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**TKOU** · 12-21-2000, 04:19 PM

Props to Sifu Harley

Quietanswer,
Where do you reside? If you live in the States I would say go and train with Harley. He is too modest to say so but he is THE MAN. Maybe not as well known as some, but years from now we will be saying I got to train with Harley when....

**Bahala Na** · 12-21-2000, 10:16 PM

quietanswer
Try making a drive about three hours south of you to Fayetteville Arkansas, and get in touch with Brad Garrison. His moniker here is Wolf, so post something to him, and I'm sure he'll hook you up.
Mike

**Harley** · 12-22-2000, 07:52 AM

Hello Quietanswer,
thank you for your interest, but i agree with Bahala Na, go train with Brad (Wolf) he's closer and has been one of my top students for years, he know's my stuff inside out and can provide you with anything you need. hope you get time to train with him.
harley

**Guro Dave Gould** · 12-24-2000, 01:11 AM

Hi guys,
Great question!!! it is one that I get from alot of people from different parts around the world. I always give an honest and direct answer and likewise i`ll do the same here for you and all of the forum members.
In my opinion and based on my past experiences, I think that at the highest level of the knife fighting world a person can reach such an effective skill level with a knife that it makes it very difficult if not impossible for an unarmed person to defend against sed armed person with positive effect. My advice to you is that if you are faced with an experienced knife fighter you should first and foremost look for an escape route and take your chances running away.
However if you have no choice and you are forced to engage in an altercation with an experienced knifer from an unarmed point of view there are things that you can do to hopefully create opportunities for yourself which could be used to your advantage. Knife "tapping" or passing the knife is good for 1 maybe 2 times but if you try to pass the knife more than 3 times without gaining control of the weapon hand in an altercation you stand a high chance of dying or being badly wounded. Your success in this depends heavily on the skill level of your opponent of course, your ability to control your opponents weapon hand long enough to be effective and a bit of luck. This is of course if you can actually grab and maintain control of your opponents weapon hand long enough to disarm him.
We train a progression in Lameco that we call non-cooperation which we focus on not cooperating with people trying to disarm us or retain control of our weapon hand in that as soon as someone grabs our hand within a fraction of a second we will strip the opponents hand from our weapon hand and continue our assault and repeat the process if necessary until we find a home for our blade. Against someone with this mentality it`s very difficult to gain control of the weapon hand long enough to disarm him and things move really quick after you lose contact with his weapon hand. In training as well as in fighting you either keep up with whats going on or you get left behind. Perception and reaction is the best attribute for you to train in order to prepare you for this type of situation.
Your objective in fighting a person with a knife from an unarmed perspective is to either put distance between you and your opponent so that you can take your escape route or you have to gain control of the weapon hand long enough so that you can neautralize and put down the situation post haste. This is easier said than done against a non-cooperative mindset or otherwise translated as an angry person who is intent on separating you from your head... Reality bites a large chunk out of your ass if you`re not prepared to deal with it.
There are alot of factors to take into consideration. First and foremost is mindset, you have to prepare yourself to fight against a person that will attack you only as an "angry" man will attack you. An angry man is intent on cutting your head off and he`s not willing to stop until he has killed you and just because you have cut or stabbed him does`nt mean that you will stop his attack, how much more of an advantage will he have over you if you are fighting unarmed, it will be very difficult to hurt him enough as to stop him from continuing his assault on you unless you are extremely skilled or a bit lucky or of course a combination of the two.
From being cut and stabbed myself in quite a few knife fights from different parts of the world I can assure you that sometimes when you are stabbed or cut you don`t realize it until after the altercation when your adrenaline level drops and you come down from the high. So a cut to the arm or a thrust into the shoulder isn`t in itself gonna` keep me from pressing my attack forward on your position. In my mind nothing short of death itself will keep me from killing you. And guys let me state that I am not the only one out there with this mindset. It is a reality and we as knife fighters have to acknowledge that people think and will fight in this manner or we are fooling ourselves.
Now having stated the difficulties involved in fighting unarmed against a skilled knifer let me share with you some things that will equalize the situation very quickly. If you bring your own knife into the equation you immediately level the playing field 50/50. And if your skill level is above average than that just gives you that much more of an edge in the situation. But keep in mind that you have to be effective with your knife work. Precision and specific targetting is required here. If you are accurate and go for specific targets with intention you should leave the altercation with only a few cuts or injuries to your self but at least you will be alive. If you strike at random unspecific targets then you may kill your opponent or have little effect or none at all . Again you can`t rule out the luck factor but personally I don`t want to chance my life on getting lucky.
Another thing that you have at your disposal will be improvised weapons. If anything in your immediate area possesses even the least amount of weapon potential you should utilize that to your advantage. In the early 80`s I focussed on a type of training that I labeled my bar-room series whereby I would train using anything that I would have access to in a bar or pool hall to fight with. I would train with a bar stool, Cue ball, pool raque, beer mugs, ashtrays, beer bottles (broken and intact), and with pool sticks (broken and intact). This served me well and I did get the upper end of a couple of knife fights by picking up a bar stool and busting someones head then of course running away so that I did`nt have to deal with the bouncers or law enforcement shortly there after.
The bottom line is that if you have access to anything that you can use as a weapon against a person with a knife, skilled or otherwise it would behoove you to pick it up and take your chances with that instead of trying to defend yourself unarmed. If you don`t have a choice than you`re forced to do with out and as I stated there are things that you can do that may gain you a second here and a second there and in a knifefight a couple of seconds is an eternity so you never know what opportunities will avail themselves or possibly none at all in which case then you die. Again reality bites...
The knife is a dangerous weapon and more times than not it leads to a very violent, painful and bloody death, sorry to be so direct but this is my mindset and we all need to know how much respect this weapon demands. As soon as you lose respect for it, it will take your life, there is nothing "guaranteed" in a knife fight except that you will die if you don`t respect the weapon.
I always teach my students to realize that there are no "guarantees" in combat, only opportunities, and either you will be able to recognize those opportunities and react positively toward them if and when thay avail themselves to you in real time or you won`t. The situation will dictate your most appropriate counter response and your abilities will determine your overall performance by which to defend yourself in a crisis situation.
I hope that this gives you a better perspective of knife fighting or at least a different vantage point as seen through my eyes... Take care guys and be well...
~ Guro Dave Gould.

