knife defense

Hi Lee,

I know it's hard to describe in a mail but...

What are your tactics when faced with a knife? I know it's very much a 'it depends' question but say you meet someone that doesn't like you. You go to your car and he approaches you. Your family is with you so running isn't an option. Het gets close and when you call out to stop and show his hands he shows the knife and starts to posture.

Scenario two is you walk on the street and you meet a guy you've trown out last night. You were daydreaming and noticed him actually too late, he is very close and you're in range for a stab, his hand starts to move... an assassination attempt.

Another...

You are on a job on the door... you're called inside and your team is faced by a agressive guy wielding a broken bottle. He is swinging it around to keep the doorman and others away as he is afraid he gets damaged when the doormen jump him to throw him out.

Kind Regards,

Nick Engelen

Hi Nick
lots of variables attached to multiple questions here, so I will try and just give you the dynamics. First off if I am approached whilst out with my family, by a guy brandishing a knife, my only priority here is to protect my family. As we all know, the mindset and tactics required to protect another differs from that required for your own self-preservation.

When I am out with my significant others, they all know if we get a problem, to let me deal with it as they get to a place of safety, i.e. a locked car, public place etc once there, call the police/ re-evaluate or whatever comes next.

Now even if I get hurt, the objective is the same 'my family getting to safety' if this end is met, then regardless of what happens to me my goal of third party protection has been achieved.

If a guys want's to take a stab at me, chances are he will try it via an ambush, if my awareness negates that as it should, then he will try via deception. In short he is unlikely to show me the weapon.

Of course this is not set in stone, it may be that I've seen the blade but he is still equally committed, in which case I will do my utmost to take take him out ASAP then take his knife and arse f**k him with it.

What's more likely is, he's brandishing the blade because he wants something from me, why esle back up and posture with the knife as you suggested?

in which case if its my wallet or car keys then he can take it, particularly if i'm with my family where there are too many precious factors to consider for me to take any chances. No amount of valuables are worth that risk. In my opinion, ego will not figure into this equation for me personally.

If he wants to hurt us regardless, or take me or mine to a secondary location, then he will be meeting his maker right there and then, I shit you not!

I'm not going to talk physicalites with you here, again too much to consider needless to say I would stick to my personal preference in regards to counter knife, striving to get inside and seize the weapon bearing limb as I smash living f**k out of him for all i'm worth, then seek medical attention later if need be.

For the second scenario:
Caught via an ambush (of course less than ideal and contrary to what I would practice or teach) although possible for all of us none-the-less.

Well what do you want to hear Nick? chances are now that the first thing I know about the problem is that I've been stabbed already, this is now a bit of a lottery. We all know that a knife has no real stopping power such as the likes of impactive force.

People get stabbed and slashed in-fight without even knowing it and I talk from live experience here.

But if he gets lucky and finds a lethal entry on his first stripe, say a puncture wound to the heart for example, well then, what will be will be, I guess its just my time.

The usual theme is that people get stabbed and allow it to stop and freeze them up mentally, then they back up creating space for the knife man to continue with a succession of stabs that ultimately lead to their demise.

Personally my mindset, physiology, demeanour and attitude are geared and set on a different agenda. As long as I am still conscious, on my feet and in the game my response will be Ape-shit nasty, explosive, powerful and functional and it will not stop until he's f**king down and twitching.

Would you expect anything else for a Combative mindset?

We must at least start to program our thinking along these lines, in such a circumstamce there really is no other way out of it. The need to see those I love again would drive that fight in me and I pity anyone that suggests to the contrary.

The third and final scenario:
i.e. the broken bottle weilding Ne-Anderthal on the door, is a scenario I am familiar with. During that particular event good team work and pre-thought and planning for such situations really paid off. In short he got distracted from the front then taken down real, real HARD...from the rear by a combined body weight of 3 guys packing some 40 stone between them, job done..
Thanks for the questions I hope that I've answered as satifactory as my experience will allow..
Stay safe
Lee

Fantastic Lee, great answer.

Alban

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the answer. realy satisfying. With scenario 2 I was just trying to say that in a lot of cases you don't even know you're in a knifefight so to consider every attack as an armed attack.

Kind Regards,

Nick Engelen