http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/olympic-stabbing-tragedy-dont-let-it-happen-to-you.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/olympic-stabbing-tragedy-dont-let-it-happen-to-you.html Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500
At first look, it appears the stabbing death of American, Todd Bachman was a senseless, random act of violence. But were there warning signs? Could it have been prevented?

“The killer was not behaving suspiciously before the attack,” said one reporter.

However, in almost all attacks there are pre-incident indicators, or “tells,” that indicate the subject is planning an attack. The perpetrator scans the crowd for a vulnerable target, formulates his plan of attack, then executes his plan.

Chinese investigators and U.S. Embassy officials said the attack was "an isolated incident" and suggested such random acts are difficult to prevent. Nevertheless, according to US military combat training expert, Hank Hayes, “There are steps we can take to prevent falling victim to such attacks. The following are five tips that might just save your life and the lives of those you love.”

1. Be aware. When you are out enjoying the sights and sounds and soaking up the local culture, don’t forget to pay attention to those around you. Watch the body language, eyes and facial expressions of others. Look for glaring, scanning the crowd or other odd behavior.

2. Trust your instincts. If you have a bad feeling, do not be afraid to keep some distance between you and the possible problem. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

3. Stand up for yourself. If a suspicious person moves toward you, move away and tell them to not come any closer. Use your most commanding voice. Once someone knows you are aware of them, they will think twice about victimizing you.

4. Take action. If the person continues to approach, strike the key three areas (eyes, throat and groin) with uncompromising fury and intent to hurt.


Mr. Hayes, who has personally trained over 10,000 US soldiers, strongly promotes that we can all learn more and make small changes that can dramatically improve our personal security, safety and life. You can visit his websites at WWW.NOLIEBLADES.COM and WWW.NLBGOV.US for more useful information.


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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 www.nolieblades.com and www.knifewise-edgewise.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/lack-of-realistic-training-in-todays-defensive-knife-courses.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/lack-of-realistic-training-in-todays-defensive-knife-courses.html Fri, 02 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Today’s defensive community is plagued with unrealistic training techniques as well as unproven training techniques. Many instructors teach techniques which are ineffective in real life street fights. These techniques are praised upon by the instructors, yet students have no way of determining if these techniques are really effective. This is extremely dangerous as the student may depend on these skills one day to save their life, the life of a friend or partner.

Techniques that look ‘devastating’ in a dojo, training video or on TV most often do not work on the streets. Real Attackers are fast, furious, and they are determined to either hurt you, or kill you.

Most trainers pair up students, each knowing when and how to attack. Then, both students move slowly so that each student has time to move and react. This is great for basic training when understanding the fundamentals is essential; however, to train for ‘real life survival’, training MUST escalate to unknown, full speed attacks.

Most techniques seen today depend mostly on either fine motor skills, which are seriously depleted when your heart starts racing, or the student must practice the technique for years to acquire the proficiencies required to perform the technique correctly.

Students must understand that when faced with a Real Attacker, one that actually wants to hurt you, that you must act fast, without remorse, and the techniques you use must immediately stop the attack.

Your heart will be racing, your blood pressure will increase dramatically, and your body will go through many changes. Some of these changes include; a reduction in your vision, loss of hearing, and most importantly, your ability to think and manipulate your extremities. Techniques must be simple, and must be engrained through repetitive practice, both physically and mentally, so if ever attacked, you will instinctively react, stopping the attack.

Proving that techniques are effective is especially true when learning techniques against edged weapons. Edged weapons are extremely dangerous and applying techniques that don’t work is a tactical liability, and can get you and others killed.

Several years ago I started substituting training knifes for large Crayola Markers. These markers would leave a mark on the attacked if the defensive technique wasn’t applied correctly. This was a great way of training, however, the markers were constantly breaking, and wasn’t professional looking, or effective as a reality based training tool, as markers do not feel or act the same way as a blade. Only the tip of the marker would leave a mark, where a blade has an edge as well as a point, letting it cut in many directions. I also tried using chalk on the edge of training knifes, which worked similar to using markers, but the mark was hard to see and needed to be re-applied to the blades constantly.

Then I read an article about Hank Hayes and No Lie Blades, a company which manufactures training knifes and provides tactical combat training to Military, Law Enforcement and civilians. There training knives use ink or paint on their felt lined knifes that leaves marks, much like what I was use to. I went to there website at nolieblades.com, I found it very informative and quite different from many other websites. Their training knifes looked professional, and the marks that were seen in the article left no doubt that the knife made contact and a defensive technique in fact failed. I called No Lie Blades and reached Hank Hayes the CEO and ordered two of their ‘Standard Series, Double Edged Knife kits’.