**Bahala Na** · 12-24-2000, 02:20 AM

That's about the most thorough reply I've seen here, and while it sounds like you have had a lot more experience with this than I have, I can most definitely confirm that a cut or stab, even a deep one, will not stop people based on pain. In one knife encounter i had with a drunk (I was working as a security guard), I was stabbed deep into the front of my thigh. The guy had charged, attempting to stab me in the chest while I was radioing for police assistance. I smashed the incoming blow downward with the radio, hoping to "defang the snake", and popped him along the side of the head with my 6 cell maglite. he dropped, and I picked up his blade and went to wait for the police. About three minutes later, they had him in custody, and I was giving a statement, when I started to feel dizzy. It was cold, and I was wearing sweatpants under my uniform, but i felt a squishy feeling in my boot. When I looked closer, it appeared that the guy had jammed the knife into my left thigh. I hadn't disarmed him, but i redirected the shot from my heart to my leg. Point being, there was no pain, and I wasn't even feeling any pain that long after the fact. In fact, even after i saw the flesh butterflied out like a lobster tail, and even as I watched the doctor stitch it up, there was no pain. Cuts and stabs, while they can very well hurt like hell, don't have the same kind of ballistic shock that a bullet or a stick will, so while a knife can kill you quick, it's a dangerous assumption that all you need to do is score that magical cut and just dance around and watch the bad guy bleed to death. My 2 cents.
Mike

**Chop Wisby** · 12-24-2000, 04:02 AM

better to give than receive

good posts, guys.

**knuckledragger** · 12-25-2000, 03:55 PM

Awesome awesome posts! Thanks a lot!

**Harley** · 12-26-2000, 07:39 AM

An excellent coverage of the possible stratagies involving a knife altercation. it really does boil down to get away or engage and gain control immediately.
as for Bahala Na, when i got stabbed in the leg it hurt like heck, but when i got hit in the hand with a machete it didn't hurt until afterwards when i was cleaning it out, that hurt like a son of a ...! so i agree that you can't wait for a cut to do it's magic, you must always assume that you missed and continue to flow to the next target while maintaining control. But as we both know, after a few well directed targets are "touched" you will be able to go home. but in keeping with the "empty and vs. knife" posts, i have to stick with my guns, again to quote the Late Edgar Sulite, "there are only three outcomes to a knife fight,
1. you are better than your opponent and he dies.
2. he is better than you and you die.
3. you are both skilled and you both die.
so your odds of surviving a knife fight are 1 in 3." just something to think about.
harley

**Guro Dave Gould** · 12-26-2000, 07:14 PM

Realistic solutions...

