Training someone new in knife skills

[Lisa]

If you were training someone who was totally brand new to knife defence, what would you train them to do first? What cirriculum would you follow and how long before they would be competant with a real blade?

 

[Blindside]

Depending on what curricullum you use (and the person), I think you can make someone real freakin' scary in about 15-20 hours. One of the simplest curricullums that I like is Keating's Drawpoint method. It isn't complex and it is very self-defense oriented. You can get this from his website www.jamesakeating.com or Paladin Press publishes the exact same material as "Reverse Grip Knife Fighting."

Lamont

 

[Rich Parsons]

If you were training someone who was totally brand new to knife defence, what would you train them to do first? What cirriculum would you follow and how long before they would be competant with a real blade?

Assuming you are addressing awareness in class in general.

I start with basic motions and movements. To get people to move, and not just stand there.

This is empty hand versus a knife.

When you put a knife into their hand I work on defensive cutting and defensive positions, and mobility.

This stops the people from being turned into a knife killer without understanding what they truly are learning.

This also can be defended in court for the student as the evidence will show defensive type cuts and their story will back it up. So, if they every need it then they will have that.

Once they have been with you, or special needs such as LEO or Military, you teach offensive. Yes LEO, so they understand what could happen to them.

 

[Lisa]

Thanks Rich and Blindside. Appreciate the answers.

Scenario training must be important too, no? Once the person is a little more advanced? or does that happen right in the beginnning?

Rich, can you explain "defensive" cuts a little more?

 

[Rich Parsons]

Thanks Rich and Blindside. Appreciate the answers.

Scenario training must be important too, no? Once the person is a little more advanced? or does that happen right in the beginnning?

Rich, can you explain "defensive" cuts a little more?

Offensive attacks are attacks to the body and to the head and vital areas.

Defensive attacks are cuts along their forearms and or legs if they go to kick you. Defensive is usually not immediately deadly.

 

[Mr.Rooster]

When adding a weapon to an individual's martial background, I think there are alot of things to consider beforehand to be sure of that person being ready.
Of course, it would be wise to have enough experience with the person over a period of time to make sure there mental makeup is favorable as we don't want to train a person to fight cops off that are trying to arrest him/her.
Plus, during that period of time we also want make sure that the person uses good control when practicing with a partner as this could be a pretty good indicator of underlying aggression issues.
That's just a start.
From there, go slow depending on what your doing it for. If it's just to add to a good student's martial background, take it slow and progress a little at a time. If it's military or police personnel, still go slow but give them a few good tech niques they can practice on there own right away so they have something to use and build on during practice until there next dojo/dojang time.

 

[Pete Kautz]

I agree with Blindside about Jim Keating's Drawpoint videos being a GREAT place to start, but there is one important thing to know about the Paladin Press "Reverse Grip Knife Fighting" tape. It is NOT the same as Drawpoint Volume 1 offered by Jim Keating and myself. I love the guys ar Paladin, but for their own reasons they edited out about 7 minutes of ADVANCED training footage and had JAK shoot a different opening to the video (where he is is his office, talking about different knife designs). SO, if you want to get the maximum learning, get the Drawpoint series Volumes 1-3 as a set, don't just get the single Paladin tape.

I just taught a 2-day Drawpoint seminar down in Ohio last weekend and it was amazing how fast even new students to the blade could pick everything up. The full seminar report is here http://alliancemartialarts.com/seminar-ashtabula.htm

Best of all,

Pete Kautz
http://alliancemartialarts.com
http://modernknives.com

 

[Cruentus]

Thanks Rich and Blindside. Appreciate the answers.
Scenario training must be important too, no? Once the person is a little more advanced? or does that happen right in the beginnning?
Rich, can you explain "defensive" cuts a little more?

These are some great questions, and I especially like the fact that you brought up scenario training, because that is a core training method that we use.

I would say that as far as self-defense is concerned, a completely inexperienced person should be able to at least defend themselves competently with a knife in about 4 hours. Obviously more training is better, but 4 hours is a good minimum.

As for our approach, we want to keep things simple and comprehensive for an introductory course. Simplicity is the key because if you give them too much information, they will walk away with nothing.

Keep in mind here also that your target audience does matter. For example, when we work with military people we don't have to cover legalities or concealed carry as much. Drawing a fixed combat knife that is sheathed in a readily accessible spot is different then the private citizen who might have to use access his utility folding knife against a bad guy. But one thing that stayed the same was the concept of simplicity. Knife work is not rocket science. We only violated the simplicity rule once when we sent a video to trainers from company F in Iraq, where I basically rolodexed as much info in a few hour video as I could, but that was per their request because they wanted to be able to pick and choose material rather then have a comprehensive format to work off of. So, sometimes your training objectives can change things too. Yet, even in this case the only thing that wasn't simple was the format; the combative concepts were still easy to follow.

Since the target audience does matter, we at TULISAN Company believe that the best way to maintain the integrity of the instruction is through private programs that can be tailored to individual needs. That said, for the private citizen, we usually follow the same basic format. We generally present in this order: 1. legalities, psychology, physics, anatomy, and utility as it applies to bladework 2. Fighting platform and basic attacking angles and technique 3. Concealed carry, drawing/blade presentation 4. Integration of all skills against resisting and unpredictable training partners. This is scenario based, and is done in a way where the intensity and stress induction in the exercises are increased gradually until we are doing full blown scenarios. Full-blown scenarios occur vary quickly, however; we can do them during the last hour of a four-hour session without problems. We have done public seminars following this format in the past, but we are mainly focused on private programs by request and appointment at the moment.

Money well spent is if you can make the investment in a private program with a competent instructor or training company that can tailor a blade program to fit your needs. If not, seminar training can be very valuable as well.

Finally, I would like to mention that if competent instructors or seminars are not a viable option, video training with a partner or three could be a good format. I would like to echo Mr. Kautz and Blindside that the drawpoint series is a good starting point. I have not had the chance to view all of the material, but from what I understand it seems to have a pretty comprehensive and simple yet effective format.

Much longer post then I intended, but I hope that was helpful

Sincerely,

Paul Janulis