I received the No Lie Blades several days later, along with two instructional knife defense DVD’s and several tubes of lipstick. That same week I held a Defensive Knife Course. Before class started, I prepped the knives as stated in the directions. I was extremely impressed with both the quality of the No Lie Blade training knives as well as the incredible deep red (blood like) mark that these training blades left. There was no doubt when the blade made contact. It was also possible to clean the felt and use them as regular training knifes without them leaving their mark on the defender.

During class I noticed an immediate change in the student’s attitude as they were amazed with the product as well, and they simply hated getting marked by them. Several of the students have had defensive knife instruction before, from another instructor, and realized that they had a lot more to learn than they had previously thought. This made the student try much harder ‘Not’ to get marked. The students moved faster, and they took training more seriously. The students seemed to learn the techniques much faster than with previous training blades.

The No Lie Blades training knives greatly enhanced my combat skills and helped provide the immediate proof that the students needed. I have purchased several more of these training knives from No Lie Blades and use them religiously in my training curriculums. These are high quality training knifes, easy to use, feels great in the hands and there mark leaves no doubt that they made contact, these blades DO NOT LIE.

Ron Lauinger is a full time combatives specialist and can be reached at LMIInc.Com or 585-200-4000.


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USMC Scout Sniper, USMC Marksmanship Instructor, 23 Years Executive Protection and Corporate Security Management, over 10 years of Martial Arts, Four years full contact Karate including numerous independent defensive and knife courses, Over 25 years tactical shooting experience, Part time firearms instructor at one of the countries largest shooting schools. Ron is also the NAFI (National Association of Firearms Instructors) New York State Representative.
Ron Lauinger
www.LMIInc.Com
RonLauinger@LMIInc.com
www.youtube.com/nolieblades101

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/defending-the-committed-knife-weapons-attack-part-1.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/defending-the-committed-knife-weapons-attack-part-1.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500
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.

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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

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/defending-the-committed-knife-weapons-attack-part-2.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-security/defending-the-committed-knife-weapons-attack-part-2.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Now that we’ve addressed knowing what you’re up against thus the reasoning that during training you’ll need tools that can give you accurate feedback on your skill set. This is why the marking training knife is key to the learning phase, it visually links the lethality component to direct action.

We’ll look at a few tactics that if used correctly can assist greatly in defending the edged weapons attack.These knife defense tactics are just a few of many, however with the thousand of field active Military, Law Enforcement and civilian stories these are common denominators’ to the successful survival in knife attack encounters.

1. Situational / threat awareness and analysis- What I mean by this is don’t let yourself be caught off guard, every little thing counts. What’s around you, who’s around you, how many are around you, what are they wearing, were are their eyes focusing on, what pockets are there hands touching, what facial expressions are they making while talking with you? Make no mistake this is a topic subject you should get to know well. History shows us “things started poorly tend to end poorly conversely things started well tend to finish well”.

2. Create a gap/ space – What I mean by this is creating a gap/space equals time. That time gives you a better chance of getting behind something (a barrier to entry), choosing your responses and more cleanly executing your entry angle.

3.Using WOO (weapons of opportunity) – This means any or all items within reach to slow down or stop the knife attack. One example would be if in Law Enforcement and in field interview stance tossing your clip board or writing pad to create gap/space or attack the eyes, throat or groin area. Remember this talk of a peaceful response or sport defense systems, against a red hot ambush is not only laughable but irresponsible on the instructors behalf.

4.Controlling the weapons bearing limb or shutting down the subject with the knife – This is really a course in itself however for purposes of this article, capturing the arm holding the knife and taking the target down without getting stabbed with his knife. In the statement shutting down the subject with the knife, use and do whatever it takes to stop him.Remember he is using killing force, better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

One of the great benefits in training with a proven Instructor or system is combat experience. We know that all people must react in some way to visceral reactive targets. The eye, throat and groin area targets.

In this short contextual knife training segment we covered the very important need to know what you’re up against. Not knowing would be like going on a blind date. What’s this person going to be like, what’s this person going to look like and most important what’s this person going to smell like? To many these unknowns set fear, hesitation and other disempowering factors into motion, which generally result in bad actions and for our purposes can mean death - Not good.

We looked at having some way to monitor and measure your progress via use of a marking training knife. This would be like going to school and not getting grades, we must have some memorable way to measure our progress that accurately records information so that we grow in our case we use a marking training knife.

Finding what works can be tricky, because if you don’t know what your up against and you don’t have a way to monitor your progress you can easily be faked out. Go out and do the homework, then get a marking devise. You know when you’re not marked on the vitals your grades are going up. Stay Safe.

I would highly suggest the work of my colleagues like Jim Wagner, Ernie Emerson and Marc “The animal” Mac Young these guys know the truth in knife combat at an expert level that you can put your life behind.

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.

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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 invented military defense training tools, produced Law Enforcment training articles and writtem several articles for books and industry magazines. He can be found at http://www.nolieblades.com, http://knifewise-edgewise.blogspot.com and emailed at hankh@nolieblades.com.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>