Harley,
Hello there, I hope that all is well with you and that you had an awesome holiday. That goes for all of the other "forumites" who participate and the ones lurking in stealth mode as well.
In responding to your comments I have to say that Punong Guro Sulite trained his students as to fully understand the realities of dealing with the business end of a knife from both a "skilled" and "unskilled" perspective. The manner by which a "wild" out of control street fighter will attack you with a knife is totally different than the way in which a skilled knifer will attack you. Punong Guro Sulite demanded from his students the capability to address either or with positive effect in dealing with putting down these types of crisis situations post haste.
What Punong Guro Sulite would tell us time and time again was that from an unarmed perspective in dealing with a knife attack that; "if you are very good and so is your opponent your chances of surviving a knife attack are only 25% at best". He would add that if you were`nt very good than your chances would drop to around 10% of survivng that same situation.
However, he would go on to inform us that if we present our own knife into the existing situation that it would immediately escalate our survival rate to 50% as to level the playing field somewhat. If your skill level is above average in a knife to knife encounter than that would just give you that much more of an advantage in putting that situation down without possibly joining your opponent in death. That`s not to say that you will not get cut or stabbed in the process.
My reality is that if you live by the blade your gonna` get bit by it, it`s not a matter of "if" but "when" and how much damage will be inflicted. It`s the nature of the beast that we befriend and depend on to carry us through those potentially dark and horrifying experiences. Clearly our lives hang in the balance of our ability to make critical decisions with clarity and conviction and our ability to respond with great effect. When you hesitate in combat you will die...
I feel the same about a knife disarm as I feel about firmly grabbing my opponents weapon hand and slamming him into a telephone pole, the side of a building or flinging him into heavy traffic or in front of a moving bus. I don`t rely on any one technique as the "end all of techniques" that is guaranteed to work in "all" situations "all" the time. I was simply taught to perceive a threat and react with the most appropriate response as dictated by necessity, opportunity and target availability for that specific situation. One technique is as good as the next if I can use it to positive effect as to allow me to live one day more. The "best" technique for any situation is the one that will work for you if and when it is called upon to defend your life.
Harley You stated in your response that you should`nt anticipate the effect of that one precise strike and feel confident to the point that you can just wait for your opponent to give up and die, this is very true. I believe that a person is most dangerous to deal with after you have initially injured or even fatally injured him than at any other time during the fight. The reason for this is mindset, panic reaction and the retaliation factor.
I feel that after having successfully delivered the "death thrust" to your opponent you then have to monitor the situation with positive effect long enough for your opponent to collapse, bleed out and die or at least place him in a position where he can no longer harm you. At any time in between the point of initiation and completion your opponent has every opportunity in which to take your life in the process of him possibly losing his.
Just because he is dieing at your feet does`nt mean that he is dead, as i`ve stated many times before, what more can you do to him at this point? As far as he is concerned he is dead already and as long as he has life left in his body he is a danger to you because he fears no retaliation from you, you`ve already killed him and he knows it so nothing but death itself will keep him from charging in and taking your life as well. To me this is the true defination of "dead man walking", it`s a scary proposition and one that we all need to prepare ourselves to deal with.
Deadly mindset and aggression are hard to deal with but not impossible by any means. People make mistakes and over commit themselves from time to time and if you can perceive and react quickly enough you will have opportunities available to you but you will need to have presence of mind in order to respond with positive effect. As i`ve stated in the past I feel that there are no guarantees, only opportunities, so... you do your best and don`t give up and only then do you hope that your best enough.
I try and teach realistic solutions for realistic problems to as many people as I can have an audience with. I don`t want to discourage anyone in their training but at the same time I don`t want people hitting the street with an over inflated ego and false sense of confidence. If anything the truth of the matter should make us train even harder as to realisitically prepare and enable ourselves to deal with these situations with more clarity for if and when they do happen. The worse place to be when you figure out that what you are doing in which to defend yourself is`nt applicable is on the street when you are face down on the cold hard surface bleeding out your lifes blood totally at the mercy or your destructor. At that point "He" will choose to be merciful or brutal but make no mistake about it that choice will be his and his alone to make. Because at that point you will have done your best and your best just was`nt good enough...
After being shot, stabbed and cut on more than several occasions I tend to look at the true potential of any technique that has been shown to me in a slightly different light. to me beauty has nothing to do with the outside appearance of a technique but rather the over all effect of sed technique. I think that mindset is the most deadly weapon that one can possess and with the proper mindset nothing becomes impossible but rather improbable at worst and probable at best, based solely on my abilities to perform to my potential.
I feel that you should do whatever you have to in order to live 1 second more in a crisis situation as each second that you hang on will offer you opportunities and if you are capable you can respond with positive effect toward those opportunities if and when they avail themselves to you, if not then you die... A second here, or a second there seems like nothing when compared to the many years of your life span but the life span of a viscious knife attack is only measured in seconds so a few seconds in a 7 second world is an eternity and many things could happen in that amount of time. For instance a whole world can be taken from you, or you can take some one elses world away all in such a short period of time. Take care guys and be well...
~Guro Dave Gould.

