Delica for defense

[KaliGman]

So you go from this, where a Delica is apparently not enough knife for the macho pastime of knife fighting in the cold, bleak, heartless streets of Mother Russia...

...

In defense situation your opponent usually aware and ready to resist. It is possible to do deep cut with Delica but no single street fighter will allow this to you. And most likely you will not face in situation where you have to use weapon to defend yourself someone who never fight before. So in this case you need something which will do job even when you opponent actively resist. More then this - knowing that you may cut him he will try to put you down for good. It will not be fair fist fight (if any exists now days).

So please, do not full yourself with tiny little blade on plastic handle.

To this, where you apparently think that carrying a knife for self-defense is not that good of an idea for the great unwashed horde of normal citizenry (or at least teenagers)...

...
This is what bother me most - some kids may get wrong impression that they are safe just because they carry Delica and got in trouble. While what they really need it to get good training and first not even in knife fight but in basic martial arts - boxing and wreastling (real one - judo, sambo) or just learn how to punch someone in a face or kick in the balls. Just generic physical and mental strength do much better then Delica (balet dancer can easy put down five attacker without too much training in martial arts, it is actually recorded). But better learn how to recognize potentially dangerous situations and avoid them.

I actually agree that empty hand skills should be a huge part of one's skill set, as they will be much more frequently used than weapon skills for most private citizens. However, your convoluted twists of logic and spin doctoring of your original statement leave me a bit dizzy. Are you running for office, or do you just keep in shape by jumping to conclusions?

[KaliGman]

Most techniques begin with the idea of "defanging the snake"--attacking the attacker's weapon arm to disable his ability to grip a weapon. Once that limb is disabled, typical FMA techniques involve closing and targeting the torso and neck, often with thrusts.

If you transplant that method into the Western legal system, a thug swings a pipe at your head. You cut the inside of his wrist, severing the flexor tendons and disabling his grip. He drops the weapon or can no longer wield it effectively. You close and start stabbing.

In simple terms, everything was great until you started stabbing. If he no longer posed a threat of death or grievous bodily injury, you can't legally use lethal force against him. What began as self-defense ends up with you being charged for assault with a deadly weapon and possibly attempted murder.

Ay Mike, No disrespect meant as you already know I hold you very high esteem, And I really think this is more of an argument for the courts or attorneys to debate. And I'd also like to say I'm not just trying to bust chops here with my comments. That being said I must say that I think there might be some faulty thinking here. Yes I agree by using your method ( and this is not an attack on your methodology) what you say above might be true. But I must raise the question, What if you don't slash at your attacker at all in a defensive situation where a thug is wielding a pipe and swinging it at your head? What if you only use stabbing techniques to defend yourself? Will the attorney take you to task for not trying to defang the snake first while your life is on the line? I don't think so. Would be like asking a person who defended himself with a handgun, why didn't you try shooting him in the leg or arm first instead of shooting the torso. If one is permitted by law to defend oneself in a situation where their lives are in peril, and they take all the steps necessary to stop their attacker, I don't think the courts would say a slash as oppose to a stab was a more appropriate response to such a situation and find fault with your actions. In your example the slash that stops an opponent might be construed as reasonable if it did indeed stop your attacker from inflicting bodily harm on you and yes if you continued to fight stab or slash one could argue the force was indeed excessive....but if a stab wound effectively stops my opponent from his illegal actions and I don't continue to stab him 50 times afterwards what would be the difference.....It all about stopping the attack, regardless of the methodology. Doc

The two methodologies described both have merit and are not mutually exclusive. Let me expand on this, and use a personal observation or two to illustrate a few points.

1. Mike (I am going to call you Mike now and expect you to call me Jon, since we have recently conversed in this thread---and do not believe anything that Mickey says about me while you are in Ohio, unless it consists solely of good things, in which case, not only was he truthful, but he was understating the case a bit), has studied combative anatomy and come to some very good conclusions. His "cutting to stop/biomechanical cutting" methodology is a good one. If good cutting and targeting methodology is utilized and the tendons and/or muscle complexes in the limb are severed, the limb ceases to be mobile.

2. In the example that Mike stated, in which the attacker drops the weapon and is incapable of futher potentially lethal action, he is quite correct in that the defender's use of potentially lethal force (a knife) must stop immediately.

3. Hitting and cutting the correct areas on the limbs, at speed and in real combat conditions, is very possible with the proper training in cutting methodology, passing/trapping/checking, and footwork.

4. Sometimes, everything does not go according to plan, or at least not according to your (the defender's) plan. Terrain can dictate technique, as can actions conducted by the opponent, the number of opponents, weaponry possessed and utilized by the opponent, skill level of the opponent, personal impediments (injuries, burdened with packages being loaded into a vehicle, having a small child with you and having to protect the child while protecting yourself), and other factors. There are also times when your biomechanical cut may not work the way that you expect it to work.

