# Fight Smart vs Funker Tactical



## Damien (Mar 23, 2021)

Anyone see this video go out over the weekend?






Whilst I'm not one to encourage rivalry, I do think what Trav is trying to do here is interesting. There's far too much questionable stuff out there, and if we can all hone our arts and make them better, make us safer, or even just be more honest about what the real purpose of what we're doing is (it doesn't all have to be self defense or fighting) I think that can only be a god thing.

I'll be waiting with interest to see if anything comes of this, would be good to see the result.


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## Graywalker (Mar 23, 2021)

I think, and this is simply my opinion, if you have not defended yourself against an actual knife attack, your opinions should be kept in your head and out of your training. Or, at the very least, as an instructor, be honest with your students and tell them that you have no real experience with this type of combat.


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## Martial D (Mar 23, 2021)

How to die by knife 101


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## Deleted member 39746 (Mar 23, 2021)

I dont watch either honestly speaking.       If fight smart is the advert everywhere on youtube about the knife defence, it reads like one of those old shady magazine adds you see and like a mcdojo thing. 

Something mildly funny about "martial arts is filled with bad knife defence, which is why my knife defence and system is good for only.."




Graywalker said:


> I think, and this is simply my opinion, if you have not defended yourself against an actual knife attack, your opinions should be kept in your head and out of your training. Or, at the very least, as an instructor, be honest with your students and tell them that you have no real experience with this type of combat.



For claritiy sake, would realstic situation drills be acceptable in lieu of actually stabbing someone to death or someone trying to stab you to death?   Because i see some issues if not.


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## drop bear (Mar 23, 2021)

Graywalker said:


> I think, and this is simply my opinion, if you have not defended yourself against an actual knife attack, your opinions should be kept in your head and out of your training. Or, at the very least, as an instructor, be honest with your students and tell them that you have no real experience with this type of combat.



Nah. An actual knife attack is either a crap show. Has too many mitigating factors or has happened too infrequently to be reliable.

And I have done it three or four times myself. 

Better off getting a rubber knife and head gear and working out a high percentage method.


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## drop bear (Mar 23, 2021)

Damien said:


> Anyone see this video go out over the weekend?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I am interested to see if a really good wrestler might be able to pull off these moves over a knife guy. As I think knife guys don't really have the skill sets to accomplish the tasks they are setting out.


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## Graywalker (Mar 24, 2021)

Rat said:


> I dont watch either honestly speaking.       If fight smart is the advert everywhere on youtube about the knife defence, it reads like one of those old shady magazine adds you see and like a mcdojo thing.
> 
> Something mildly funny about "martial arts is filled with bad knife defence, which is why my knife defence and system is good for only.."
> 
> ...


Hmmm...if you have never been in a knife fight, how would one know how to imitate "realistic situation drills"?


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## Graywalker (Mar 24, 2021)

drop bear said:


> Nah. An actual knife attack is either a crap show. Has too many mitigating factors or has happened too infrequently to be reliable.
> 
> And I have done it three or four times myself.
> 
> Better off getting a rubber knife and head gear and working out a high percentage method.


You would be better off using a marker or some other method to simulate cuts during the drills. It would give a better idea of the reality of the damage to an individual that attempts to engage in a knife combat situation.


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## drop bear (Mar 24, 2021)

Graywalker said:


> You would be better off using a marker or some other method to simulate cuts during the drills. It would give a better idea of the reality of the damage to an individual that attempts to engage in a knife combat situation.



If you are honest you generally know. I mean you are basically trying to achieve a average.


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## Damien (Mar 24, 2021)

Rat said:


> I dont watch either honestly speaking.       If fight smart is the advert everywhere on youtube about the knife defence, it reads like one of those old shady magazine adds you see and like a mcdojo thing.
> 
> Something mildly funny about "martial arts is filled with bad knife defence, which is why my knife defence and system is good for only.."
> .


