Knife Violence As With All Violence You Are Probably On Your Own!

[K-man]

You want some sort of plan if they are on top. Of course a plan that puts you on top would be better.

Of course well rounded grappling skills does solve both problems as well as they can be solved.

Sorry, plans don't work against knife attacks. With enough training you may develop an instinctive response whether you are on your feet or on the ground but trying to plan for a random attack won't work. The one thing in your favour will be that the attacker intuitively will try to retain the weapon. If you have control of the weapon or arm holding the weapon, that may give you the opportunity to take control of the total situation. But, you can't plan for that. As in all our training, you have to use what you are given.

 

[drop bear]

Sorry, plans don't work against knife attacks. With enough training you may develop an instinctive response whether you are on your feet or on the ground but trying to plan for a random attack won't work. The one thing in your favour will be that the attacker intuitively will try to retain the weapon. If you have control of the weapon or arm holding the weapon, that may give you the opportunity to take control of the total situation. But, you can't plan for that. As in all our training, you have to use what you are given.

How would you know plans don't work against knife attacks?

I am not even sure why you would make that statement. And once you have made that. it hinges every other idea you have to it.

This random statement based reasoning honestly just confuses me.

 

[K-man]

How would you know plans don't work against knife attacks?

I am not even sure why you would make that statement. And once you have made that. it hinges every other idea you have to it.

This random statement based reasoning honestly just confuses me.

So, someone is standing in front of you with a knife or worse still sitting on top of you in a mount. You have no idea what he will do. Will he stab or will he slash? Will he feint? You can't plan for that scenario. You can practise against those types of attacks but if the situation were to arise you would fall back on your training and hope that instinctively you make the right move.

A lot of instructors teach if he does A, we do B. If he does C, we do D and so on. There is an answer to every attack. Unfortunately knife attacks aren't choreographed. That type of training will give you false confidence. You can't wait for a particular attack then react. You have to be able to anticipate the attack and react accordingly.

But to throw it back to you, just how would you plan for a knife attack?

 

[drop bear]

So, someone is standing in front of you with a knife or worse still sitting on top of you in a mount. You have no idea what he will do. Will he stab or will he slash? Will he feint? You can't plan for that scenario. You can practise against those types of attacks but if the situation were to arise you would fall back on your training and hope that instinctively you make the right move.

A lot of instructors teach if he does A, we do B. If he does C, we do D and so on. There is an answer to every attack. Unfortunately knife attacks aren't choreographed. That type of training will give you false confidence. You can't wait for a particular attack then react. You have to be able to anticipate the attack and react accordingly.

But to throw it back to you, just how would you plan for a knife attack?

A plan would look more like a flow chart than a script. It gives you a general outline to make some of your decisions a bit quicker. And is internalised rather than written out.

(Random funny one as an example)

 

[K-man]

We reproduced the scenario tonight. Guy in the mount with the knife. Interesting session.

 

[drop bear]

We reproduced the scenario tonight. Guy in the mount with the knife. Interesting session.

I can imagine. It sucks hard enough when they are just beating on you from there.

 

[Hanzou]

Alternate view of stabbing;

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IDnJozW1gqY

 

[Blindside]

This is a quick compilation video of a bunch of our unarmed vs. knife freeplay sessions. A number of the guys in my group are ex-judo players, which may account for the propensity for takedowns in freeplay, regardless, IMO is good to know all your ranges. I am a novice in BJJ, but the knife changes many assumptions about the ground positions. Let me know what you think.

 

[tshadowchaser]

Put chalk or ink on the blade next time so the person getting stabbed can see how many times he was struck after the fight.
what..........did I miss anyone doing the BJJ one leg shoot take down??????

some of those fighters would have had some serious wounds before they managed their take down. All would have been bleeding

looked like a fun training event

 

[Blindside]

Put chalk or ink on the blade next time so the person getting stabbed can see how many times he was struck after the fight.
what..........did I miss anyone doing the BJJ one leg shoot take down??????

some of those fighters would have had some serious wounds before they managed their take down. All would have been bleeding

looked like a fun training event

Nobody tried a shoot, it is a great way to get a knife in the back. The takedowns are happening because people are getting into standing grappling positions trying to control the weapon arm, and someone winds up compromising their balance and it goes to the ground.

We have chalked blades before but not really informative after several sessions when you are just a giant chalk mark.

 

[mook jong man]

This is a quick compilation video of a bunch of our unarmed vs. knife freeplay sessions. A number of the guys in my group are ex-judo players, which may account for the propensity for takedowns in freeplay, regardless, IMO is good to know all your ranges. I am a novice in BJJ, but the knife changes many assumptions about the ground positions. Let me know what you think.