It is possible that, though good methodology was utilized, the tendons or muscles are not severed completely and the opponent is still able to use the limb that wields his weapon. I have faced an opponent whose biceps and triceps were severely cut, as was his forearm on the "off" or non-weapon arm, and who continued to wield his weapon even though his arms were bleeding profusely and his upper arm musculature looked like a diagram in an anatomy textbook (or like bloody Shredded Wheat, since the muscles were half-severed). Similarly, and as I have said before on this forum, I have seen people run 100 yards after being shot in the chest twice with a .45 ACP and survive with relatively little damage after being shot in the eye with a .38 Special. Sometimes the bad guy does not go down when you think he should and you have to convince him that he should go down. Sometimes an opponent just keeps fighting and trying to kill you, even if he loses his weapon or the use of a limb. Sometimes, they only cease their aggression when they are dead.

Recently, in testing and training rather than combat, I found a couple of situations where the best defang the snake or biomechanical cut actually began with a thrust. I was collaborating on an article on the use of small blades (three inch or smaller in blade length) in self-defense for the Russian knife magazine, Prorez, and Dmitry, my co-author, asked about being able to cut through very heavy winter clothing. Certain pressure cuts did fairly well, as did certain of the "three dimensional rotation" cutting methodology motions. However, when needing to penetrate a heavy leather coat, a heavy sweater, shirt, thermal underwear and flesh and using a Boker Subcom Fixed Blade, a hard thrust into a target, such as an arm or leg, and powered by a hip drop or hip rotation and obtique/jing/"jerking" motion, followed by a ripping exit from the target in a long cut powered by lateral footwork and/or a hip turn (trust me, this takes less than a second to complete, and a long time to describe in the written word), would produce long and deep wounds where some cutting methodologies would barely, if at all, reach flesh.

Based on a few altercations and other interesting experiences, it is possible that targeting the limbs of an opponent may not always be practical. For example, in a close-range fight for my life where the opponent has closed the distance and we are grappling, I will not pass up a lethal target area to move to non-lethal/disabling target area. I will hit what I can, when I can. In fact, I would hit the lethal target area, hoping to cause a flinch response and/or a bit of balance disruption, and then hit the less lethal area, and probably a third target or more on the way "out" of the corto environment. The quarter to half-second to go from lethal to less lethal targeting is sometimes too much time in a real fight. I hate to sound dramatic or overly macho, but, there has been more than one occasion in my life where that much time probably meant the difference between going home at the end of the shift and not going home at the end of the shift.

I am a huge believer in defanging the snake, but I am also a big believer in the phrase "Murphy was an optimist." So much can go wrong in real life that I plan for failure. I will cut the arm or leg to get rid of the weapon and decrease mobility. If the weapon drops, good. If the bad guy pulls a firearm with his uninjured arm and it turns out that I did not cut quite deep enough on the leg and he is still standing and able to move, well, we continue our movement until the bad guy is no longer a threat.

5. Basically, I do not believe that Doc is going out with a chip on his shoulder, a few razor-edged blades, an evil grin, and a desire to do massive amounts of bloody mayhem. Similarly, I do not believe that Mike is going to stand around aghast if an opponent continues to fight after a biomechanical cut. Mike will continue to move, cut and strike, and, if he has to finish up with a Silat spine destruction to stop the bad guy, so be it. The gentlemen in question have more similarities than differnces in the arena of real world combat.

SEE THE NEXT POST

[KaliGman]

6. Finally, (and I know a lot of you have either already stopped reading or are at least breathing a sigh of relief that I will, eventually, fall silent), let us examine some legal issues. Prior to applying deadly, or potentially deadly, force (and cutting with a knife is going to be viewed as potentially deadly force), you must be in fear of death or serious bodily injury. You have to be able to articulate why a "reasonable person" in your particular situation at that moment would have believed themsevles to be in fear of death or serious bodily injury. Based on a few hundred court appearances testifying in municipal and federal courts in multiple states within the U.S., and further based on use-of-force and legal research (I am a law enforcement officer, command other law enforcement officers, and have been a law enforcement trainer and instructor), articulation is the key. If you articulate the threat and end up inflicting deadly injuries on your opponent, you are within the law. Are there other considerations and repercussions? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You can do everything right and still have problems. My advice is to do the least amount of harm possible, the amount that is necessary and proper to stop your assailant from continuing his attempts to injure you, but do not jeopardize your personal safety to guarantee the relative safety, or life, of the assailant. Everything is relative in real fighting and you are going to have to make some hard decisions quickly. It is best to have a bit of an action plan and a lot of training prior to stepping into the lethal force arena.

