Mental disconnect in martial arts theory

[frank raud]

Borrowed this from another thread 1) Any such techniques are inherently far, far, far less tested than the rest of what I teach. For example, if I'm teaching a right cross: I've landed multiple right crosses in real fights. My teachers have done the same. Through personal experience, first hand observation or video, we can examine potentially hundreds of thousands of right crosses in different contexts which have succeeded or failed and draw our conclusions regarding what works best. Contrariwise, very few instructors have ever performed an unarmed disarm of a real knife in a real assault. Of those who have, none have had occasion to do so more than a few times at most. Most of those rare occasions have not been witnessed or videoed. We don't know how typical those successes are or what sort of factors may have made a difference. We have even less information regarding the knife disarm attempts that failed. In short, we don't have the dataset for anyone to honestly claim to be an expert on the subject. (That said, I do know instructors who I think are on the right track and other instructors who I think are teaching garbage that will get you killed.)
Articulately explained by Tony Dismukes. And people will nod their heads and say , "Yes, weapon disarms are incredibly difficult to pull off, and it is a little practice area of self defense."

Borrowed from another (different ) thread " Any time you resort to a weapon you must be committing to using it. Otherwise it may be taken away from you and used against you by your opponent. " And again, people will nod their heads and say how there is enough of a danger of having a weapon taken away from you that you must take that into consideration before to bring a weapon into play.

If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against you? Is there even anecdotal evidence of bad guys successfully reversing weapons on people using them in self defense?

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I don't know how often bad guys take weapons away from people using them in self-defense, but I think the key phrase is "committing to using it". If someone is just brandishing a weapon but is psychologically unprepared to actually use it, then the odds of losing control of the weapon go way up. I'd feel a lot more confident in my ability with weapon disarms if I knew my opponent wasn't prepared to actually use it on me.

Another consideration is the degree of acceptable risk. Suppose my odds of successfully disarming a knife-wielding attacker were 10%. That means a 90% chance I'm going to get stabbed in the attempt. (Actually, even higher than that since I might get cut or stabbed in the process of a successful disarm.) In most circumstances there are probably better options, such as running, handing over my money, or finding an improvised weapon of my own.

Now switch it around. Suppose I'm brandishing a knife at an unarmed opponent but I'm unwilling to actually use it. If they sense that and attack anyway then they have a decent chance of either performing an actual disarm or just beating on me until I drop it. Even if that's only the same 10% chance I gave in the previous example, a 10% chance of escalating a non-lethal encounter to a lethal one where the other guy has the weapon is still higher than I'd like.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Another thought - just about all of the successful knife disarms I've seen on video or heard about anecdotally were situations where the knife wielder was brandishing the knife to threaten and not really committing to an attack.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

As a former LEO I can say when you deploy your baton on some idiot, said idiot tries to tie it up and take it. I think it's instinctual. That's why weapon retention is an important part of training.

It's also a lot easier to take a weapon than to use it effectively, but a bludgeoning by an untrained goon hurts too. Worse if it's your own stick he's beating you incorrectly with.

My major gripe with people using weapons is magical thinking. "I will carry X and when I brandish it my troubles will be ended." Perhaps, but not in the way yon knucklehead thinks.

 

[Buka]

A uniformed Police Officer is more likely to be disarmed than a private citizen. Because a uniformed Police Officer's weapon is exposed for the world to see on his hip. He is exposed to be watched and measured. It's why I teach handgun Retention and consider it as serious as a heart attack.

And, yes, I am not on youtube so this is all false.

That being said, I have never known a private citizen to be disarmed of a weapon out on the street. Not even one.

 

[drop bear]

A uniformed Police Officer is more likely to be disarmed than a private citizen. Because a uniformed Police Officer's weapon is exposed for the world to see on his hip. He is exposed to be watched and measured. It's why I teach handgun Retention and consider it as serious as a heart attack.

And, yes, I am not on youtube so this is all false.

That being said, I have never known a private citizen to be disarmed of a weapon out on the street. Not even one.

I have done it.

