[quote]krazylarry wrote:
KM is basically a scam. Look at how they “spar”, sparring like that will get you hurt in a real fight. They use biting and nut shots, well any one can do that, you don’t need to be thought that. As for weapon defense, guess what running is the only real defense against a weapon. This is not a movie, you try to take a knife from someone you are going to get cut, 100% you are going to get cut, and decent change of getting killed. Go learn to box or wrestle, both is even better. [/quote]
This is just the opposite of how you should be thinking.
Sparring is not entirely necessary in the traditional sense when your art is not meant for competing.
Krav has its place, but their knife defenses suck. That doesn’t mean there isn’t ways to deal with a knife attack - it just means that you don’t wait for the guy to freeze so you can apply your hold.
Hi, LessTraveled, I’m a Krav Maga instructor in Texas. Don’t worry about head kicks, we don’t really advise them, since it’s a good way to land on your butt on the pavement. It’s generally better not to be fancy, anyway.
Try out the place & see if it feels right for you. I’m a big believer in Krav, but I don’t know every instructor in the world & I keep my bullshit detectors on regardless of the style. Your experience defending yourself as the new kid & as a bouncer give you your answer.
Not sure where you are exactly, but there’s an instructor in Alaska that I’ve met & have heard good things about. Will find out what city if you’d like.
Please feel free to ask me about any particular techniques or general Krav stuff, I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. Bring something to drink to your class, they’re going to make you sweat.
A book I liked is Don Pentecosts’ “Put’em down, take’em out.”
It’s short and basic and you can download it free from Scribd.com. I like the idea that enumerates about trapping instead of holding a knife hand - being ready to pull back and out ASAP, cause you’ll have to.
[quote]krazylarry wrote:
KM is basically a scam. Look at how they “spar”, sparring like that will get you hurt in a real fight. They use biting and nut shots, well any one can do that, you don’t need to be thought that. As for weapon defense, guess what running is the only real defense against a weapon. This is not a movie, you try to take a knife from someone you are going to get cut, 100% you are going to get cut, and decent change of getting killed. Go learn to box or wrestle, both is even better. [/quote]
This is just the opposite of how you should be thinking.
Sparring is not entirely necessary in the traditional sense when your art is not meant for competing.
Krav has its place, but their knife defenses suck. That doesn’t mean there isn’t ways to deal with a knife attack - it just means that you don’t wait for the guy to freeze so you can apply your hold. [/quote]
Hi, Irish! I don’t know what defense you’re talking about that requires an attacker to freeze. I will say there are some differences in the different Krav families, particularly IKMF (east coast) vs. Worldwide or Alliance (west coast). I have not heard good stuff about Commando, but have zero experience with them. My gym is Worldwide/Alliance.
There’s a defense when someone is just brandishing a weapon & not yet striking…but just thinking some guy is going to freeze mid-attack doesn’t seem very practical to me, so I hope that’s not what was taught. I’m just getting into weapons learning weapons stuff now, though, & mostly focusing on gun for the moment.
Regarding sparring, krazylarry, we are constantly reminding people that it’s nothing like fighting. My goal if a fight is brewing, or on, is to get the hell out of there. Sparring is good for learning not to freak out when you get hit, to help you get over any fear of hitting or kicking another person, to learn something about distance & timing.
The classroom drills where we try to elicit a freeze or a panic response for someone to fight through seem to be more helpful for fighting. However, I took a hard unexpected hit to the face last week, off the mat, & it turned me into a zombie, so apparently I still have a way to go on that one.
LessTravelled, nothing like this will happen to you in a level 1 class, btw. There’s no sparring, weapons, or blows to the face in level 1.
Here… most of these require the attacker coming in totally off balance and then leaving his arm out so they can do their thing.
I know there’s a whole bunch of differences between them but this seems to be pretty prevalent in all martial arts, not just krav… I just can’t understand where it came from, this idea that the asshole will freeze and let you do what you want after his technique is done.
[quote]krazylarry wrote:
KM is basically a scam. Look at how they “spar”, sparring like that will get you hurt in a real fight. They use biting and nut shots, well any one can do that, you don’t need to be thought that.
