WC/WT/VT and Pekiti Tersia

[Danny T]

I actually always wondered if you guys were linked, there can't be that many WC/PTK/other stuff guys in Louisiana.

You would be correct in that.
There is another high level PTK person in La.Guro Scott Faulk. Scott has some good wc, jkd (Larry Hartsell), and was an amazing TKD practitioner until he dedicated his training solely to Pekiti back around the mid 90's. He is an engineer in the petrochemical industry and only has only taught a few people just to have someone to train with.

 

[guy b.]

Cloth? Clothes? I'm a little confused. Do you mean sleeves? Sounds like a seasonal tactic at best. Here in Arizona, most people wear light, short-sleeved T-shirts or polo shirts pretty much year round. Maybe a light jacket in the morning on cold December or January days, or businessmen and lawyers inside their air-conditioned offices.

Well then Arizona sounds like a bad place to be attacked with a knife

To be honest I think these kind of hypothetical situations are in clutching at straws territory a lot of the time anyway.

From my limited experience of fighting armed people, which has never included knives, coupled with my long experience of grappling, it is very very much easier to gain control of a struggling and flailing or wildly attacking person using their clothes, than not. Clothes do not just mean sleeves but of course sleeves very much better than no sleeves.

Once clothing grips are established it is pretty easy to spoil striking of any kind using the grips and to move the person in a way that is beneficial quite safely. Knowledge of cloth gripping and control is very low among the general population and I would assume among potential violent attackers.

(edit: clothing grips knowledge is pretty low among grapplers even, which is why so many hate the gi. Judo and bjj have it obviously.

Th number of striking methods which teach cloth gripping or are even aware of it is even more limited..Some karate, kyokushin and goju derived mostly, e.g. Daido juku quite good. Some southern Chinese kung fu, sanchin types, e.g. white crane, SPM have it, but often not understood very well in those systems.)

 

[guy b.]

Grabbing a sleeve rather than the arm itself is sure way to get cut or stabbed! Trying to trip or drag someone to the ground is a good way to land on the point of the knife.

It sounds like you have great experience in clothed grappling, as in almost every other subject. I bow to your superior knowledge and to your great certainty on matters where it is incredibly difficult to gain experience at all without dying.

Rolling around on the ground against someone with a knife in hand is a bad idea. Better to stay on your feet so you can create distance and RUN at the first opportunity! Or put an obstacle between you and the guy with a knife.

I think this broken hypothetical involves a situation where there is no escape and where you are already involved in a life or death struggle with a knife wielding maniac.

 

[KPM]

Well, if you can't run, ...maybe you have to protect someone else? ...or whatever, ...you have to get control of the knife, or the knife wielding arm, and momentarily stop the lethal damage it can cause. That is step one. Then other possibilities emerge.

---I agree 100%! Its just that trying to grab a sleeve is a bad idea in my opinion. As you pointed out, not everyone will have sleeves! And if do, they may rip easily. Or they may be loose. Not having positive control over the limb itself means that the knifer can still twist and turn and use his knife whether you have grabbed a sleeve or not.

The problem I have with most knife demos I've seen is that they underestimate how insanely hard step one is to accomplish. They gloss over it almost as if it were a foregone conclusion, and then go on to dazzle and distract with steps two, three, four, and beyond.

---Yep! The Wing Chun Gan/Jum is something that both Marc Denny and Mike Janich have adopted as one of their main knife defense methods. I greatly respect both of these guys and their abilities. This is defense number one against someone throwing a "sewing machine" attack, which is one of the most typical things you see in street footage. This is the guy throwing wide rapid stabs over and over. The Gan/Jum structure acts as a funnel so that whether you catch the thrust high or low it funnels to the center and you rapidly use an inward Lan Sau motion to trap and secure his arm.

---And the problem with being on the ground is that if you lose control of the knifer's arm, even for a split second, that is enough to take multiple stabs to your torso. What would have been "pitty patty" strikes that you could ignore in an empty-hand situation could easily be deadly stabs when a knife is involved. On the ground you have no ability to step back quickly or to angle out of the way nearly as well. If I am empty-hand vs. the knife, being on the ground is the LAST place I would want to be. And I've never seen a knife defense system that taught anything any different.....meaning....to take a knifer down and try to deal with him on the ground rather than doing everything you can to stay on your feet and either neutralize him or get the heck away from him! But I guess there may be some out there.

