Kicking as knife defence

[Daniel Skipp]

Hi All,
I am sorry if this appears contentious but I really only care for the truth about things and wanted your take on this argument... so this is putting the cat among the pigeons [or is that hawks?].. please peck away at it. I would just test this myself but I lack a training partner to rush me with protection and a rubber knife so I have to take GC doctrine on faith.
A certain no-nonsense ex-Marine knife guru, with a rather excellent knife training course free on YouTube, who started off in Taekwondo (so he knows something about kicking), has this video against kicking for knife defense (except for when the knife is not a threat i.e.the knife is pointing away or the knife arm is being held). He makes some strong points, unfortunately widely spread across his typically longwinded 20 minute video. Refutations, please?
To summarise his points:
legs are, while longer and stronger, also slower and less coordinated than arms. Kicking takes more skill and well-taught training. It compromises balance, stability and mobility.
Kicks are more telegraphed and legs are a larger target exposed to a probable cut. A cut leg is likely to compromise mobility and balance which are critical to survival, less so than an arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPK1zQbji3M&list=UUDNQ9Cta56APAD8ZQQGVJWw
PS personal trivia: he briefly advocates in one video his ridiculously weak weird knife grip but that is the only gripe of mine I can recall with his teaching. The course is really rather good, for a non-internal, less subtle-than-GC style. I must have said something unacceptable at one point I do not recall as he has blocked me! Oh well. That's belligerent ex-Marines for you.

[Ari]

I've watched some of that guy's videos, and while he talks tough and probably is tough and a survivor for all I know, what he's showing is both needlessly complicated and oversimplified in my opinion, if you get what I mean. "Knife attacks" and "knife fighting" are not so predictable as to be effectively broken down into pre-planned moves, angles, strategies, etc. How do you *know* consciously what your attacker is doing before he has actually done it--to you???

That being said, he's absolutely right that "just kick him!" is not a sufficient solution to being attacked by a man with a knife.

Some thoughts:

1) Just because he did TKD does NOT mean that he knows ANYTHING about combat effective kicking. Nor because he's watched a lot of UFC shows and YouTube clips.

2) Yes, kicking effectively from a free standing position requires a high level of balance and skill. If you have the requisite balance and skill through training, you can do it. If you don't, it's more risky, but could still work. (Of course ANYTHING you do or don't do is RISKY when you're being attacked!) Note that kicking effectively from the ground or while bracing against walls or objects while standing is easier. Consider the confined space that statistically most attacks go down in.

3) Assuming you have the time/space/opportunity and skill to kick before he's on you, yet you're not able to immediately escape, why would you prefer to get closer and place all your vital organs within immediate range of the knife? That's the point of kicking effectively against a knife-armed attacker: it may allow you to keep your most vital organs away from the knife. Defaulting to using your arms only does not allow this. 

4) I have no idea what this guy's experience is, but what John teaches is based on the real experience of himself, his colleagues and students, and forensic analysis of thousands of cases of lethal violence. Using the legs effectively has been . . . effective many times in reality, even by untrained but determined people.

Really you need some hands-on training, I don't think the entire methodology of GC kicking has been put on video. But, it all starts with the basic balance exercises, footwork exercises, and contact flow. . . . 

[Daniel Skipp]

Thank you, Ari. Great answers, as usual. :D
My thoughts exactly... I just did not want to contaminate the cognitive petridish by saying anything. By saying his course was rather excellent I meant only that... excellent to the average curriculum, which is full of rubbish.

I think he exaggerates the risk of the typical knife attacker's skill in causing a critical wound to the leg, particularly if wearing denim which will prevent most deep cuts. Thregn and Eldgrim on YT showed nicely that even a sharp knife will not easily cut through cloth on flesh, only stabs. Add in the devastating power of kicks to the lower body and it becomes the better option, as you say.That infamous video of the shopkeeper being stabbed by two robbers showed him having good initial success with kicks.

Thanks again.. it all adds up to the RBSD I will one day teach the better folks.

[Gavin]

On Monday, November 24, 2014 1:15:55 AM UTC-8, Daniel Skipp wrote:

Hi All,
I am sorry if this appears contentious but I really only care for the truth about things and wanted your take on this argument... so this is putting the cat among the pigeons [or is that hawks?].. please peck away at it. I would just test this myself but I lack a training partner to rush me with protection and a rubber knife so I have to take GC doctrine on faith.

One thing I noticedm which inspired me to check out twenty seconds of a training video where he actually moves was to confirm is he is a lefty. His basic observations are basically correct, it's easier to run away with a cut arm than leg.

I will say, as a good person in a world of evil(right-handed people) the angles and targets in an unmatched knife is a different game than evil on evil AKA righty vs righty.  So whatever this course of his is, unless you are angelic as myself - meaning a brother lefty,  should you find yourself in a wretched hive of villainy and scum (where ever right-handed people congregate) what he is showing may not apply to you.

ps.
Happy T-Day

[Daniel Skipp]

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for chiming in. Yes, he is a lefty. While you may be right to a degree that it makes something of a difference I feel it is not much. A kick can come from either leg. He trains with both hands. He is teaching righties... so he does not have much excuse for teaching this. Besides which he is overblowing the risk of a cut leg and underrating the reality that a few good kicks tend to diminish people enough to enable winning the fight or escape.. a stab to the leg is not likely to kill or cripple... and pants will stop most cuts.

When knife attacks are serious murder attempts typically the knifer tries to grab with his free hand. With a successful grab stabbing chances soar. Closing to use hand techniques falls straight into that trap. Kicks both prevent that attack and effectively stun, cripple and disrupt the attacker's balance, mobility and structure. They stop and bend over far more than hand strikes typically do, without the huge risk of being in hand range.