[/quote]
Well, I would argue that any healthy human with two arms and two legs can also throw punches and grapple. Yet you suggest to learn how to box, wrestle or both. Why the dichotomy?
[quote]
As for weapon defense, guess what running is the only real defense against a weapon. This is not a movie, you try to take a knife from someone you are going to get cut, 100% you are going to get cut, and decent change of getting killed. Go learn to box or wrestle, both is even better. [/quote]
Wrong, though escape/running is probably the smartest defense when it’s morally, ethically, and circumstantially viable.
You do not try to take a knife from an attacker, I agree that will probably not end well for you. Perhaps in a “best case scenario” it might work, but if that happens, then simply chalk it up to it being your luck day and maybe go play the lotto or something.
Instead, like Robert mentioned, the goal is to take out the attacker’s CNS. Remember, they are the weapon, the knife/gun/tire iron/rock/etc… is just a tool. Without the attacker’s CNS wielding it maliciously against you it’s just an inanimate object.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Here… most of these require the attacker coming in totally off balance and then leaving his arm out so they can do their thing.
I know there’s a whole bunch of differences between them but this seems to be pretty prevalent in all martial arts, not just krav… I just can’t understand where it came from, this idea that the asshole will freeze and let you do what you want after his technique is done.
Holy shit, I see exactly what you’re saying. We have been talking about that a LOT lately - the fact that teaching tools, such as pausing to let a classroom see & understand a movement, have been repeated so many times that’s its crept it’s way into the actual technique. It’s not just an issue with knife defenses, either.
This morning I was teaching defense against choke from behind with a pull, which to complete requires a grab of the attacker’s wrist, which to learn requires the “attacker” to leave his hand there so you can practice. However, nobody is going to leave their damn arm out there for you to grab them. So I had them practice it slow enough that they could learn the grab, then told the “attackers” to jerk their hand back & fight against the defense. Some students find it frustrating because they feel they’ve failed, but I can’t in good conscience allow them to believe an attacker will just say, “oh well” & give up.
I’m so glad you brought this up, it just strengthens my resolve to help weed that kind of crap out of the system, and gives me more respect for my own instructors for warning me against it.
(It cracked me up to see that video, I know some of those people! Not the two gentlemen in the black pants/white t-shirts, fortunately, but a few others. The section with the lady wearing a dark ponytail & the teen boy? That lady is Marnie Levine, who unfortunately succumbed to cancer some years ago. The teen is now in is early 40’s and is one of my instructors. )
Kind of on topic - I’ll never understand some of the Israeli weapon handling methods
Fair to say, I’m no firearms experts, especially in the realm of combat shooting, but it still makes me scratch my head sometimes watching videos of them teaching shooting.
[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
Kind of on topic - I’ll never understand some of the Israeli weapon handling methods
Fair to say, I’m no firearms experts, especially in the realm of combat shooting, but it still makes me scratch my head sometimes watching videos of them teaching shooting.[/quote]
You mean point shooting? Both my firearms instructors have tried to get me to do that, but it makes me nervous. It feels like I won’t have enough control of the weapon, so I haven’t tried it yet. I have a friend in the IDF who won’t shut up about it though. Of course, whatever he’s doing is always waaaay better than what anybody else is doing.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Well, here’s two videos that show it better than I could put it. If you watch them and you want me to elaborate on my own concerns, I’ll do that.
These two guys are probably the heaviest influences on my self-defense philosophies, and what they say on knives is something that I agree with.
Basically:
a knife “duel” is fantasy.
[/quote]
It’s pretty uncommon and spending a lot of training time addressing it probably wouldn’t be a great idea, but it can happen, so to completely ignore it or not train for it at all isn’t the best idea either.
True. Though if you hit someone in the head hard enough you can sometimes get a momentary “freeze” response out of them which could provide the opportunity to get control of the weapon/opponent or disarm the knife from them.
Most likely though the only types of disarms that are likely to happen are gonna be where you somehow destroy the hand that is holding the blade (with the use of some sort of weapon).
It depends on whether the attacker is using the knife as a weapon or as a threat. If using it as a threat, then you’ll see it before you’re cut or stabbed (since they are using it more so to convince you to concede to their demands). But, if using it as a weapon, then you’re right.