 

[Phobius]

I think there are two aspects, the first is once you control the knife arm. Once arm is under control you should probably take your opponent to the ground in order to subdue him without losing grip of arm.

While standing you often have to use two arms to control the knife hand. While in the ground you get legs/feet as tool to use to control your opponent.

However if you take an opponent to the ground before controlling his knife hand you will be stabbed countless times while trying to control a resisting opponent.

Run away is often the second best option, best being to comply with their wishes, but that is not best taught in a self defense class or with a martial art.

 

[KPM]

^^^^ Yes Phobius, I agree! Having the attacker on the ground AFTER you have gained positive control over the attacking limb is a good thing! What I was advising against was the idea of grabbing a sleeve and trying to trip or drag the opponent to the ground thinking that you are then going to try and gain control of the arm on the ground. And I will qualify this by saying that I STILL wouldn't not want to be ON the ground with the attacker. I would rather gain control, put the attacker on the ground, and then kneel or sit on top of him! I certainly wouldn't want him in my guard on the ground, or to be in his guard for that matter.

 

[Danny T]

Though I'm no high level grappler I've been around it for years. Just basic wrestling in school, JKD grappling in the 70s & 80s. BJJ, submission wrestling, and other grappling types of grappling since. I don't consider myself a grappler but am a lot more than a beginner. Being on the ground with a knifer is the last place I want to be unless I have complete control of the weapon arm, hand, and the weapon. Same in a standing grappling situation. In a grappling clinch one may not be damage at all against flailing punches but that edged weapon changes it all immediately.

 

[geezer]

Well then Arizona sounds like a bad place to be attacked with a knife

A few random thoughts:

Is there a good place to be attacked with a knife?

...Actually Arizona's not so bad for knife attacks since so many people carry guns.

But then again people are at greater risk of getting killed by reckless drivers on their way to the gunfight.

Speaking of which, why do they call them "reckless drivers"? Shouldn't they be called something like ."..reck-more drivers"?

Regardless, one of my Eskrima instructors carries knives and guns. All the time. In fact he goes around so heavily armed that the easiest way to kill him would be to push him into a swimming pool.

 

[guy b.]

Though I'm no high level grappler I've been around it for years. Just basic wrestling in school, JKD grappling in the 70s & 80s. BJJ, submission wrestling, and other grappling types of grappling since. I don't consider myself a grappler but am a lot more than a beginner. Being on the ground with a knifer is the last place I want to be unless I have complete control of the weapon arm, hand, and the weapon. Same in a standing grappling situation. In a grappling clinch one may not be damage at all against flailing punches but that edged weapon changes it all immediately.

Having control of the weapon arm is by definition grappling. You can't decide that you don't want to be grappling until you have control of it- you already are grappling! The best way to gain control of a weapon arm is regular grappling approaches with knife safety awareness added, not a special kind of thing that only gets done with knives. Securing a clinch or clothing grips is not a 50:50 situation with the attacker any more. Clinching limits their options if you know what you are doing and increases your percentage of avoiding being stabbed. Both moving freely is I think the worst place to be with a knife wielding assailant because you can both move the same but they have a knife and you do not. Horrible situation.

Similarly with "being on the ground". Why on earth would you be there unless you are already grappling and already have established enough control to take the assailant to the ground in the first place? The best place to grapple with someone that doesn't know how to grapple is on the ground because ground limits movement and leverage for untrained people even more than clinching or cloth grabbing standing up, while allowing more control and leverage for trained people. It makes the gap between trained and untrained larger than standing because moving on the ground is not something most people do habitually. Being on the ground is the first place I would want to be with any knife armed assailant because it would allow me to be reasonably sure that they didn't have a clue what they were doing or what I was doing.

