# Piper System - South African Knife Combatives



## Trent (Mar 20, 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhpAsE8z6JI&NR

I've heard of this system for quite some time now, and that it had a great deal of Malaysian influence.  I surely see the silat movements, but on a conceptually more simple level that what I'm used to seeing.  It appears that it has been stripped down for use as quickly as possible while maintaining the core movement principles.  Very interesting and good stuff.


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## tellner (Mar 20, 2007)

Trent said:


> I've heard of this system for quite some time now, and that it had a great deal of Malaysian influence.  I surely see the silat movements, but on a conceptually more simple level that what I'm used to seeing.  It appears that it has been stripped down for use as quickly as possible while maintaining the core movement principles.  Very interesting and good stuff.



It's definitely not Silat. It's good movement, but it's its own thing. Interestingly enough, a few really good Silat players have been playing with it recently. One of them, Mushtaq, picked up a fair amount when he was living in East Africa. They're all impressed as hell and say it's not like anything they've seen from SE Asia. As they put it, Silat is a martial art. Piper is how criminals kill people as quickly as possible.


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## Trent (Mar 20, 2007)

I see that I phrased my statements improperly.  I don't think it is silat either, but I do recognize some movements from some Malaysian silat systems I've seen. 

I've also seen more direct knife work from criminals for killing people than Piper, although not as a system or any particular method.


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## Rattan_Bridge108 (Mar 20, 2007)

Cool stuff!  Thanks for the clip.


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## arnisador (Mar 20, 2007)

It's been discussed on Eskrima Digest before. Looks to be big on distracting and controlling with the empty hand. From here:



> Piper is chaos, with a blade. Unpredictable constant motion means your enemy has trouble pinning you down. Being difficult to pin you down visually, it becomes extremely difficult to do so physically.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Mar 21, 2007)

I would have to see more before I think I could make a judgement on it's effectiveness.  I do not like the changing of the hands with the knife to much. (though it could work well against someone unarmed)  I want more knowledge before I give it a full thumbs up. (though it looks interesting)

Hopefully I will get to see more in the future. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Thanks for the clip.


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## tellner (Mar 21, 2007)

Changing the knife isn't supposed to work, but somehow they make it work. The last time I trained with Mushtaq the knife was everywhere at once including in his other hand.


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## arnisador (Mar 21, 2007)

Brian R. VanCise said:


> I do not like the changing of the hands with the knife to much.



Agreed.



> (though it could work well against someone unarmed)




I thought the same, but then I thought...so does every knife system.

But I do find it interesting and would like to know more of it!


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## Trent (Mar 22, 2007)

My description of "good" was provided as to the release of the material.  Like Brian, I haven't seen enough of it to make an proper judgment as to it's effectivness.  It appears that Todd has seen more of it than any of us.

From the presentation, it does look to be almost "dueling" in nature which is odd for a criminal type system.  Usually, the target feels the knife before it is seen.


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## jdp29 (Mar 22, 2007)

I agree w/ Brian.  Too much hand changing and another thing I saw is the arms are always crossed which put them in danger of a trap.  I one was to charge in at the right time they could be in trouble.


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## tellner (Mar 22, 2007)

I tried to trap Mushtaq when he did that. And my trapping is pretty good. I ended up with both arms fileted and lost a kidney. The duelling part is for practice. The guys in SA spend a lot of time working with each other live knives and fast speed. In reality the idea is to stick the person many times before he knows you're after him. If that doesn't work, it's knife against knife or knife (sucks flatus out of sitllborn warthogs) against empty hands (doesn't suck for the guy with the knife).


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## Trent (Mar 22, 2007)

tellner said:


> I tried to trap Mushtaq when he did that. And my trapping is pretty good. I ended up with both arms fileted and lost a kidney. The duelling part is for practice. The guys in SA spend a lot of time working with each other live knives and fast speed. In reality the idea is to stick the person many times before he knows you're after him. If that doesn't work, it's knife against knife or knife (sucks flatus out of sitllborn warthogs) against empty hands (doesn't suck for the guy with the knife).



Nice, thanks for the heads-up.  It seems to make more sense with your input.  And a question which I'm sure you've considered:  could it be Mushtaq's skills that make the system much better than the average Piper?


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## Bill Bednarick (Mar 22, 2007)

Brian,

Come to the gathering of tribes...

That is one of the best places in the states to see it.

Hell it may be the ONLY place in the states to see it.

That is if Mushtaq  pulls it out of his bag -o- tricks.
I have a feeling you and he would hit it off.

You coming this spring Todd? I've made some nice saps for show and tell.