This really only applies to highly trained individuals. Most people, become fixated on the tool as it makes them feel superior (that’s why they’re using it in the first place) and will not think to switch to using their other tools should that one become neutralized.
In fact, this “weapon over-reliance” is something that usually has to be specifically untrained in people. Robert mentioned earlier that on several occasions he found himself struggling to deploy his firearm while simultaneously leaving himself wide open and obviously not utilizing his other tools. I’m sure that many of us who train similar skills have also found ourselves in such situations in the past.
True.
Against a box cutter, or razor you are definitely going to get cut. Those tools are just too light and sharp to think that you’re going to be able to effectively track them and defend them without getting cut.
The good thing about those tools though is that they really aren’t long enough to puncture any vital organs and usually have no bracing mechanisms (meaning that if the attacker tries to stab with them and hits a bony structure they’ll probably wind up cutting their own hand quite badly and possibly losing control of the blade). Generally stabs are what is lethal, not cuts. So as long as you don’t get cut on the neck, inner/upper arm (brachial artery) or inside the thigh (femoral artery) you probably won’t die.
Sorry, but people who tell you that are just being honest with you. If you can’t deal with that mentally, then that emotional/fear management aspect might be something that you need to work on.
Quite honestly, most people haven’t nurtured the “will to survive”, nor have they developed their “killer instinct”. As a result, when crap hits the fan they mentally/emotionally freeze/give up and end up becoming victims. This cerebral aspect of combat is something that generally gets passed on in favor of physical skills. But in reality, it’s probably one of the most important aspects of combat there is.
When Jack The Ripper was asked if any of his victims ever escaped his reply was, “yes, the ones that fought back”. You have to develop the mindset that as long as you are still breathing and conscious, you will continue fighting, no matter how badly you are injured in the process. When it comes to going unarmed against an edged weapon this mindset is of crucial importance.
True. This also applies to the attacker though. If they are using a blade without sufficient bracing mechanisms, then it’s quite possible that they will lose control of their tool and quite possibly cut their hand pretty badly in the process.
Wow so much to resopond to. First I guess that the pausing in training is normally for instructional purposes so everyone can see the technique develop. We normally practice edge weapon techniques at full speed at least once in class. I will say that people in practice tend to be a really nice partner and pause or succomb to the defenses too easily which takes away from the realistic aspects of it. I find this same thing when training almost all things in MA. Grappling for instance if doing a trap and roll the guy on top lets you easily roll him and you end up missing the finer points in sensing weight distribution and the importance of trapping the leg etc. Conversely partners seem to get angry if you resit their attempts to make it more realistic.
Krav Maga also starts out with basic movements that are the foundations of a later defense such as a knife defense. you will start out doing 360 defenses which are the first step to most knife defenses. Then you go to bursting which is you basically throw a strike at the same time you make the block to stop the kinfe. This works very well but hard to realistically practice because you knock your partner out or damage their face.
I feel that 90% of the Krav stuff works you just have to have good partners who are willing to train realistic. We discuss the attacker recoiling the strikes and changing angles but you must slow it down in order to learn it and I think a lot of what you are seeing is the defenses in the slowed form.
Irish, I feel that you think alot like I do and want the most real training you can get and from what I see a lot of people in MA schools are there with a false sense of security or never have the intention or think they will actually use the combatives presented to them therefore they never press the issue to find out exactly what makes them work. I always have my BS detector on and some things we do in Krav I would never use. They ususally have variations as well. I would be curious to see what others think will work in a knife fight.
It’s pretty uncommon and spending a lot of training time addressing it probably wouldn’t be a great idea, but it can happen, so to completely ignore it or not train for it at all isn’t the best idea either.
[/quote]
I disagree completely.
Let me tell you something - THIS NEVER HAPPENS. EVER. Training for it is a waste of time.
Can you come with an example? Probably. But I’ve covered numerous stabbings, and it is ALWAYS one guy has the knife, the other is unarmed, the guy who got cut did not even know what was going on until they’d already been struck.
This idea of fencing with knives does not happen, and never have I heard a cop say, “Both guys had knives” or anything to that effect.
You’re really reaching on the first paragraph, but the second I can agree with.