Good to see that your group practice against the prison yard rush type of attack , with the knife in the rear hand and the front hand used to maintain distance.
Very very difficult to deal with , that one

Most martial arts tend to only want to practice against the scenario where the knife is in the front hand and the attackers other hand is doing nothing.
Good video.

 

[RTKDCMB]

This video just reiterates how learning to fight from your back is of vital importance.

I'm sorry but if you purposely go down on your back against someone with a knife then you are going get killed.

 

[Hanzou]

I'm sorry but if you purposely go down on your back against someone with a knife then you are going get killed.

It wasn't purposeful, the guy ended up on his back because his assailant forced him there.

Once forced into that position, he had several opportunities to gain a superior position. Unfortunately since he wasn't trained, he wasn't able to capitalize on those openings, and he ended up in a nasty situation.

 

[RTKDCMB]

It wasn't purposeful, the guy ended up on his back because his assailant forced him there.

Once forced into that position, he had several opportunities to gain a superior position. Unfortunately since he wasn't trained, he wasn't able to capitalize on those openings, and he ended up in a nasty situation.

I wasn't talking about the video but I agree that he wasn't well trained.

 

[Hanzou]

I wasn't talking about the video but I agree that he wasn't well trained.

Well I was talking about the video. If you watch the video I posted from the alternative angle, you see that the victim was dragged into the ending position where he began to get stabbed. From the point of contact with the ground, to the end point where he begins to get stabbed, there's quite a few opportunities where knowing ground fighting would have gotten him out of that situation. The knife wielder would have never achieved the mount position if the victim knew how to fight from his back.

 

[Hanzou]

I see the link was taken down on YT. Here's another link;

LiveLeak.com - MARTA Stabbing -- Alternate View ** Volume Warning **

At the beginning of the vid, the assailant is actually in the victim's half guard. There's quite a few moves you can do from that position. Namely sweeps in order to achieve a positional advantage.

Look up "Half Guard sweeps" for more info.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Well I was talking about the video. If you watch the video I posted from the alternative angle, you see that the victim was dragged into the ending position where he began to get stabbed. From the point of contact with the ground, to the end point where he begins to get stabbed, there's quite a few opportunities where knowing ground fighting would have gotten him out of that situation. The knife wielder would have never achieved the mount position if the victim knew how to fight from his back.

There were quite a few opportunities to not let it get that far.

 

[Hanzou]

There were quite a few opportunities to not let it get that far.

Of course, but what if it DOES get that far? As I often say, gravity is here to stay, and it really doesn't take much to knock or wrestle someone to the ground.

 

[RTKDCMB]

Of course, but what if it DOES get that far? As I often say, gravity is here to stay, and it really doesn't take much to knock or wrestle someone to the ground.

Your previous post where you talk about improving your position implies that you want to stay on the ground. If someone gets on top of you with a knife you need to do four things, Control the knife, get him off you and incapacitate him and get up. You want to spend the least amount of time on the ground as possible because while you are there you can't get away.

 

[Hanzou]

Your previous post where you talk about improving your position implies that you want to stay on the ground.

No, I want to improve my position so that I control the outcome of the altercation. You have little control from an inferior position. You seem to think that once I achieve positional dominance me and this guy are going roll around in the daisies or something. Nothing could be further from the truth. From a position of dominance I can end the altercation quickly and decisively, especially against someone who is untrained of equal size as shown in this video.

If someone gets on top of you with a knife you need to do four things, Control the knife, get him off you and incapacitate him and get up. You want to spend the least amount of time on the ground as possible because while you are there you can't get away.

All of which is made easier with a superior position. The victim controlled the knife several times during the stabbing phase of the altercation. The problem is that he never had the superior position, so while he briefly controlled the knife at certain points, he couldn't maintain that control because of his opponent's positional dominance.

That of course completely misses the point that he could have achieved positional dominance before the knife even came out. Yet another example of how not knowing how to fight from your back or the ground can be costly.

You can say that your goal is to get up as quickly as possible. However, if you have no idea what you're doing, or if you drill your ground defenses once every blue moon (in between katas and spinning jump kicks) you're going to be on the ground a lot longer than you want to be. I'm sure that poor guy who was getting stabbed wanted to get off the ground as quickly as possible too. Unfortunately since his ability to fight from that position was lacking to nonexistent, he didn't have the luxury of being able to control the outcome.