[center][h3][b]Knife Defense[/b][/h3][/center]


[i]"can you teach me how you stop someone threatening you with a knife? That's another weapon they like to use out there."[/i]

“Sure thing,” James responded and placed the training gun back in his sparring bag. He then pulled out two training knives. Both had his initials written on them in white marker. “We only need one. I just happen to have two; a story for another day,” James declared with a smile.

“I wanted to tell you, I received a report from the forensics lab. They scoured the house. They found finger prints for seven people other than the deceased in the house. Five of them are family members; her mother, father and two siblings. The fifth was a brother-in-law. The last two are unknowns and could possibly be our perpetrators. We should speak to the family members too just to eliminate them as suspects. They also used luminol around where the body was found. They found a partial shoe impression. They can’t determine shoe size, but they know the person who stepped in the blood wore Adidas Superstar shoe.”

“OK, back to the knife. One thing to remember in Krav Maga is you never back up. You always drive forward into your attacker. You want to keep him or her off balance, on their heels. If you can cause them to forget math for a few moments you can get them into an advantageous position.”

“Before we go over actual knife defense, you need to know how to burst.” James stood with his feet roughly shoulder width apart facing a mirror. The mirror would help him to correct his movements if he did something wrong. He stood in front of the mirror. While leaning forward, he rapidly burst forward, leading with his body, not with his feet. His feet move forward simply to prevent himself from falling over. “When you burst, you want your weight to go into your opponent. You are not catching your fall with your body, but with the bad guy’s body. He prevents you from falling and you knock him off balance at the same time. Try bursting a few times to get the feel for it.”

[center][hider=bursting][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcyRPAQRMo0[/youtube][/hider][/center]

After the pair had practiced bursting several times and Jenna felt comfortable with it, James introduced the training knife. It was all black with a ten inch blade made of a malleable rubber/plastic material. “In Krav we go over three different knife defense techniques in the under belt curriculum. Overhead knife, underarm knife and straight stab. Overhead knife can come from any angle with a downward motion while underarm can come from any angle from below. Straight stab assumes your attacker is thrusting the blade at chest height toward you. We will cover overhead attacks.”

James tucked the blade into his waist. “Stand facing the mirror with your feet shoulder width apart. Thrust your left arm into the air with a 90-degree bend in your elbow. Position one is over head and slightly forward. You want to burst forward as you use this block. You want your hand open flat as you execute this block.” James demonstrated the movement a few times. “you can angle the defense to the left at a 45-degree angle and to the side. These are positions two and three. Position four is the same as position three but with your arm bent downward instead of up. Position five is 45-degree downward angle and position six is the downward opposite of position one. When you use positions five and six, you essentially want to hollow out your body by arching your back, making it more difficult for a knife to strike your flesh and cause any critical damage.”

“If you feel comfortable with these blocks, I’ll show you the technique for dealing with someone attacking you with a knife.” James handed Jenna the knife and told her to use a downward overhead motion at him. He would take it slow. As her hand came downward towards James’ head, he burst forward while executing 360 degree defense position one, immediately overhead. “You want wrist to wrist contact. Think of this block as an attack. With your hand bladed, rather than balled up in a fist, it exposes the radial bone in your forearm. Having the bone strike your opponent rather than muscle tissue causes an appreciable amount of pain. I’ve suffered several bruises from this contact. Simultaneously while blocking the knife hand, use your right hand to punch your attacker in the face. It should be one movement with the block and the right cross. Once the punch is thrown, wrap your left arm around your attackers right arm pinning the arm into your side so he cannot use it. You are fighting the person, not the knife. Do not try to take the knife yet. You want to convince your attacker they are making a bad decision. With their right arm wrapped up in your left and your right hand grabbing the material of their right shoulder, give them a firm and decisive groin kick with your right leg. Hit with such intensity it would send their testicles into their throat. This person is trying to kill you. You are changing their mind. Once the groin kick has been delivered, then execute a few Knee strikes to the body and maybe one or two the face. Make all your strikes decisive and explosive. We can cover the groin strike and the knee strike on the kick shield if you like. Your goal is to strike your attacker so hard and with such intensity repeatedly until they feel like they have just given up. Then you can try to take the knife out of their hand.”

[center][hider=knife defense][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIb7gdshwQ[/youtube][/hider][/center]

James and Jenna repeated the knife defense technique several times until she felt comfortable with it. Then they repeated it several more times to insure it was firmly implanted in her brain. “The big difference between a knife and a gun, is this. The gun only works in one direction. By altering the direction of fire and controlling the gun, you have essentially taken it out of the equation. The knife will work in either direction but can only be used in close contact. The gun is a ranged weapon. The gun requires bullets. If the user runs out of bullets, it then becomes simply a piece of steel. The knife never runs out of ammo.”

“I would be more than happy to go over other items with you, if you like. Maybe you can come check out a class at the school in Waltham with me sometime. You can watch from the bleachers. I know they give introductory classes too.”