Military and Police Knife Defense Training Tips (Part 2)

Author: Odhinn Kohout

 

 

I have seen a great deal of knife defense programs which assume…that your Attacker who is armed with a knife will only use the weapon hand. What I tell my own classes is that unless you have been attacked by a pirate…your attacker will probably have TWO hands and you need to orient your training as such.

Example:

When you are practicing how to escape from a hostage situation against a blade (you do practice these worst case scenarios right?)Make sure that your student with the training knife uses his support hand to grab or lock up his training partner because this IS what would happen in reality.

Can you picture ever picture a hostage scenario in which the Attacker with the knife has his support hand down by his side? Then why is this so common place in training…

A bad-guy who assaults you with a blade can use strikes and jabs and counter your attempts to disarm him all with the use of his support hand. When you teach your students to trap the knife hand you must also make them understand that the Attacker gets the next turn and this must be prevented with a takedown, disarm or some other technique that will disrupt this cycle.

Example:

Most Instructors that I have seen teach step 1, step2, etc. when it comes to teaching a knife defense technique. Ask yourself a logical question…

Do you honestly think that your armed Attacker is going to just stand there and let you perform your knife defense sequence? Then why…teach this way?

After you perform step 1 it is (unfortunately) your Attackers turn. To stop this from happening requires you to rethink what step 1 is in the first place. In reality, step is a flinch response from the attack. Many Officers I train are resistant to this concept at first but it is a hard-wired autonomic response which you cannot control.

To say that you will not flinch from a sudden attack is the same as saying that you will not pull your hand away when you accidently touch a hot stove or raise your foot if you step on a nail in bare feet. It is not the same as a “reflective” response as in fight/flight because there is no cognitive process involved in a flinch.

Your body will want to throw both hands in front of the face in the direction of the threat. You can adjust the angle so that the hard ulnar bones of the lower forearm (pinky side) can be used to STRIKE the Attacker’s weapon hand off a flinch response. This will change the flinch from a block into a strike… 

Now your step 1 has changed into an offensive and aggressive response to an Attacker trying to slash you instead of a defensive one and the pain to the Attacker’s forearm will slow down (not prevent) his ability to take his turn.

I cannot stress enough that as an Instructor, the onus is on you to provide realistic training which is based on the principles of body mechanics, leverages and physics instead of “martial-art type moves”

If your students do not understand what you are demonstrating and are asking you to breakdown the technique over and over because they are confused it is "probably"not a technique worth teaching in the first place. The most important thing that I want from my own classes is retention so that they can use what they have learned on the street the next day to save their lives or their partners.

This will require you to change your attitude as a teacher and check your ego at the door. Many Instructors want to dazzle their students with a multitude of complicated techniques in a short amount of available training time yet this accomplishes little and will frustrate even the most eager group of adult learners.

Incorporate the startled flinch response into your program in conjunction with the effects of rapid heart-rates and loss of fine/complex motor skills on reaction time. This change will rapidly alter your defensive tactics for your Military and Police students into a course focused on the bottom line. Which is getting these Officers home at the end of their shift…