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## tellner (Mar 22, 2007)

Hard to say. He's certainly got better Silat than I do. But he was blown away when he first saw it in Tanzania and played with a couple guys who had, hmm, plenty of on the job training in the tradition. A couple of the things he found:


None of the empty hand defenses he knows and has used many times IRL worked.
Neither did most of the knife-on-knife stuff he's been doing going back half a century.
A lot of the gross movements were familiar. Their sense of timing and rhythm made it vastly different from the FMA and IMA he's conversant in.
Most White guys simply don't know how to move. They especially don't or can't move their hips. This makes things a lot less effective.
You can't think defense against these guys. If you do you will die. Good attacking is the key to survival. So is appreciation of distance.
Some of Mushtaq's thoughts on Piper are on his blog Traceless Warrior


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## Brian R. VanCise (Mar 23, 2007)

Lot's of piper clips here. 

http://www.pipersystem.com/media.html


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## Brian R. VanCise (Mar 23, 2007)

Bill Bednarick said:


> Brian,
> 
> Come to the gathering of tribes...
> 
> ...


 
Hey Bill I will see if I can make it!


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## Brian R. VanCise (Mar 23, 2007)

I have seen similar hand movement with a knife by some chinese and filipino artists* less the body movement*. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Once again though you need to see anything *in person* to get a deeper appreciation. (BTW, I have little doubt that the piper system works)

I will say this though.  If this is how the gangs, criminals are moving in South Africa it certainly is different from what I have witnessed first hand and been shown here (*by some criminals*) in the States.  Yet different is always good so I will look forward to meeting a piper exponenet in the future.  Hopefully at a gathering of the tribes.


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## kuntawguro (Mar 23, 2007)

I also participated in the Piper Knife training with Mushdaq and i was impressed with some of the  "treachery" used in their striking.  Like Brian said- you have to see it to appreciate it and when you feel it- it is even better.
 Buzz


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## tellner (Mar 23, 2007)

Feeling it is generally a once in a lifetime experience


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## bonviet (Jun 18, 2007)

yikes! i wrote a very long post about this and visited their website and watched the youtube and i closed the bloody screen on accident so i'll type a short concise version of what i had tried to write earlier, i'm brand new to this forum and it looks great. 

The meat.
I'm not very sure how well this system is going to work, i've been on the recieving end of three VERY committed knife assaults escaping hospitilization in only one of those incidents, I've been presented with the knife a few times and gave up the goods.
The only reason i survived the knife attacks was a Rabid immediate counter attack or a Preemptive. he did not answer me, mirrored my side step and his hands went out of view so i leapt in a kneed him full all the power i could muster right in the groin then manipulated his head directly backwards and into the ground.And out clanked two knives,I stomped him repeatedly with the heel of my shoe went to get the police sure i had killed him and when we returned he had gone.
I was stabbed in a multiple assaliant attack. I seized the arm in the secondary pull back of the classic swearing machine pattern i've seen used on a handful of people here when i lived in a transient slum of vietnam to save some money, that was years ago and i was an idiot for making that choice to live there,it was a classic overarm wrap and i proceeded to viciously attack his eyes bite at him and grabbed his testicles and yanked like i was trying to start a push mover, that worked, but i was hit in the head with a Brick and fractured my skull I was so adrenalized i simply pushed off the second man with the brick by stiff arming him in the face or shoulder of the arm holding the brick as he came in he hit me repeatedly but  the unbalancing and some of the stiff arms made contact with his throat and eyes and his friend was doing quite badly at the time he lost the brick and stood there for a moment.

I had a knife attacker stab himself while giving me some pretty bad cuts on my hands but the stop of his forward momentum while he was skipping in and rolling the knife over and over I simply pushed at him out of reflex only half my push colided with him and we bounced off one another him swinging(dancing with the knife)and the the blade so close to his body he manged to stab himself badly in his own face directly beneath the eye i don't know if he lost the eye or not but he yelped and the knife clanged to the ground in that little concrete maze called cho lon and i was gone,but blood was already everywhere

And in my own personal defense i've never been able to open a folder once. even though i was armed EVERY INCIDENT i just shared, and if i hadn't focused entirely on getting the knifer or escaping i would have been stabbed repeatedly, sudden vicious counterattack or preemption is it. and luck.