 

[drop bear]

Borrowed this from another thread 1) Any such techniques are inherently far, far, far less tested than the rest of what I teach. For example, if I'm teaching a right cross: I've landed multiple right crosses in real fights. My teachers have done the same. Through personal experience, first hand observation or video, we can examine potentially hundreds of thousands of right crosses in different contexts which have succeeded or failed and draw our conclusions regarding what works best. Contrariwise, very few instructors have ever performed an unarmed disarm of a real knife in a real assault. Of those who have, none have had occasion to do so more than a few times at most. Most of those rare occasions have not been witnessed or videoed. We don't know how typical those successes are or what sort of factors may have made a difference. We have even less information regarding the knife disarm attempts that failed. In short, we don't have the dataset for anyone to honestly claim to be an expert on the subject. (That said, I do know instructors who I think are on the right track and other instructors who I think are teaching garbage that will get you killed.)
Articulately explained by Tony Dismukes. And people will nod their heads and say , "Yes, weapon disarms are incredibly difficult to pull off, and it is a little practice area of self defense."

Borrowed from another (different ) thread " Any time you resort to a weapon you must be committing to using it. Otherwise it may be taken away from you and used against you by your opponent. " And again, people will nod their heads and say how there is enough of a danger of having a weapon taken away from you that you must take that into consideration before to bring a weapon into play.

If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against you? Is there even anecdotal evidence of bad guys successfully reversing weapons on people using them in self defense?

Because self defense is story based.

 

[JP3]

And, yes, I am not on youtube so this is all false

OK, once again I'm glad that I wasn't drinking coffee right then, that'd have been bad...


I don't have anything to add on the actual question, except as was pointed out above by actual LEO types. I agree though, I don't know of anyone who has a CHL and had to use it, or carried a defensive blade, or was forced to grab a stick and had it taken away.

And... unless they, figuratively, cut me in half I can't be disarmed as I'm never armed.

 

[Buka]

Last week I had a nine year old kid grab my service weapon in my holster. Swear to God. His parents said "Oh, he's just being curious". Again, swear to God.

I can assure you I taught them a lesson they will never forget. Ever.

 

[rondave72]

Forgive me if this looks jacked up,

“If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against?”

Years ago the Toledo Blade printed an FBI statistic that has stuck with me. In the given year (which be in the middle 90’s), of the 1258 women who pulled a gun on their attacker, all but 15 (yeah, it was really close to that number) had the gun taken away and used against them.

I couldn’t find this stat again if I had to, but that’s how I remember it.

 

[frank raud]

Forgive me if this looks jacked up,

“If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against?”

Years ago the Toledo Blade printed an FBI statistic that has stuck with me. In the given year (which be in the middle 90’s), of the 1258 women who pulled a gun on their attacker, all but 15 (yeah, it was really close to that number) had the gun taken away and used against them.

I couldn’t find this stat again if I had to, but that’s how I remember it.

I'd really like to see those statistics.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Borrowed this from another thread 1) Any such techniques are inherently far, far, far less tested than the rest of what I teach. For example, if I'm teaching a right cross: I've landed multiple right crosses in real fights. My teachers have done the same. Through personal experience, first hand observation or video, we can examine potentially hundreds of thousands of right crosses in different contexts which have succeeded or failed and draw our conclusions regarding what works best. Contrariwise, very few instructors have ever performed an unarmed disarm of a real knife in a real assault. Of those who have, none have had occasion to do so more than a few times at most. Most of those rare occasions have not been witnessed or videoed. We don't know how typical those successes are or what sort of factors may have made a difference. We have even less information regarding the knife disarm attempts that failed. In short, we don't have the dataset for anyone to honestly claim to be an expert on the subject. (That said, I do know instructors who I think are on the right track and other instructors who I think are teaching garbage that will get you killed.)
Articulately explained by Tony Dismukes. And people will nod their heads and say , "Yes, weapon disarms are incredibly difficult to pull off, and it is a little practice area of self defense."

Borrowed from another (different ) thread " Any time you resort to a weapon you must be committing to using it. Otherwise it may be taken away from you and used against you by your opponent. " And again, people will nod their heads and say how there is enough of a danger of having a weapon taken away from you that you must take that into consideration before to bring a weapon into play.

If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against you? Is there even anecdotal evidence of bad guys successfully reversing weapons on people using them in self defense?

There's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence of weapons being used against the original user. Figuring the rarity of such events is subject to all the same data issues referred to in the bit on weapons disarms.

But I think it's a matter of the cost of failure (a measure I use when teaching a technique - what's a likely worst outcome). If a weapon is taken away - and we should concede it's possible, though we don't know how likely - we need to factor how dangerous that makes the situation. A weapon not used (just displayed) seems more subject to being taken away in some circumstances, especially if it's just taken out to show you have it (rather than deployed in a defensive manner). And it raises the threat perception of the other party, so if they don't surrender or bolt, they're likely to be fighting for their lives (with weapons like guns and knives).