I am seriously in doubt about this. I can see what you’re saying, but once a knife is in your hand, I don’t see it being a problem to strike with the other. And if you manage to grapple with a guy who’s got a knife, I think he’s just as likely, if not more so, to use brutal tactics such as biting or trying to rip your eyes out because he knows that if you get a hold of it, you’re in trouble.
Either way, rarely have I ever seen this trained, and it’s asinine to me.
haha. Nice to know. But what I’m saying is that all these motherfuckers teach all this commando ninja knife bullshit that only has a chance of working if they’re attacking you with a ka-bar. Well, most times, that’s not what’s going to happen.
Once again, I remember one story not long ago where a guy at a Burger King got sliced open badly because he tried to help someone out who was being assaulted- the guy he was trying to stop just flicked his hand out, and before the kid knew it, he was bleeding like sieve cause he didn’t know the guy had a blade.
This is why - in my opinion, it’s going to be better to learn to slip and dodge and learn the nine angles of attack and how to move on them, than it EVER is to try and “trap” and “disarm” a knife wielding attacker in a situation that isn’t likely to ever happen.
I disagree again. Telling someone “You’re going to get cut” and ingraining that in them is a good way to have them freeze up as soon as they see a knife come out.
Why?
Cause immediately they’re thinking, “Oh my God, it’s guaranteed I’m going to get cut because my instructor said so.”
This is a bad way of thinking, and in my opinion, you’ve already lost.
This is the one thing that Krav does that I actually like that nobody else does - foster that “Never surrender” attitude.
It’s the reason why SF guys are such a nightmare to fight - its not that they’re bigger or stronger or in better shape - it’s that they’ve developed that killer instinct to a T, and they’ve had it instilled in them that they will fight until they can’t resist anymore.
Unfortunately, nobody teaches this, and rarely does a school that calls itself a “TMA” school even go near this kind of thing.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Here… most of these require the attacker coming in totally off balance and then leaving his arm out so they can do their thing.
quote]
Two great videos on knife earlier, the MacYoung tape is a classic and McCann gets points for showing himself fumble on tape, and one AWESOME video. Best part: Ok, maybe only truly good part: The music. Having EVERY SINGLE training montage set to Let the Bodies Hit the Floor or some other metal/nu-metal makes me want to punch kittens.
On a serious note that video makes me think that a lot of those guys were not really comfortable/proficient in the joint locks they were demonstrating.
[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
Kind of on topic - I’ll never understand some of the Israeli weapon handling methods
Fair to say, I’m no firearms experts, especially in the realm of combat shooting, but it still makes me scratch my head sometimes watching videos of them teaching shooting.[/quote]
I think I know what you are saying/asking.
The reasonable answers I have been told/read/come up with are as follows.
We need to look at the time and what was going on when this developed.
Israel was a new country, and not wealthy. The handguns being used were a hodge podge of models, action types, and calibers. Many of the handguns were older, pre WWII models/designs.
Good holsters, especially concealment holsters, were not readily available or were in limited supply.
So, the Israelis had to instruct people on how to fight with handguns that were vastly different from one another. Some of them were clearly designed by people who never shot or seldom shot. Most were used by military forces as an indicator of rank. For example, the 1934 model Berreta had a safety that needs to be rotated 180 degrees to operate. There are others just as fucked. Some were single action autos, some were double action autos, some were revolvers. Safeties, magazine releases, slide releases were in all different places or absent. So, for safety and a uniform manual of arms, Condition 3 (magazine loaded, chamber empty, hammer down, safety off) was the order across the board.
Since there were a ton of different models and leather holster makers are a rare breed they needed a method that did not need a specialized/custom fit holster (this is before kydex) that most everyone else would take for granted. This also supported the codition 3 method because the pistol was either tucked in the front of the wasteband (appendix/“Mexican Carry”/AIWB) or behind the hip sans holster.
In order to get the gun into action they needed to teach acquiring a grip, drawing/presentation, and get the weapon charged/racking the slide. Note: straight blowback pistols (its a type of operating mechanism) can be a bitch to rack, especially if you are sweaty/bloody, and especially/especially if you are a small women or elderly. So they settled on the whole punch the pistol forward while racking the slide so that rather than just one arm doing it you get a push/pull thing going.