I even disarmed myself in a wild attempt to cut  multiple attackers luckily my initial cuts had some effect as he was starting to ball up from the hits si  i palm heeled him in the ear and a classic punt to the face he was almost on his hand and kness by then and i ran off. some vietnames guy now has a very expensive knife.his friend didn't follow

So basically after all i've seen. push daggers or very simple and stable small non-folding knives
(i dont know about naming names but if i can feel comfortable snatching a knife out regardless of whether the edge is pointing up or down in forward or reverse grip and i can't jam it into a canvas heavy bag 4-5 times and not cut myself i won't carry it, the small knife i carry fits that criteria and most knife fighters would laugh hysterically if they knew what it was but it's deep enough to get into all the places it should and is idiot proof(i've used it LOL!) the sewing machine approach are what i've seen and what i use now in my training. and what i train against, Squaring off doesn;t happen in assasination attempts and personal survival situations.Those guys get talked down or Pepper-sprayed with the good stuff like Guardian Powerful jet of foam or liquid, it works Great.
 Dueling and surviving a knife attack are very different, I can't stand in front of something like the piper system no way. but again you can't stand in front of almost anyone with a knife, How maybe people are killed by knives VERY Dead who never got any training at all? let's face it Antonio banderas character in zorro was right. "the pointy end goes into the other man" it really is almost that simple unfortunately, or get the old petticost pamphlet and workshop that a little bit, it's humbling and you'll Die alot But you'll also start to win on occasion.
My humble opinion, and what the hell i travel to south africa every year or 18 months I'm going to look these guys up and get a demo and some training it's odd for sure
 Bon


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## arnisador (Jun 18, 2007)

Thanks for sharing your experiences! I have to agree about folders--so many people seem to have had the experience of being attacked while carrying one and being unable to access it.


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## Charleston Combat (Sep 28, 2007)

Very interesting clips! Although,I don't have much knowledge of the African Martial Arts  they seem to be very effective. Brad


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## Rob Wilson (Oct 29, 2007)

It's busy looking, that's for sure. But I don't see him covering his head very much and it seems predictable, despite the chaotic nature of all the shifting and cutting. I'm an arnisador, so I can see many, many openings for multiple strikes at Largo range. Corto, well, anything is potentially troublesome at corto range. 

I'll say and agree with the others that it's impossible to say anything with any credibility without having experienced it, so my opinion is probably meaningless. I accept that. But for me, I wouldn't try it, I'm happy with the arts I study....and I'm not dumb enough to want to test what I know against anybody who's got a knife and has had way too much expresso,which is what this looks like to me.


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## arnisador (Oct 29, 2007)

Rob Wilson said:


> It's busy looking, that's for sure. But I don't see him covering his head very much and it seems predictable, despite the chaotic nature of all the shifting and cutting. I'm an arnisador, so I can see many, many openings for multiple strikes at Largo range.



You mean, for knife-to-knife dueling?


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## tellner (Oct 29, 2007)

I'm an arnisador and a pesilat, and when I first saw clips I thought "OK, he's got some rhythm, but I recognize everything. It shouldn't be too hard to deal with." 

Boy, was I wrong.

It has to be felt.

And Mushtaq Ali Al-Ansari let me feel it. He's been doing Kali and Silat and a bunch of other obscure martial arts since Noah was in diapers, and he said it blew him away. He learned it from a couple South Africans who were 'in business' in Darusha, Tanzania. Worked out with them several times a week. When we played with it he blew me away. More than he normally does. Terry Trahan of Boker knives, one of the founders of the self defense forums and TPI, etc. has been and done, didn't buy the t-shirt because he needed the field dressing. He was blown away. Bobbe Edmonds, who has enough Kali and Silat credentials to wallpaper the Vatican (the stuff on his blog isn't half of it) and the life experience to back it up said it's revolutionized what he does. 

These men haven't 'seen the elephant.' They've set up a gift shop and snack bar concession in the freakin' elephants' graveyard. I respect their opinion enormously. 

This stuff isn't magic. But there's a lot more to it than most people are seeing if they haven't actually felt. The attitude is a lot nastier and more brutal than the knife duelling that most of us practice. The rhythm, the loose jointed unpredictable nature of the thing and the way slides around counters are something to be reckoned with.


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## Rob Wilson (Oct 29, 2007)

arnisador said:


> You mean, for knife-to-knife dueling?


Howdy,

No, I mean with a stick. If I had a knife I'd be somewhere else, which is pretty much my philosophy for any knife encounter if possible. Hell, if a ten year old girl came after me with those left handed scissors from collage class or whatever it's called, I'd run away- assuming I wasn't able to land a couple of good stick shots first. And then I'd still run for it, as hitting little girls with sticks is not well received where I live. 

I'm man enough to admit that even though I train with them, knives make me pee in my pants.


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## arnisador (Oct 30, 2007)

No argument about the knives--even in _untrained_ hands they're very dangerous.


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