As an aside, and for those of you who are going to PM me and ask about the opponent with the cut arms and inquire as to which Spyderco I cut him with, here, as they say, is the rest of the story:

He was, in technical terms, literally "bughouse crazy." He had cut himself to ribbons and was now waiting to cut up the nice law enforcement officers who were responding to the disturbance. I exited my car and was still in the "Well, you don't see that every day" frame of mind (I was a lot younger then), when "The Bloody Man" encountered about 120 pounds of police canine whup butt. The K-9 officer even had to do the use of force report since his partner had handled the situation, and I escaped the deadly paperwork deluge.

Train hard and take care.

Jon

[JNewell]

FFG D4 in a nice PC color--and a matching trainer.

Off to Ohio to teach and train MBC!

Stay safe,

Mike

Thanks. Lots of good choices, at least for a Delica and if you are willing to do a scale swap for versions that had the saber grind blade:

- faded denim blue, the original ZDP-189 sprint
- foliage green FRN, disappears on almost anything
- the new tan/brown, good for khaki
- the new gray, pretty inconspicuous

Other good choices...

- the white "NASA" is pretty generic
- British racing green is quite innocent
- pink is good for women, maybe for men (?)
- the new purple, blue or green would also be quite innocent

But really, there are probably no bad choices...

Stay safe -
John

[chuck_roxas45]

Kaligman that was a very well written and thought out post. And yes, I believe that your point of view and Mike are not incompatible. You just took it a bit further to take in more possibilities which in the fluid situation of a fight cannot be ruled out. How unfortunate for us that we do not have the benefit of such enlightened instruction like yours and Mike's. Both of your methodologies are not just warrior's perspective but rather a of warrior-philosopher. I hope people won't take this to mean that people like me who want to be better hand to hand practitioners are going around in a blood thirsty state of mind. What I'm getting at is, if you study something do it well.

[SolidState]

Recently, in testing and training rather than combat, I found a couple of situations where the best defang the snake or biomechanical cut actually began with a thrust. .... Certain pressure cuts did fairly well, as did certain of the "three dimensional rotation" cutting methodology motions. However, when needing to penetrate a heavy leather coat, a heavy sweater, shirt, thermal underwear and flesh and using a Boker Subcom Fixed Blade, a hard thrust into a target, such as an arm or leg, and powered by a hip drop or hip rotation and obtique/jing/"jerking" motion, followed by a ripping exit from the target in a long cut powered by lateral footwork and/or a hip turn, would produce long and deep wounds where some cutting methodologies would barely, if at all, reach flesh.

I believe that you touched on something that is key here. It is important to actually cut things with your knife to know its response to different target media and different cutting techniques.

Many times people train with trainers and get very proficient at placement as well as timing but when it comes to actual cutting they do not know how to cause a sufficient gash to immobilize. I have seen the phenomenon with katana as well. I've seen people who have beautiful form, and strong sparring performance who cannot cut the equivalent of a forearm with a 2'6" blade. I have seen people cleave the same targets easily with an endura and good form.

I firmly believe that it is important to actually practice driving a blade through various targets with various techniques as a part of regular training. Flashing and tapping trainers doesn't really prepare you for the torque forces that occur on the wrists and hands during actual cuts against resistive media.

It was actual cutting tests that showed me why stabbing is less than ideal. When wet flesh closes in on a blade it can make a pretty good vacuum. I also learned how different "impact cuts" are from "slashing proper" and why my technique in training was less than sufficient for live-blade play. Cutting targets taught me how to align my hips and shoulders into a cut as a matter of necessity.

[Dr. Snubnose]

Ay Blerv, I saw that neck thingy...LOL....Doc

[Aimless]

http://www.shivworks.com/

Take a class with this guy if you can

[Blerv]

Ay Blerv, I saw that neck thingy...LOL....Doc

Haha! Yea I figured I'd delete it.

The neck is always a target but I it was a tad icky for the forums. It's the ultimate "defang" if someone is trying to kill you with a tire iron. I don't even wantto think of it but that doesn't make it not real .

[Dr. Snubnose]

Haha! Yea I figured I'd delete it.

The neck is always a target but I it was a tad icky for the forums. It's the ultimate "defang" if someone is trying to kill you with a tire iron. I don't even wantto think of it but that doesn't make it not real .

Ay Blerv, I'm with you knifebro...If you ask people why do you pick your hands up in front of your body in a defensive posture what are you protecting...10 out of 10 will say their head and face...I always have to tell them that they are wrong!...The face and head can take a lot of abuse...I tell them even if you don't know it you are protecting your neck...the neck is very vulnerable to attack...when it comes to knives even more so...my tactics are geared towards creating an opening fast and targeting my oppoonent's neck...If my life is on the line I can't fool around with the concept of dancing with my opponent and attacking his limbs...some will disagree with my methods, but this is what works for me....Doc

[chuck_roxas45]

deleted

[Dr. Snubnose]

Ay Chuck, Sorry but this forum is not the place to discuss such techniques...No vids....Doc

[chuck_roxas45]

Ay Chuck, Sorry but this forum is not the place to discuss such techniques...No vids....Doc

Ok Doc, sorry.

