Defending the committed knife weapons attack - Part 1

This interactive knife defense training session is written and designed for Military, Law Enforcement and civilians who are in the face of life threatening situations on a daily basis or those that find the need to be prepared for these situations. This session is targeted to what happens on the streets with a knife attacker who is committed, has a volatile temper and great intent.

In any area of life that we plan to gain functional skill we must execute three key basic points.

1 Know what your up against.
2 Have some way to measure your progress.
3 Find what works and build on that skill set.

We found that after years of experience with Military, Law Enforcement and street combatives, there is a generally held belief that a person armed with a knife is less dangerous than a person armed with a firearm. Unfortunately until the operator is properly trained, experiences first hand or has a partner or team member wounded or killed by a knife attacker does this belief change.

When training Military and Law Enforcement we address questions and educate commands with the true dangers of an edged weapons attack, several different psychology and teaching methods are used to successfully achieve this. Often we’ll us a marking training knife to identify and remember the impact of their injuries, the marks on the body will be referenced against a visual impact injury chart to illuminate the grim reality and aftermath of a committed knife attack.

To assist in this area of belief development I would suggest that you answer several questions. This will open the door to a stronger correct belief about edged weapons defense.

1 Have you ever been attacked by someone committed to killing you with a knife?
2 Have you ever been attacked by a committed attacker hell bent on beating the snot out of you?
3 Have you seen first hand what a body looks like after being stabbed, hacked, and slashed multiple times?
4. Do you know how much blood you can lose before you lose hand and eye coordination, before you get dizzy and pass out, before you die?

Once you’ve answered these questions you’ll be on your way to achieving the necessary groundwork for developing a solid edged weapons skills program.

Look to see what some of my colleagues like Jim Wagner, Ernie Emerson, Marc “The animal” Mac Young and Paul Vunak have to say about the truth in knife combat. We encourage you to respond with your true life experiences to help others with the reality in real life encounters. We hope to catch you reading part 2 of “Defending the committed knife weapons attack.”

Author Hank Hayes is a contracted US government senior level combat educator and has instructed over 10,000 operators. He has invented tools for the US Military and Law Enforcement defense commands and has authored numerous articles. This and other articles can be found with extended versions and sequenced pictures at nolieblades.com and knifewise-edgewise.blogspot.com.

Hank Hayes is a senior level - 35 year veteran of the combat arts. He is contracted by the US Military and Law Enforcement agencies. He has invented military defense training tools, produced several Law Enforcement training videos and written content for books and magazines within defense industry. He can be found
at http://www.nolieblades.com, http://knifewise-edgewise.blogspot.com and emailed at hankh@nolieblades.com