The emphasis on point shooting is probably due to 3 factors. First, after WWII the authority on handgun technique for combat was Rex Applegate, and he espoused point shooting. This is years before Jeff Cooper would re-write the book with Modern Technique. And more years before the post-Modern Technique stuff we see now. Second, at close range point shooting/over the sights/slide focus is pretty damn effective. Third, have you ever tried using the sights on vintage 1920’s/30’s/40’s pistols? I have seen more usable sights on squirt guns. The Eastern Block stuff is even worse. Tiny sights, that cannot be adjusted are not all that useful when your inner voice is saying “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” and your problems are so bad your current best solution is to start flinging tiny pieces of metal through the air in order to make bad things stop right now.
You don’t spend much time with rednecks/hill jacks/hill billys do ya?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Unfortunately, nobody teaches this, and rarely does a school that calls itself a “TMA” school even go near this kind of thing.
[/quote]
This is the exact opposite of my experience. A ton of traditional training seems to be geared towards sucking so bad, nothing else is all that scary/painful and praying for death is damn near a hobby. Of course you put TMA in quotes so that may be the difference right there.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
In fact, this “weapon over-reliance” is something that usually has to be specifically untrained in people. Robert mentioned earlier that on several occasions he found himself struggling to deploy his firearm while simultaneously leaving himself wide open and obviously not utilizing his other tools. I’m sure that many of us who train similar skills have also found ourselves in such situations in the past.
[/quote]
You are making me sound way to good. I wasn’t “struggling to deploy” or any tacticool shit like that. I was fucking blindly attempting/clinging to something that wasn’t working. If you can picture a raccoon with his hand stuck in a log trap where all he has to do is let go of “The Precious” to get out you would have a pretty good picture.
Really it was like this, but way less graceful.
Oh, I am largely in agreement with the rest of your post though.
Krav Maga is quite literally one of (if not the most) deadly martial arts in the world. It is used throughout the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). When you live in a place like Israel, it’s incredibly important to know how to defend yourself, and Krav Maga is the real deal. There are no forms, katas, or any sort of traditional ways of doing it… it is a system designed to kill (not disarm, not hurt) the person or persons standing across from you. Very few Krav Maga techniques, when fleshed out entirely on an opponent (as in, not stopping before the final stage of the technique)fail to end in death or serious injury which may in fact LEAD to death. If you’re in the business of wanting to protect yourself, then I honestly can’t think of a better martial art to learn. Krav Maga encompasses hand-to-hand combat, grappling, and weapons training/disarmament, all in one martial art… certainly hard to beat with your average Tae Kwan Do lessons.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I disagree completely.
Let me tell you something - THIS NEVER HAPPENS. EVER. Training for it is a waste of time.
Can you come with an example? Probably. But I’ve covered numerous stabbings, and it is ALWAYS one guy has the knife, the other is unarmed, the guy who got cut did not even know what was going on until they’d already been struck.
This idea of fencing with knives does not happen, and never have I heard a cop say, “Both guys had knives” or anything to that effect.
[/quote]
Like I said, it’s rare. I’m not suggesting that it’s a common occurrence.
It would not be something that I would attempt in all honesty unless the conditions were perfect. Even things like “clamping” the knife arm, while effective if done correctly, can be risky.
In theory it’s easy to think about how one would just use a different tool, but under adrenal stress things can change. I’m not saying that it happens to everyone, but there are numerous cases where LEOs have been killed by knife wielding attackers because they became fixated on deploying their firearm to the exclusion of all else. And LEOs are trained individuals.
I do agree that completely disregarding their other tools could be detrimental though.
Trying to disarm a knife wielding attacker is definitely far from the best approach, especially with a light blade like a box cutter or razor. But, thinking that you are going to be able to slip or dodge against one is just as impractical.
One of the things that makes edged weapons so dangerous is that they require almost no momentum to do damage. All they have to do is to touch you and they can inflict damage. Because of this they can come at completely unorthodox angles and don’t have to follow a straight trajectory to their target.
There is no way in hell that you (or anyone else) is going to be able to move your whole body as fast as I (or any other even remotely fast individual) can move their arm. Since no body mass is required to do damage, I am also free to continuously attack at any angle that I want with literally no telegraph whatsoever.
