Well, I don't know if it sucks or not...I've always liked the idea of knowing what actually works and what doesn't. But I'll agree that it almost always a very humbling, ugly, chaotic thing that almost never goes the way we'd like it to go.
Ambush drills were something we took to an absurd level in my seniors group. We carried training blades around for fun for a while, and we'd try to nail each other while hanging out at the moovies, dinners together, or wherever. The game rapidly degenreated into what you'd expect, and everyone started getting shanked in the restrooms. "No one fights good with their dick in their hand" became a commonly accepted rule of combat, and we decided it might be best if we backed off the exercise at that point.
Bystanders rarely felt about our training the way we ourselves did, and many did not have much of a sense of humor.
As a sidebar, the other rule of combat that emerged from said training is that the guy who has the knife out and ready to use almost always beats the guy who doesn't.
A more timid version of the game arose later on, but it's apt to give people rampant paranoia so I don't recommend it. We stopped using actual training knives, and when we did, we also stopped using our training partners as "targets." The goal was ot try and see ourselves as others see us; particularly, to see ourselves as potential bad guys see us. We'd pick someone out of a crowd and watch them for a few minutes. The goal was to spot who they were with, where they were likely to move if threatened, and whether or not they were armed. Then, you had to get close enough to them to deploy a blade and touch them in two vital areas to simulate a successful attack. Most often, this mean an incidental "nudge" or accidental "bump" to the kidneys or base of the head. When it eventually became clear that you can almost always get away with that - sneak attack to two vital targets without the intended "victim" knowing you're a threat - we figured the lesson was sufficient and I stopped training it that way.
The simple, ugly, horrible truth is:
If an attacker wants to hurt or kill you with a knife and he has even half a brain, he's going to hurt or kill you with a knife. The best defenses you have against that unfortunate truth are not passing and cutting and stabbing, but situational awareness, positioning, and fluid methods of escape. Or counter-ambush, of course, but that's a different thread. And one well out of the purview of civilian martial arts in my opinion.
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