**Stuart S. Igarta** · 12-27-2000, 11:42 PM

Harley and Guro Dave Gould, Excellent, excellent posts!!!

**Chop Wisby** · 01-02-2001, 03:29 AM

big thread

wow, knuckledragger; this thread has really taken off!

**Protector** · 01-12-2001, 02:38 AM

Hello to All,

A friend was wandering the internet and told me I was being quoted over here, so I had to check it out. Excellent thread, with lots of good insights!

Chop Wisby, Sikal/Mike, quietanswer and all the rest, I will try to answer some of your questions and give a simple explanation for my current theories.

I have been in the FMA for about 20 years now. I trained under the late Guro Ted Lucaylucay and am an instructor under him. I am also an LEO and Defensive Tactics instructor. We are lucky in my state, as the head of the entire state D.T. program is Bob Bragg, an FMA instructor.

The Blade forums thread that was quoted was on the 'Brennan & Miller Balisong Videos' for Panther Productions. Since I am the Brennan portion of the instructors/stars? I responded. The tapes were done in 1986. This was one of the first times FMA knifefighting had been put on tape. It was still one of the more 'scret' parts of the FMA and Guro Ted gave me a list of things he didn't want shown. As a result of this, there are some gaps in some of the techniques and training. I stated that overall the majority of what is shown is still valid and usefull (and IMHO more realistic than some of the current silliness on tape).

The 'empty hand against the knife' portion of the tapes is all passing, trapping, stripping and tapping. It was the 'hot new thing' at the time. I still enjoy all the flow drills and work them whenever I can, but as my search for realism in training progressed I noticed some problems with these drills and techniques.

It started with live blade training. Our school was working with realistically shaped aluminum trainers back in the 80's. We worked a lot of traps and locks to strips and disarms. It worked great on aluminum knifes and we felt we were real b@dasses. When I started working live blade techniques (in very slooowww motion wiht trusted studens) I found that a lot of those great strips had you running parts of your body against very sharp edges. If you contacted the blade flats PERFECTLY you could pop it out without getting cut. Anything less and you would get sliced. This led to going to locks/control holds or passing, without touching the knife, followed up by head smashing, until the attacker goes down.

The next step was the advent of the Redman and FIST protective suits. This allowed you to strike the attacker more realistically. Your normal FIST suit has large arm guards and gloves, which can make movement restrictive for the attacker. They also make wrist locks/control holds almost impossible.

The most realsitic training I have particpated in was where the attacker wore the FIST suit, without the foream guards or gloves. The ASP red rubber knives were used. They are almost stiff enough for a good strip, if you are close to the hilt. We had two attacker scenarios. One was the 'knifer' had the knife displayed and moved in from a distance. This attack led to a lot of low line kicks, knife tapping and limb destructions.

The second scenario had the attacker standing at 'interview' distance. The knife was stuck in the back of the FIST suit and the attacker could draw it with either hand at any time and attack. The attacks were mostly committed 'killer blows'. As you could never be sure which hand held the knife and in which grip, saber or icepick, we found the dive entry produced the best results. AS there are really only two variations of the dive entry, left or right, with the option of high or low line, it's pretty simple. It's a gross motor skill that works if the attacker is sweaty, wet or wearing baggy/slippery clothing. With the attacker in the FIST suit you could unload close to a full power strike and most attackers went down on the first contact.

As to the comment that strips/disarms are incedental/accidental, at one point in the above drill, I did a picture perfect 'strip and stab the attacker with his own knife' (it amazed the snot out of the non-FMA particpants!) I don't think any of the passing/stripping training was wasted and I still enjoy it. These techniques are a contact reflex that neeed a lot of regular training to maintain. Most LEO's have little interest in Defensive Tactics training and most budgets don't allow a lot of it. The dive technique can be taught in a simple fashion with lots of repetition. It is a valid LEO response to almost any attack at close range, where the hand comes whipping out and strikes/thrusts towards you. It works against empty hands, edged weapons, impact weapons and even a firearm at the right range.

Didn't meant to ramble on so long. I will definitely check out the rest of these forums. Keep up the good work.

**Chop Wisby** · 01-16-2001, 04:10 AM

rambling?

protector;

i wouldn't call that rambling at all; thanks for the good post.

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UNARMED VS KNIFE

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