to the head if I need to, right?

Elbow. And you can spend some time here trying to figure out what your next best strike is, right? That's where you develop the skills. That's where you develop that intuitive recognition. Come again.

So I'm here. Let's say now I find myself here, I want to control it on the outside. From here too I can still strike, I can still go for the face, for the eyes, right? I can go for the groin from the front or the back, right? Just work with the option that you may have, right?

And again. I may be here, I may headbutt , I may knee, I may throw an elbow or a fore arm. Whatever you need to do, work it. It's not going to be pretty all the time, it's not going to be perfect all the time but that's how you develop your skillset. If you've noticed, we have a couple of main ways where we can establish a bit of control on the bad guy's limb, right?

So I'm going to turn around this way. Let's go in slow motion. The attack comes, right? I may get it out of the way, now establish control. So here, if he's stronger than me and so on and we start to pull and everything, right?

You know, I still have a hard time. So if I can not do anything better, I want to put my pressure and I'm going to put my weight down so that I have more control over his arm than he has over mine, right? But ideally, if I could, I want to cinch up on that and put the fist with the knife past my armpit and try to go and grab here. So here we've got a couple of little bones, either make a good handle, right? So from here, I'm controlling that, right?

He's really not thinking about what he can do with a knife 'cause once I get to here, I'm going to start to strike as much as possible, Try to control his head, try to control the initiative, right? Let's say that he's super strong guy, right? And he's trying to get this hand free. If I pit strength against strength and he's stronger than me, I'm lost. So he's pulling, it's really hard.

He's really strong. He comes out, now I'm a little bit in a bad situation. But when I feel him trying to pull away, instead of resisting him, I can go with him, right? So I'm following his energy and I'm striking on the way. So he's actually helping me to deliver some good strikes on himself.

Now, there was established control on the inside. Meaning that on the inside of his guard, of his position, right? The advantage of this is that I can throw some knees, I can throw some strikes, right? And he is open. The disadvantage that he still as these hand available to fight back, right?

So if he start to punch me or whatever, I want to put my head down so that it's protected as much possible in my shoulder as I keep striking, right? And as I gained the initiative and I don't relinquish it, he's going to be backpedal. He's going to be reacting to me instead of me having to still defend against him. An different option is, the attack comes, I'm clearing it. Now on this side, I don't really want to move the blade in front of me to go to the inside, so I just do the same thing but on the outside, right?

And if you turn around. See this is kind of controlling a little bit. This is controlling a little bit. And when I say a little bit is because I can not just rely on this, I need to start striking, right? I need to give him something to think about.

And again, if I attack the head and neck is going to elicit the most visceral response out of him to try to disengage, instead of trying to use that knife to hurt me or try to get that knife free, right? Remember that naturally instinct dictates that as soon as I come down and I get control on him, he's going to try to free the knife 'cause that's his first focus, right? As he does that, that's when I go in, and attack. And this it's enough to get him to change his focus from getting his knife back to trying to get away from me, right? Thank you very much.

Outside control, inside control, right? I may be in this position, I got the position here, right? The problem with this is that I cannot use my hands, right? Unless I'm trying to do it really fast. So that's why I want to try to cinch up and get more weight on that arm, more ability to control his movements.

After practicing for a little bit the tactic that we've seen so far, let's also talk about how to develop the best targeting that we can in order to be most effective on the bad guy. What do I mean by that? We're not really going to rely on memorized sequences of choreograph like defense techniques because they work very nice relation with a co-operative training partner. They really don't work well in the street, right? So we want to develop a more intuitive approach to target acquisition.

The constant is closest weapon to close this target. So micros his weapon. And again, it's not just a knife. It may be my live hand. Maybe my elbow, my knees, you know to the closest target that opens up.

We can learn to anticipate where the next target is going to be because like anything in life for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So we'll see how to implement that. Jeremy if we can step forward. What do I mean by that, right? If I have my knife, right.

And I'm able to strike Jeremy here, chances are his head is going to go a little bit, right? It's going to move a little, right? So that's going to open either the throat as my next target, right? Or if I'm striking here and the head goes back the grind is now open. So I can go down to here and strike.

Once I strike the grind, obviously it's going to hollow out. And now these, I recognize this as my next target. I can throw an elbow here on the way up to a stab in another step, right? As I'm controlling the head, kinetic is going to move back. I can again, go back here.

If he's trying to move away from here right? It may give me my back. So here I can attack there or depending on my position and I can attack the peritoneum from here or I can actually close up and attack the groin. So I always kind of have more than one option but the one that I'm going to recognize first is one that I'm going to take. I don't want to, I don't want to complicate things.

I really want to develop kind of a flow, right? From one target to the next. And again it's not how hard I strike it's the volume of strike that's really going to help me to maintain my point of domination on the bad guy and continue my defensive action. A drill that can help us to develop that sensitivity and that recognition is the closest weapon to close the target drill. Now we're going to have Jeremy be again the anatomical correct training dummy.

First he's just going to, you know, be there be still, except for when I hit him and it's going to move in a realistic manner so that I can learn to see what the next target is, right? And again, this is not application of skill. This is training skill in isolation so that we can better and more quickly own those skills. So let's say, I'm going to start from here, right? He's going to hollow out a little bit.

So here I have two choices, right? I could go down and then in, or from here I could also come up cause now is open up the neck. So if I'm coming up and he's moving back I can come in here or I can turn it and come there. So here, check this out. I have denied that he's already in contact pretty much with the throat by also my knee, right?

So there's nothing that says I cannot do both. So as I'm struggling with the knee, the head is coming down. Now I can attack this, right? I may throw another knee here and take his back. And now I'm going, I'm taking my his back.

He's going to try to get away from here, right? And this is where his face becomes available again By develop that level of recognition of my next target without having to think about it, you know just based on tactile feedback and visual feedback and pressure from the bad guy I can apply my tactics a lot more efficiently without having to rely on choreograph skills that are not really going to translate well into the defensive situation. Now, the second part of the drill Jeremy is going to do pretty much the same thing, except that now his going to integrate his arm in a protective manner. He's not trying to stop me to control me just trying to protect himself, so that now I can also learn to develop a recognition of the trajectories that are going to be more most beneficial for me. So same thing, you know, as I'm going in he's going to try to stop sampling.

So here is kind of a block. I can turn it up and come in here, right? And it's trying to push me away. I can use this end, right? And now I got this.

As I'm taking this, he's going to turn away again, neck. I can go here and can go there. And when it comes in, I can decide to, you know stay here for a while. They may push me away, right? So as he's pushing me away, I take whatever I see.

I create distance, but again, I can go here. I can go there. I can come up, come down. And all of this just flows naturally. We call that like circumstantial spontaneity given the circumstances, your next target is going to be a be a...

You know, your recognition of the next target is going to be spontaneous. You don't have to actually analyze what's happening. You can just recognize it and take it. The next evolution of this drill Jeremy is going to actually try to stop me; To grab onto the arm . He's going to try to control my arm limb so that I can also develop better techniques to get out of those situations.

See there's a knee there. There. And again, it just based on movement and how what I see what I recognize. Thank you very much. And his purpose during these drills is actually to allow me to look see sometime I may pause, but I don't know where to go next.

That's all right. Going slow here. Allow us to lay down the proper tracks that we can use to recognize those targets more quickly. We can not rush this, right? You need to go through it.

You need to put in the work so that your next target becomes a natural step for you. You don't have to really think about it. You just have to go with the flow that you have created.

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