I feel running away is all well and good but sometimes just not effective.. i.e.if the attacker runs faster than you! The issue is what to do if you can not run. Kicks win fights if they connect. The successful hand disarmers of knifers owe more to luck and/or a huge skill disparity or simple knifer incompetence than I am willing to risk. The basic knife defences we see taught can work... but they can also fail and then you are screwed. If the kick fails you still have the hands free to deflect and cover and grab. So I am sticking with GC doctrine. Makes sense to me..

Having said that the fact is that SE Asian and other Asian arts are highly experienced in knife fighting and advocate and train hand techniques to counter knife. I welcome anybody's thoughts on why they do not also prefer to stay at range and kick instead of what they do train... the fancy disarms. Some are not that fancy, to be honest.. just easy to counter. I would rather have a kick fail than one of those in-the-lion's-mouth disarms. What do you think?

[Ari]

Regarding Southeast Asian and other traditional martial arts that supposedly advocate using the hands extensively for knife disarms etc. . . .

I think it behooves us to think critically of what such martial arts actually were at the time when they were being trained for actual battlefield use.

You're a farmer in the Philippines/Indonesia/wherever. You carry a barong/bolo/machete or whatever large edged tool with you constantly and use it constantly in your everyday life, farming, clearing paths, etc. You intuitively know from thousands (millions?) of repetitions how to efficiently swing that edged tool for maximum effect. Now, as part of your warrior culture, or as preparation for impending warfare, some of the grizzled veterans in your village give you tips and ideas about how to move your body efficiently against an attacker, with proper timing, staying out of the way of his blade while getting into position to employ your own. You train this timing with sticks, which are mere training implements, not weapons. You smack the hell out of each other with the knowledge that for combat, you'll be replacing those sticks with the barongs/bolos/machetes you are so intimately familiar with, and you'll be lopping off limbs and heads on the fly rather than just whacking guys with sticks. If you lose your big blade or don't have time to draw it or something else goes wrong, you have to rely on your small utility knife. The veterans show you how to wrestle into position to get your blade into the other guy while avoiding his. THAT is the REAL Southeast Asian martial arts.

Where would bare-handed knife disarms fall into this? Where would all the forms, hundreds of pre-planned techniques, sequences, stick clacking, etc. fall into this? Could it be that MOST of what is taught today as Southeast Asian martial arts may have very little to do with what actual Southeast Asians did back in the day to prepare for actual warfare? Could it be that much of the modern Southeast Asian martial arts are designed to look cool to attract and retain long term paying students? Or that much of it is merely theoretical or for amusement, developed by bored masters long after the call to actual combat had subsided?

I'm just speculating here, not trying to accuse anyone of anything. I taught a particular Filipino martial art for years and was told outright by the grandmaster multiple times that "disarms" were either tools/vehicles to teach certain movement concepts or just total bullshit. As he said, "Would YOU just let someone take your stick away? Why do you think someone else would let you do it to him???"

Meanwhile, I'll quote a previous article I wrote on this topic:

Late in his career, during an interview, Fairbairn was asked about defending against a knife while unarmed:

Fairbairn had only two suggestions:

A. “RUN!”

B. "With a lighting-like kick of either foot, kick him in the testicles or stomach."

But when my brother asked him to demonstrate this move, "Willie never even got up from his desk. He just said, 'You missed the phrase “lighting-like.” I don't do “lighting-like” anymore.'"

--From The First Commando Knives by Prof. Kelly Yeaton, Lt. Col. Samuel Yeaton (USMC) and Col. Rex Applegate

Kill or Get Killed by Col. Rex Applegate, one of the most complete of the classic close combat manuals, discusses strategies such as using a chair, using a baton and kicking as preferred methods for defending against a blade. Other less preferred methods are also included for closer attacks or for controlling a less dangerous adversary.

Carl Cestari, one of the foremost modern authorities on WWII-era close combat and also an experienced police officer and veteran of all sorts of mayhem, taught several kicking methods to counter a knife-armed attacker, involving straight “savate” kicks to the midsection and low side kicks while stepping offline, all done with rapid-fire “lightning-like” execution that is enhanced by Guided Chaos dropping and balance training.

Finally, a man of my acquaintance with experience on both sides of the law revealed the only strategy he had ever “seen” work successfully against a planned hit in prison (i.e. being suddenly assaulted at close range by multiple shank-armed experienced assassins): get into a corner, drop to the ground, and kick out madly with your feet until the “hats ‘n’ bats” arrive to break things up.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/320215

[Daniel Skipp]

 Epic answer, Ari! I heartily concur. Yes, the marketing hype, machismo, warrior status ("face") and entertainment factors to these blade defence drills should not be underestimated. Added to the real benefits of "tips and ideas about how to move your body efficiently against an attacker, with proper timing, staying out of the way of his blade while getting into position to employ your own." and I think we've a fair explanation for why these low probability, over-hyped techniques and drills are so popular in the Asian arts.

After all, in what actual records we do have of real knife fighting, where both sides are blade armed, aside from the rare cases of a heroic charge by an unusually aggressive medal-winner vs shock-and-awed little Japanese, Koreans etc., we see the predictable results that both sides get horribly cut and usually one dies. How much worse for a guy without a knife vs one who has?

Not to say that grappling and disarming versus a blade can not work.. the historical documents of European fighting, video of untrained civilians disarming attackers and common sense logic dictate that it can... it is simply that the "can" is low percentage and a last resort. Kicking is much better. Thank you, Ari, for your wise words. I feel better armed!