That's probably the one. I've seen a bunch of Trav from Fight Smart's stuff before and he has some good content. I don't think he actually runs a brick and mortar place, just standalone video courses. 



drop bear said:


> Better off getting a rubber knife and head gear and working out a high percentage method.



I believe the idea behind his course is just that, he studied footage of knife attacks to find the most common methods of attack and then tried pretty much everything until he boiled it down to high percentage techniques only. Not tried it, so couldn't say how good it is, but the principle certainly seems sound.


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## punisher73 (Mar 24, 2021)

I have seen Travis' knife material.  In the very first part of it, he breaks down A LOT of research that went into what he teaches.  It breaks down the most common attacks done by a knife (reports, videos etc.) and then goes from there.  The moves are all based on being able to do them in a sparring situation and must be able to be easy to pull off.

It is good solid material, but doesn't look fancy or "cool".


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## Martial D (Mar 24, 2021)

Knife defence is shady as all hell.

It's one thing instilling a false sense of security when the stakes are getting beaten up. Shady, but lesser to instilling such when the stakes are a quick death. 

Unless you get a guy that's going to wildly telegraph then leave their are extended and stationary, none of this is going to get you anywhere but stabbed and sliced.

The best knife defence is to run, a firearm, or left with no other options another knife or melee weapon


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## Damien (Mar 28, 2021)

Martial D said:


> Knife defence is shady as all hell.
> 
> It's one thing instilling a false sense of security when the stakes are getting beaten up. Shady, but lesser to instilling such when the stakes are a quick death.
> 
> ...



Pretty much No. 1 rule in self defence, if you can, run. No safer option if the situation is right for it, just make sure you're at least fast enough to get enough of a head start that they give up, or you're a fast enough to keep outpacing them. A great reason to stay fit and practice running! I doubt anyone is going to run quite so quickly whilst brandishing a knife either.


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## drop bear (Mar 28, 2021)

Damien said:


> Pretty much No. 1 rule in self defence, if you can, run. No safer option if the situation is right for it, just make sure you're at least fast enough to get enough of a head start that they give up, or you're a fast enough to keep outpacing them. A great reason to stay fit and practice running! I doubt anyone is going to run quite so quickly whilst brandishing a knife either.



That is sort of mostly universally accepted and at the same time mostly ignored.

So let's look at a knife defence.






And there is this common idea that you need to finish the fight or remove the threat. Rather than fight to get to a better position. And then break away and use the better options. (Find a weapon, run away, create a barrier, or get help.)

And so live you quite often see people loose control somewhere in the middle of their defence and start getting shanked.


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## punisher73 (Mar 30, 2021)

The other part that most don't cover in their "knife defense" is that most people didn't even know the other person had a knife and that they had been stabbed until it had already happened.

Much of the "knife defense" is based on the other person displaying the knife and not engaging yet giving you time to do your "knife defense".

But, each attack is always different and has different dynamics.  One of my instructors (very old school rough and tumble kind of training) had a guy pull a knife on him and was holding it out and threatening him with it.  He used the VERY move that Travis calls BS to disarm him.  He hit him with two inward strikes (scissor action) on the forearm and broke the guy's forearm.


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## drop bear (Mar 31, 2021)

punisher73 said:


> The other part that most don't cover in their "knife defense" is that most people didn't even know the other person had a knife and that they had been stabbed until it had already happened.
> 
> Much of the "knife defense" is based on the other person displaying the knife and not engaging yet giving you time to do your "knife defense".
> 
> But, each attack is always different and has different dynamics.  One of my instructors (very old school rough and tumble kind of training) had a guy pull a knife on him and was holding it out and threatening him with it.  He used the VERY move that Travis calls BS to disarm him.  He hit him with two inward strikes (scissor action) on the forearm and broke the guy's forearm.



You have to be able to do the move consistently.

It worked in a street fight is generally a pretty terrible endorsement if for example your street figh actually looked like this.


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## Deleted member 39746 (Apr 1, 2021)

Graywalker said:


> Hmmm...if you have never been in a knife fight, how would one know how to imitate "realistic situation drills"?



