Knife Defense Tactics from the Ground (Part-1)

Author: Odhinn Kohout

Most of you have taken some sort of knife defense training within the Military or Police at some point in your careers but did your Instructors only focus on the stand up aspects of a knife attack?

Criminals frequently carry some sort of edged weapon which is usually concealed from view. If you take some time and watch knife attacks videos on the web within Correctional institutions you will see that the majority are surprise attacks in which the victim never sees the knife.

Facing the blade is a frightening proposition and we have discussed in previous articles the fact that that your body under extreme stress will not react in the same way as in a safe training environment. If you find yourself in a restrictive environment you may fall over objects as you try to create some type of reactionary gap and end up on your back. Everyone in law enforcement has been introduced to ground-defense as providing some options to defend yourself and get back up on your feet but what will you do if your Attacker is stabbing and slashing at you from the ground?

Preparing your students for this kind of scenario is essential training. A great deal of time is spent on teaching students handcuffing variations which could be replaced with critical incident survival training. Lack of training time is a constant complaint amongst Instructors teaching in the Military and Police but we need to looks at HOW this limited time is allocated into components and what should be given a high priority for our students.

On the subject of knife defense from the ground the Officer will instinctually try and grab at the weapon hand attacking him. This is an unconscious response which is hard-wired into the fight/flight mechanisms of the human brain. The aspects of controlling the knife hand through rotations should be explored in depth with your classes, first from a standing position to instill muscle memory and then repeating the exercise from the ground placing the student on his back and repeating the exercise.

The thumb pad of the human hand controls the strength of the knife grip to a great degree so although most people focus on the wrist I believe that it is the wrong approach. If we focus on the rotational axis of the wrist we observe a 360 deg rotation which logically…would make grabbing the wrist redundant as the weapon hand still has a high degree of movement. In point of fact the Attacker can effectively use the blade to cut their way out of a wrist lock countering many defensive tactics techniques.

Leverage would be better suited for the blade edge of the weapon hand (ulnar) side or the thumb pad (radial) side. This makes rotating the wrist very difficult and offers a high degree of control both standing or on the ground.

From the ground the Officer will attempt to parry and block slashing/stabbing angles from both inside the Attackers forearm and outside. From this position the student should be taught how to control the knife as previously discussed prior to attempting to get back up to their feet. Most people will use some sort of post with their hands to assist in standing from the ground which will leave them even more vulnerable when an edged weapon is in play. Once the knife hand has been controlled by the Officer, escape becomes the focal point as the threat has been (to some degree) lessened.

Practice an inverted “ice-pick” grip with your students and the normal forward grip. It will get them accustomed to learning new defensive tactics regardless of how the Attacker is holding the blade. Once the techniques are engrained from a right-handed perspective try the same skill-sets from the weapon being placed in the left hand. Your students must be ambidextrous in acquiring new cognitive reasoning and recognition. We will continue to discuss ground combatives against knives in future articles