4 THINGS WRONG

4 Things Wrong - by Snake Blocker

1. “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.” – WRONG!

                                                                                    

Study after study shows that from 20-30 feet away a person can run and kill an opponent before he/she has a chance to draw a weapon, aim, and/or fire.  The few that can draw, aim, and shoot before they are killed, by a knife, rarely hit any serious target areas on the knife attacker. 

2.  “Knife Fights don’t work in close quarters.” – WRONG!

I was attending a knife seminar by one of the most popular instructors in Black Belt magazine, and I heard him say, “I don’t teach close-quarter knife fights, because they don’t work.  If someone has a knife, you need to run.”  Well, that sounds like good advice if running is an option…unfortunately, this is not an option for many being attacked.  And even if you could run, what if your family couldn’t run, would you run away while your wife and children are being assaulted by a criminal?

Read the NEWS and history will show, time after time, of people being robbed, burglarized, rapped, kidnapped, mugged, and violently attacked and still surviving the stabs. The outcome for some survivals are: killing the opponent; disarming him/her; grabbing their attacker’s edge weapons and using it against them; and even pulling out their knife after-the-fact and still surviving, as well as, defeating the attacker.  I hear several stories every year of people surviving gun and edge weapon attacks…these are not rare situations.  My partner at Global Knife Fighting, Mica Amelin, got into a taxi cab in the Philippines.  As soon as she sat down in the back, another guy came in the cab and sat next to her and grabbed her and pointed a knife.  The taxi driver began to drive off.  This is a common tactic used by criminals.  Mica grabbed her knife out and stabbed the attacker, causing him to drop his knife.  She then sliced the taxi driver’s throat, and jumped out of the taxi cab.  Mica reacted at the right moment, which saved her life. 

3.      “I carry a gun with me, so I don’t need a knife.” – WRONG!

One of my students, Hector Santos, was doing gate duty at a military complex.  While he was checking ID on a man trying to enter, the man grabbed Hector’s riffle and began to pull it away from him.  Hector used one hand to hold onto his riffle and used his other hand to grab his knife.  Hector stabbed his attacker once in the chest, piercing his heart.  The attacker fell to the ground and died upon landing.   In Kuwait, another one of my students, “PapaJohn,” was being heckled by a fellow sailor about his knife training with me.  He told “PapaJohn” that a knife would never work against his M16.  “PapaJohn”  told him, “Okay, clear your barrel and magazine clip from your riffle and then we will test to see who’s faster.”  The sailor cleared his barrel and clip and he said he was ready.  “PapaJohn” throw a training knife at the guy with one hand, and charged at him with his second knife.  The guy got confused by the thrown knife and tried to evade it, which delayed his reaction time.  Before the guy even knew what hit him, “PapaJohn”  had his knife pressed against the guy’s throat.  The M16 wasn’t even pointing at my student.  Needless to say, that guy is now a believer.  His whole worldview changed in 3 seconds. 

4.      “Most Fights end up on the ground, so I just need to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.” – WRONG!

Most fights don’t end up on the ground.  Most fights, start standing up, and end standing up.  The quote, “Most Fights end up on the ground,” was promoted internationally and marketed to the public after UFC 1 by the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community.  I love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  I love training in it, and I love teaching it, but not for street defense or for self-preservation.    Remember, in UFC, you are not allowed to do any of the main counters for wrestling.  You can’t poke out someone’s eyes; you can’t mouth “fish hook;” you can’t bite; you can’t ripe out the private area; you can’t stick your fingers or thumb into their eardrums; and you can’t spit in their eyes.  In street fighting, you can do all that.  BJJ is great for law-enforcement, tournaments, UFC, and Military Police.  It is terrible to focus on BJJ for street defense, guerilla warfare, multi-attackers, special ops, or any edge weapons training.  You never want to wrestle someone with a knife if you can help it.  One of my friends, Duane, was at a park in Farmington, New Mexico, waiting for his friend to show up.  Duane is former Army and has wrestling background.  Duane was sitting down on the tailgate of his truck, when a Navajo man came up to him asking for money.  Duane said he didn’t have any money for him and the Navajo began racist talk at Duane.   After several exchanges were made, the Navajo reached toward his back pocket.  Duane, kicked the guy in the chest, and the Navajo flew backwards to the ground.  Duane pulled out his knife, and at this point, Duane’s friend pulled up, jumped out of his vehicle and pointed his pistol at the Navajo.  When they searched the Navajo, they saw the large Bowe knife he had in the back of his pants.  Had Duane used his wrestling experience, he would have died if the Navajo used his knife.  Duane only had a few dollars on him at the time.  He asked the Navajo, “You were going to stab me for a few dollars?”  The Navajo replied, “Yes!”