Because, people dont shoot each other and come up with effective battle drills, there is a pretty grevious issue in maiming people you are training and thats you are training them to do a job you dont need a wounded or dead attrtrion rate and if you dont want to kill them (something you shouldnt if you want to work with them) you will harm your training as you wont go for kill shots or maiming ones. 

Im going to go on a presumotion and state most martial arts's disarms are based in reality they just lost context and were altered over the years. (now some added them on, but i mean like if HEMA was still around and you did Fiore, he had disarms in his system)





Damien said:


> That's probably the one. I've seen a bunch of Trav from Fight Smart's stuff before and he has some good content. I don't think he actually runs a brick and mortar place, just standalone video courses.



Well both of them put me off for similar reasons at diffrent stages, so you can chop it up to bad marketing if he made his advert look like it was a mc dojo course 101.   as for funker, he mainly got popular off the war videos andnsome clickbaity videos i have seen.     Well, i only saw like 3 and went pffft and stopped.


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## Flying Crane (Apr 1, 2021)

Graywalker said:


> Hmmm...if you have never been in a knife fight, how would one know how to imitate "realistic situation drills"?


Show of hands:  how many of us here have been in a “knife fight”?  By which I define as both you and the other guy each have a knife and are engaging with it in an attempt to cut and/or stab each other with intent to kill.

Not me.  Anyone?

Another show of hands:  how many people here have had to defend themselves against a knife-wielding attacker?  Meaning you don’t have a knife, and you are attacked by someone who is using a knife in an attempt to cut and/or stab you and kill you. 

Not me.  Anyone?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this is uncommon in the US, and very very few people have had either of these experiences, and even more uncommon to have either of these experiences more than once.

So how does someone become an “expert” in knife fighting or defense against a knife-wielding attacker, if that experience is a must?  I would hazard that there are very few such experts in existence, at least in the US.  If they are the only ones capable of teaching me something valuable about a knife, I suppose I will never find one. 

I understand the notion that there are a lot of misguided and poorly thought-out knife defense material out there.  Ive experienced some of it myself, stuff that I think is very low probability and is a bad idea.  But I don’t feel it is at all realistic to say that one must have direct experience with such a thing in order to have something valuable to teach or train on the topic.  Reasonable and intelligent and otherwise well-trained people can do it.


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## drop bear (Apr 1, 2021)

Flying Crane said:


> Show of hands:  how many of us here have been in a “knife fight”?  By which I define as both you and the other guy each have a knife and are engaging with it in an attempt to cut and/or stab each other with intent to kill.
> 
> Not me.  Anyone?
> 
> ...



I have done it a couple of times. And had bottles swung at me and had a mate who got stabbed with a pair of scissors.

Which made the local news.
Frenchman charged with stabbing security guard
(Check out the surname on that guy)

And yeah. Rubber knife at speed in the gym is still the best way to know what you are doing.


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## Graywalker (Apr 4, 2021)

Flying Crane said:


> Show of hands:  how many of us here have been in a “knife fight”?  By which I define as both you and the other guy each have a knife and are engaging with it in an attempt to cut and/or stab each other with intent to kill.
> 
> Not me.  Anyone?
> 
> ...


Yup a few times. And yup I hear this all the time, 'I never had experienced in it myself, but I can teach it'


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## Flying Crane (Apr 4, 2021)

Graywalker said:


> Yup a few times. And yup I hear this all the time, 'I never had experienced in it myself, but I can teach it'


Then you are truly a rarity.


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## Graywalker (Apr 4, 2021)

Flying Crane said:


> Then you are truly a rarity.


Well me and Drop Bear.


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## Flying Crane (Apr 4, 2021)

Graywalker said:


> Well me and Drop Bear.


I wouldn’t know.  I don’t read his posts.


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## Graywalker (Apr 6, 2021)

Flying Crane said:


> I wouldn’t know.  I don’t read his posts.


Ok...


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