 

[Phobius]

Having control of the weapon arm is by definition grappling. You can't decide that you don't want to be grappling until you have control of it- you already are grappling! The best way to gain control of a weapon arm is regular grappling approaches with knife safety awareness added, not a special kind of thing that only gets done with knives. Securing a clinch or clothing grips is not a 50:50 situation with the attacker any more. Clinching limits their options if you know what you are doing and increases your percentage of avoiding being stabbed. Both moving freely is I think the worst place to be with a knife wielding assailant because you can both move the same but they have a knife and you do not. Horrible situation.

I dont think he ever stated controlling weapon arm was not grappling.

Also I think you are gonna get stabbed badly if you approach an opponent with a knife as if to do regular empty handed grappling. First you need to control his actions/stabbing which I guess most often leaves you bleeding from outside of your arms and legs. Hopefully keeping internal organs intact from any potential stick wounds. This is the problem, you better make him bleed more than you so he will bleed out before you, secondly dont make him bleed so much that he will likely bleed out prior to ambulance arriving.

Once this is done then you can establish a grappling base. Otherwise you are rushing into an opponent with one major advantage. He just needs to tag you to win, while you have to do a perfect performance without a single hit and a perfectly executed finishing move to knock him out or subdue him.

Finally if both are standing up, why not just run away? What makes this the worst place to be? If he is close to you then you want to get distance of course, but rather distance than going even closer. So standing up would in my view be preferred. Those rapid stabbings are a pain, literally. This is of course all situational, if you are stabbed in the leg he will run faster than you perhaps, in such a case you need him on the ground.

EDIT: Want to conclude myself, being in a knife fight sucks.

 

[guy b.]

I dont think he ever stated controlling weapon arm was not grappling.

He does

Being on the ground with a knifer is the last place I want to be unless I have complete control of the weapon arm, hand, and the weapon. Same in a standing grappling situation.

Attempting to control the arm is being in a standing grappling situation. You can't control the arm before entering a standing grappling situation.

 

[Phobius]

Attempting to control the arm is being in a standing grappling situation. You can't control the arm before entering a standing grappling situation.

Not worth discussing, you know what he meant so we can continue.

 

[guy b.]

Also I think you are gonna get stabbed badly if you approach an opponent with a knife as if to do regular empty handed grappling. .

I think it is a myth that there is a special kind of knife grappling. Grappling is grappling. Control methods are the same. In a knife situation they need to be focused on not getting stabbed but otherwise identical

 

[guy b.]

Not worth discussing, you know what he meant so we can continue.

I really don't. Not trying to be obtuse, just don't understand. Fighting to gain control of the arm is a grappling situation, which you are in (whether you like it or not) before control of that arm is gained. Attempting to gain full control of an arm in a grappling situation immediately and fully without first establishing other body control seems pretty unlikely, to the point of being impossible I would say.

 

[Danny T]

Oh my.
Grappling as you know is more than controlling an opponent's arms. You can be in standing grapple and not have control of the arms and same as on the ground.

Having control of the weapon arm is by definition grappling. You can't decide that you don't want to be grappling until you have control of it- you already are grappling! The best way to gain control of a weapon arm is regular grappling approaches with knife safety awareness added, not a special kind of thing that only gets done with knives. Securing a clinch or clothing grips is not a 50:50 situation with the attacker any more. Clinching limits their options if you know what you are doing and increases your percentage of avoiding being stabbed. Both moving freely is I think the worst place to be with a knife wielding assailant because you can both move the same but they have a knife and you do not. Horrible situation.

Oh my. Is it possible to be in a standing grappling situation and not have control of the weapon arm?
Is it possible to be in a ground grappling situation and not have control of the weapon arm?
I am certain, you being an experienced grappler, you are well aware that you can be grappling and not even be touching an arm.

"being on the ground." Why on earth would you be there unless you are already grappling and already have established enough control to take the assailant to the ground in the first place? The best place to grapple with someone that doesn't know how to grapple is on the ground because ground limits movement and leverage for untrained people even more than clinching or cloth grabbing standing up, while allowing more control and leverage for trained people. It makes the gap between trained and untrained larger than standing because moving on the ground is not something most people do habitually. Being on the ground is the first place I would want to be with any knife armed assailant because it would allow me to be reasonably sure that they didn't have a clue what they were doing or what I was doing.

