Defending the committed knife weapons attack.

This interactive training session is written and designed for operators who are in the face of life threatening situations on a daily basis or those that find the need to be prepared for these situations. This session is targeted to what happens on the streets with an edged weapons attacker who is committed, has a volatile temper and great intent.

In any area of life that we plan to gain funct-ional skill we must execute three key basic points.

1 Know what your up against.
2 Have some way to measure your progress.
3 Find what works and build on that skill set.

We found that after years of experience with Military, Law Enforcement and street combatives, there is a generally held belief that a person armed with a knife is less dangerous than a person armed with a firearm. Unfortunately until the operator is properly trained, experiences first hand or has a partner or team member wounded or killed by a knife attacker does this belief change.

In photo A1 you can see Hank Hayes addressing questions and educating this Military command
with the true dangers of an edged weapons attack, several different psychology and teaching methods are used to successfully achieve this.

In photo A2 you can see students using a marking training knife to identify and remember the impact of their injuries, these marks can also be seen in several other photos.

In photo A3 we can see the grim reality and aftermath of a committed knife attack. Notice the injury to lower left abdominal area, this officer had two children that will not grow up knowing their mom. To assist in this area of belief development I would suggest that you answer several questions. This will open the door to a stronger correct belief about edged weapons defense.

1 Have you ever been attacked by someone committed to killing you with a knife?
2 Have you ever been attacked by a committed attacker hell bent on beating the snot out of you?
3 Have you seen first hand what a body looks like after being
stabbed, hacked, and slashed multiple times?
4. Do you know how much blood you can lose before you lose hand and eye coordination, before you get dizzy and pass out, before you die?

Once you’ve answered these question’s you’ll be on your way to achieving the necessary groundwork for developing a solid edged weapons skills program.
Now lets look at what we’re up against. In photo sequence B you can see that the student to the right Cpl. Ramos is being drawn into the lead hand diversion and attack from Ssgt. McCarty, this is sometime referred to as an invisible deployment. Lets walk through each frame. In photo B1 Ssgt. McCarty has a sideways stancemaking it extremely difficult for Cpl. Ramos to see the knife on has attackers right rear side.

In photo B2 Ssgt. McCarty advances forward with a eye gouge/eye poke attack, these type of attacks when successful produces a visceral reaction that we as humans can not prevent. In photo B3 Ssgt. McCarty takes advantage of Cpl. Ramos and attacks viciously the abdominal and spleen area while still applying the eye attack. In photo B4 Ssgt. McCarty finishes his attack by ripping through everything in his path in one stroke. Notice
the mark on the students body which clearly show the damage area’s. The marking process is key to the learning phase, it visually links the lethality component to direct action.

Now that we’ve addressed knowing what your up against and have someway of measuring your progress. We’ll look at a few tactics that if used correctly can assist greatly in neutraliz-ing the edged weapons attack.

In photo sequence C Hank Hayes is coaching two military combat instructors in neutralizat-ion exercises.
In photo C1 the engagement starts, this time Cpl. Ramos on right knows better and in photo C2 immediately creates gap space, which equals
time. In photos C3-5 you can see Cpl. Ramos still creating space while picking up his closest weapons of opportunity (WOO), dirt. Again using targets that when hit will cause a visceral response Cpl. Ramos uses his WOO to achieve this response as seen in photo C6&7.

One of the great benefits in training with a proven Instructor or system is combat experience. We know that all people must react in some way to visceral reactive targets. In photo C8 Cpl. Ramos takes advantage of this
window of time and rushes in trapping the blade arm and attacking the throat or eye region as seen in photo C9. In photo C10 the attacker is using his right arm so Cpl. Ramos tracks to outside range maintaining contact pressure with the knife possessing arm, raking the face while moving to the outside range as seen in C11. In photo C12 Cpl. Ramos maintains control of the knife possessing arm pulling the attacker off balance while still attacking the eyes. This attack will be completely neutralized when Cpl.Ramos puts attacker on his back or disengages and gets to his firearm.

In this short contextual training segment we covered the very important need to know what your up against. Not knowing would be like going on a blind date, what’s this person going to be like, what’s this person going to look like and most important what’s this person going to smell like? To many unknowns these unknowns set fear, hesitation and so many other disempowering factors into motion. Which generally result in bad actions, for our purposes can mean death - Not good.

We looked at having some way to monitor and measure your progress, this would be
like going to school and not getting grades, we must have some way memorable to measure our progress that accurately records information. In our case a marking tool of some sort.

Finding what works can be tricking, because if you don’t know what your up against and
you don’ have a way to monitor your progress you can easy be faked out. Go out and do the homework, then get a marking devise.

When your not marked on the vitals your grades are going up. Stay Safe.

Author Hank Hayes is high risk senior level instructor for several US government branches and hundreds of Law Enforcement agencies he be can reached at http://www.nolieblades.com/, email at hankh@nolieblades.com.