Now, if you were able to just maintain distance, then that could work, but since your attacker can run forwards faster than you can run backwards that strategy will only buy you a little time, (not to mention there are environmental factors to take into account). And, the longer the confrontation lasts, the more likely you won’t make it out alive. Eventually you are going to have to either completely escape, draw your own weapon and convince the attacker that they don’t want to continue pursuing you (in which case the knife on knife “duel” could ensue), or take out the attacker (which would be the last resort/worst case scenario, but you still need tactics to enable you to do this).
Well, let’s look at it the other way then. Let’s say that you go into an unarmed vs knife situation with the thought that you will make it out without getting cut. Guess what? You most likely are. So when you do then you aren’t going to be mentally prepared for it and are probably going to freeze up or worse yet, give up.
At least if you are mentally prepared for the worst case scenario (you always want to believe that you will survive the encounter though, so worst case that still leaves you alive at the end) then you won’t freak out if it happens. If it doesn’t and you get extremely lucky and don’t get cut, then even better.
You’ve only lost if you give up, and preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for the worst case scenario is much less likely to result in you giving up than preparing yourself for the best case scenario.
Tell you what, have one of your (boxing) friends don some headgear and attack you with a magic marker or rubber training knife who’s blade is marked with lipstick or magic marker. You can dodge, slip, run, strike, whatever you want (as long as you’re unarmed). His job is to “kill” you with the knife, yours is only to survive. Have then fully resist you, no compliance whatsoever. See how many times out of 10 (I’d say more, but your friend is probably going to get tired of getting punched in the head by then and is going to want to reverse the roles) that you don’t get cut. If you are successful more than 1-2 times out of those 10 then either you are exceptionally fast, exceptionally lucky, or your partner is a chump.
Like I said, it’s just being honest.
Good RMA’s do address that stuff. Tony Blauer has a bunch of good stuff on the psychological aspects of combat, fear management, and cultivating the will to survive. My instructors Rich Ryan and Walt Lysak do as well.
[quote]
I thought they never identified Jack the Ripper.[/quote]
Oops, you’re right. I got my serial killers mixed up. I meant the Boston Strangler.
You don’t spend much time with rednecks/hill jacks/hill billys do ya?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Unfortunately, nobody teaches this, and rarely does a school that calls itself a “TMA” school even go near this kind of thing.
[/quote]
This is the exact opposite of my experience. A ton of traditional training seems to be geared towards sucking so bad, nothing else is all that scary/painful and praying for death is damn near a hobby. Of course you put TMA in quotes so that may be the difference right there.
Regards,
Robert A[/quote]
The systems/schools that still incorporate Bushido definitely address the “killer instinct/will to survive” aspect of combat. They are probably the minority here in the states though.
[quote]krazylarry wrote:
KM is basically a scam. Look at how they “spar”, sparring like that will get you hurt in a real fight. They use biting and nut shots, well any one can do that, you don’t need to be thought that.
[/quote]
Well, I would argue that any healthy human with two arms and two legs can also throw punches and grapple. Yet you suggest to learn how to box, wrestle or both. Why the dichotomy?
[quote]
As for weapon defense, guess what running is the only real defense against a weapon. This is not a movie, you try to take a knife from someone you are going to get cut, 100% you are going to get cut, and decent change of getting killed. Go learn to box or wrestle, both is even better. [/quote]
Wrong, though escape/running is probably the smartest defense when it’s morally, ethically, and circumstantially viable.
You do not try to take a knife from an attacker, I agree that will probably not end well for you. Perhaps in a “best case scenario” it might work, but if that happens, then simply chalk it up to it being your luck day and maybe go play the lotto or something.
Instead, like Robert mentioned, the goal is to take out the attacker’s CNS. Remember, they are the weapon, the knife/gun/tire iron/rock/etc… is just a tool. Without the attacker’s CNS wielding it maliciously against you it’s just an inanimate object.[/quote]
People can learn to box and wrestle but how many pro fighters do you see that still can do it, Jack Sheilds-boxing, Phil Baroni, Dan Hardy, Pat Barry, and these are guys who fight in the best promotion in the sport. So maybe everyone can’t do it, yet any one can bite you. So why pay 150 bucks a month to “learn” something you already can do?
