More Mayhem with Sharp Steel ...

Thirty or so years ago, I worked in a medical clinic. As part of that, I got a lot of medical magazines and surgical catalogs, and in one of these, I came across a knife I thought was cool, so I ordered it.

It was an autopsy/dissection knife. Not a disposable, nor a scalpel, it was an old-style reusable, and looked rather like a hunting knife, something like the one pictured up top. The handle was black, ebony, I believe, and lightly fluted for a better grip. It was designed to flay open a corpse. German steel, cost about forty bucks as I recall.

Eventually, I gave it away or lost it, I can't recall exactly, and I was sorry. This was before I got interested in knives as a result of the study of silat. It was always kind of fun to tell people who asked about it: Oh, this? It's an autopsy knife ...

Got some great double-takes off that line.

It was a great tool and designed for the kind of thing that would serve a knife fighter ...

Which brings us to today's lesson: The right tool for the job.

Realistic knife defenses using one's bare hands and other body parts are iffy at best. Guy has a knife and you don't, run away. If you can't, find a weapon -- a chair, a piano, a bowling ball. If you can't do that, and you have no choice, and your barehanded stuff is all you have, then you have to go for broke. You'll get cut, and if you are lucky, not so bad that you can't take the guy before you bleed out.

If you are unlucky ... ? Well. You know.

The question is not whether you wind up in the hospital, you are going there, the question is only if it's gonna be the ER or the ICU.

I can't tell you what will work, save that trying like hell to survive will serve you better than assuming you won't.

But, I will offer a story concerning the idea that you can beat a knife barehanded like they do in the movies.

One of our semi-regular silat students and a nice guy is, let's call him "Jim," holds rank in another martial art, a Chinese hybrid system. He's either a 4th or 5th degree black belt, and highly regarded in that art. A while back, one of Jim's fellow black belts and some friends were out of an evening and got into a confrontation with some gang guys in a restaurant. Outnumbered and unarmed, the black belt and his buddies did the smart thing, they hauled ass.

The other guys gave chase, and as the black belt got into his car, he was stabbed, once, under the armpit. The wound proved fatal.

Jim was shaken by this. He had trained with this guy, and knew that he had known their knife defenses. So he grabbed one of the other black belts and a training knife and said, "Okay, look, come at me full force, no give-me-your-arm slomo stuff, don't tell what you are going to do, just do it, really try to stick me. Let's see which of our defenses work in that situation."

And it turned out, none of them worked.

So Jim stopped teaching those defenses, because he said that if somebody used one and got killed, he would feel responsible. That rather than give out a defective tool, better not to give out any.

The barehanded knife defenses I know are last-ditch, no-choice, back-to-the-wall things, and I hope I never have to pull them up. I don't know how good my chances would be, though I believe they would be better than not having them. They aren't fancy, they are simple and brutal. One of them is informally known as the "Oh, shit!" move, and that pretty much sums up the situation you're in if your attacker has a knife and you don't.

This is why it is a good weapon for somebody who is small or weak or infirm. With just a little bit of practice, a knife will equalize things against a larger, stronger attacker. Steel against flesh? Bet your money on the edge to win most of the time. Yeah, there are martial arts experts out there who can go bare against a knife and come out again, but they are few and far between.

Silat guys I know all carry a legal-sized knife. Some carry more than one. Go to a silat class and ask loudly if anybody has a knife you can borrow, and you are apt to be deafened by the sound of folders clicking open ...

Lot of knives out there. It would be wise if you consider yourself a martial artist to become passing familiar with them. Me, I am no expert and well aware of that. But I have put in some time to become used to seeing and playing with them. Forewarned is forearmed ...