[psychophipps]

I think that one of the issues people have with Mr. Janich's methodology is that they have this feeling of, "And what if it doesn't work perfectly the first time?" and that the founder of MBC hasn't thought about this at all and he will just stand there with a confused look on his face and respond with, "Umm...I dunno."
This reminds me of an obnoxious Karateka who was with me at a Prof. Wally Jay seminar who stood with his arms rudely across his chest the entire time and finally interrupted the seminar with a rather impatient demand of, "And what if you don't grab them right the first time or they wiggle out of a hold?" Prof. Jay just looked at my sensei and asked, "Sensei Miller?" before the disrespectful individual was informed succinctly, "Then you start hitting them" by my sensei. We all went right back to the technique that we were working on and the Karateka had a confused look on his face for a while.

I am 100% certain that Mr. Janich would give one of his detractors a similar response if he had the chance.

[224477]

I think that one of the issues people have with Mr. Janich's methodology is that they have this feeling of, "And what if it doesn't work perfectly the first time?" and that the founder of MBC hasn't thought about this at all and he will just stand there with a confused look on his face and respond with, "Umm...I dunno."

I have to tell you this :

Nothing does 100% work in combat/fight/self-defense situations. You have to live with that.. Unfortunately. You need to learn how to addapt and improvise.

You may pick up something that works great on a workshop lesson, but it can fail on the street. The street is different. There are no sparrings, there are no trainers, no protection, and you can get engaged in a 'situation' when you are ill, with temperature, tired off from work, anything can happen and you need to face it as it come.

You can spend dozens of yrs. in training but that still is not gonna give you the 100% confidence to 'win' the 'situation' if the SHTF. With training, situational awareness, and the correct attitude, you can just make your chance of 'winning' higher than an untrained individual.

There is a saying which says "Cemeteries are full of heroes." Even a champion can meet one day someone whos better or just have a bad day.

/The above was not ment personal to anybody.../

[markg]

As for the naysayers, they're certainly entitled to their opinions; however, they'd be MORE entitled if they actually got off the couch and trained. I would also be more inclined to listen if they offered a practical, logical, alternative approach. Anyone can say, "That won't work. You guys suck." Explain what you do and why it works better and we'll have something to discuss.

Well said Mike, and it was great to get to train with you again this weekend. If you get to do so, take advantage of it (just make sure you eat meat... )

I have been around my fair share of "theoretical discussions" on weapons. In other words the old "The 9mm sucks" discussions. My response is this..

I have a 9mm, a 40 S&W, and a .45 ACP. OK, now you get to choose which one I am going to shoot you with, what is your choice? My choice... NONE OF THE ABOVE!!!

Theoretical discussions on weapons simply gives enthusiast something to talk about.

The reality is this, if you gave me a choice of being cut with a Delica or a Military which would I choose?

Neither.

Which knife would you rather pull out of your pocket to show an officer during a traffic stop?

A Delica.

Your choice in bladeware should keep you out of the funeral home AND out of an orange jumpsuit.

[Michael Janich]

Your choice in bladeware should keep you out of the funeral home AND out of an orange jumpsuit.

Now that's a keeper!

Thanks, Mark. It was great to see you and train with you this weekend. As always, we had an awesome group and covered tons of material--including MBC, CBC, stick, cane, improvised weapons, and pure empty hand. I'm tired and sore, but can't stop smiling.

Thank you for your continued support and friendship--as well as your eloquent insights.

Stay safe,

Mike

[Michael Janich]

Dear Jon:

Thank you VERY much for your outstanding posts and for sharing your insights and experiences. It's an honor to have you on the forum.

BTW, I had a blast training with Mickey this weekend. Although his bad jokes were probably his most deadly weapon, he's not bad with knives and sticks either!

Stay safe,

Mike

[chuck_roxas45]

Wow, I really envy you guys who have the opportunity to train with the best.

[KaliGman]

Wow, I really envy you guys who have the opportunity to train with the best.

Well, since you are in the Philippines, I envy you some of your training opportunities. Living in the land of Kali Illustrisimo, Balintawak, Lightning Scientific Arnis, Doce Pares, Pekiti-Tirsia, and other well known systems, as well as several very good but lesser known or "tribe or family" systems, I know there have to be several escrimadors with whom I would love to train and from whom I would learn a lot. Of course, I know it depends on where you are located. In the United States, there are some great teachers, but sometimes they live far away from where you have to live and work. I get the impression, from your posts, that you are no stranger to the smell of burning rattan or the shock of stick on stick.

Good fortune in your training.