I don't think this is a disconnect. Most of us give similar thought to the consequences of other techniques. More than once in the past year, there's been discussion of whether a basic hip throw gives too much access to your back. I think that's a similar thought process.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'd feel a lot more confident in my ability with weapon disarms if I knew my opponent wasn't prepared to actually use it on me.

I didn't even think of that while I was replying, but oh, hell yes.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Worse if it's your own stick he's beating you incorrectly with.

Bill, that was unreasonably funny to me. I'm just imagining you thinking, "Oh, for cripes' sake, at least hit me RIGHT!"

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Last week I had a nine year old kid grab my service weapon in my holster. Swear to God. His parents said "Oh, he's just being curious". Again, swear to God.

I can assure you I taught them a lesson they will never forget. Ever.

Wow.

 

[rondave72]

I'd really like to see those statistics.

Well, the best I can help you with was it was an FBI stat and I was in college. So that is 1990 to 1995. The Toledo Blade used to put trivia facts in their Peach section.


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[Tony Dismukes]

Forgive me if this looks jacked up,

“If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against?”

Years ago the Toledo Blade printed an FBI statistic that has stuck with me. In the given year (which be in the middle 90’s), of the 1258 women who pulled a gun on their attacker, all but 15 (yeah, it was really close to that number) had the gun taken away and used against them.

I couldn’t find this stat again if I had to, but that’s how I remember it.

I would bet money you’re misremembering the stat. I don’t know what the percentage is for gun using women to be disarmed, but I’m almost certain it’s not 99%.

 

[rondave72]

That’s why it stuck in my head. It was so ridiculous.

But a lotta factors go into pulling out a pistol and using it.


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[Danny T]

 

[jobo]

Borrowed this from another thread 1) Any such techniques are inherently far, far, far less tested than the rest of what I teach. For example, if I'm teaching a right cross: I've landed multiple right crosses in real fights. My teachers have done the same. Through personal experience, first hand observation or video, we can examine potentially hundreds of thousands of right crosses in different contexts which have succeeded or failed and draw our conclusions regarding what works best. Contrariwise, very few instructors have ever performed an unarmed disarm of a real knife in a real assault. Of those who have, none have had occasion to do so more than a few times at most. Most of those rare occasions have not been witnessed or videoed. We don't know how typical those successes are or what sort of factors may have made a difference. We have even less information regarding the knife disarm attempts that failed. In short, we don't have the dataset for anyone to honestly claim to be an expert on the subject. (That said, I do know instructors who I think are on the right track and other instructors who I think are teaching garbage that will get you killed.)
Articulately explained by Tony Dismukes. And people will nod their heads and say , "Yes, weapon disarms are incredibly difficult to pull off, and it is a little practice area of self defense."

Borrowed from another (different ) thread " Any time you resort to a weapon you must be committing to using it. Otherwise it may be taken away from you and used against you by your opponent. " And again, people will nod their heads and say how there is enough of a danger of having a weapon taken away from you that you must take that into consideration before to bring a weapon into play.

If a weapons disarm is a last ditch thing for a skilled practitioner, why is it accepted as fact that the bad guy will be able to disarm you, and use your weapon against you? Is there even anecdotal evidence of bad guys successfully reversing weapons on people using them in self defense?

there's so many variations on people and scenarios, that there not contradictory, leaving aside guns, why have you armed yourself in the first place, coz your going to loose otherwise is the only reasonable answer, either coz he bigger than you, he has a weapon or your out numbered, drawing a weapon may have the effect of putting them off, in which case it's worked, or it may not, in which case if your not going to use it, its made matters worse by tieing up one of your hands, and has quite possibly turned up the level of violence he or they will use, if they produce a weapon in response or decided to give you a good kicking for having the ttemerity to threaten them with one.

I've seen people disarmed of weapons in general, rather than knives or guns many times, bottles, bats hammers, etc, they swing, they miss, you've got them, they can't hit you with a base ball bat, i,f their lay on floor, not only must you be prepared to use it, you need to have some ability to use itagainst someone who may have been attacked with a weapon several times before and have tactics for such.

going up against knives, is a question if speed and power, if your fast enough and powerful enough once you've got hold if his arm, you can take it off him, if not your going to get stabbed