Why would one be on the ground during an attack?
Oh I don't know... how about, I tripped during the evade or while creating distance. Or, maybe I slipped or was knocked down.

In my self defensive action I don't want to limit myself to other possibilities either; Like where are his buddies?

 

[Danny T]

I really don't. Not trying to be obtuse, just don't understand. Fighting to gain control of the arm is a grappling situation, which you are in (whether you like it or not) before control of that arm is gained. Attempting to gain full control of an arm in a grappling situation immediately and fully without first establishing other body control seems pretty unlikely, to the point of being impossible I would say.

Do you feel WC is grappling?
We do quite a bit of arm controlling, body controlling, leg controlling.

 

[KPM]

I dont think he ever stated controlling weapon arm was not grappling.

---Me either! Danny even said "a standing grappling situation"!!!

Also I think you are gonna get stabbed badly if you approach an opponent with a knife as if to do regular empty handed grappling.

---I agree. Because the knifer doesn't have to be any kind of grappling expert to take out a grappler on the ground. All he has to do is really struggle and thrash about until his arm is free for even a split second. Because it doesn't take much motion or leverage at all to do major damage with a knife.

He just needs to tag you to win, while you have to do a perfect performance without a single hit and a perfectly executed finishing move to knock him out or subdue him.

---Exactly!

Finally if both are standing up, why not just run away? What makes this the worst place to be? If he is close to you then you want to get distance of course, but rather distance than going even closer. So standing up would in my view be preferred.

---I agree. I don't know why anyone would even suggest that being on the ground against someone with a knife is better than being on your feet against a knife! I'd say that must be someone with no knife training!

 

[guy b.]

Oh my.
Grappling as you know is more than controlling an opponent's arms. You can be in standing grapple and not have control of the arms and same as on the ground.

Oh my. Is it possible to be in a standing grappling situation and not have control of the weapon arm?
Is it possible to be in a ground grappling situation and not have control of the weapon arm?
I am certain, you being an experienced grappler, you are well aware that you can be grappling and not even be touching an arm.

Again fighting to gain control of the arm is a grappling situation, which you are already in (whether you like it or not) before control of that arm is gained. Advocating control of the weapon arm is advocating grappling with an armed assailant without full control of the weapon arm. There seems to be a belief that full weapon arm control can be established without fighting for it, which to me sounds unrealistic in the extreme. Control of the person via grips, especially on the clothes, is a good way to work towards and gain full control of an arm relatively safely, as well as controlling balance and movement. A person under control should always be moved to a position of further control using the control already established, for example by moving them from standing to a control position on the ground where weight and leverage can be brought to bear more effectively while further restricting movement.

Why would one be on the ground during an attack?
Oh I don't know... how about, I tripped during the evade or while creating distance. Or, maybe I slipped or was knocked down.

Then don't clown around trying to move, parry and evade standing against someone able to move around freely with a knife. Close distance and establish rapid control over them with the aim always of further restricting options until you are able to break their arm and remove the weapon from the fight. Impose your plan upon them. Do not wait for them to impose the fatal stabbing they have planned upon you.

In my self defensive action I don't want to limit myself to other possibilities either; Like where are his buddies?

It is fantasy to expect to survive a multi person armed attack

 

[guy b.]

Do you feel WC is grappling?
We do quite a bit of arm controlling, body controlling, leg controlling

Absolutely not, no hand chasing in VT, which is why I feel it is pretty much tossing a coin vs a knife. There is no moving the percentages in your favour with VT, Pretty suicidal I think.

If VT is used as grappling then it is about the worst method of grappling in the world. Almost anything else is better.

 

[Danny T]

Absolutely not, no hand chasing in VT, which is why I feel it is pretty much tossing a coin vs a knife. There is no moving the percentages in your favour with VT, Pretty suicidal I think.

If VT is used as grappling then it is about the worst method of grappling in the world. Almost anything else is better.

Didn't say anything about chasing hands. I said controlling the arms. You know like with the proper elbow energy and positioning you were adamant about in other postings.
You stated controlling the arms is grappling. In the application of many of the moves and positions of wing chun the arms are controlled.
Must be we have a different meaning for the term controlling.