2015, Situational training, knife
In the past I have published several articles on the subject of “knives”. This is a topic that is exceptionally often discussed very controversially by many people. The advice on how to deal with a knife attacker now fills entire hard drives and I don't want to take part in all the discussions.
The fact is that I have had to deal with knife attackers more than once in my professional life. Of course, I also had to deal with the victims of such attacks, be it as part of the initial medical care at the crime scene or when questioning them about the events.
The outstanding finding from the victim survey is, that for the most part, they did not notice the presence of a knife at all and in some cases only realized that they were injured after the attacker had let go of them.
In one of my last missions, a victim was so seriously injured by a stab with a Swiss Army knife that he only narrowly escaped with his life through immediate emergency surgery.
What I want to say is simple. The discussions about so-called "real defense" against knife attacks are completely nonsensical because in the oft-quoted "reality" it is often not possible to recognize and classify an attack whether armed with a knife or not.
In such a situation, even the well-intentioned advice to flee immediately in the event of a knife attack unfortunately doesn't help.
The best way to prepare for things you can't see is to simply imagine that the attacker is essentially holding something in his hands that you don't notice at the time of the attack and focus solely on the opponent's movement pattern.
A counterattack that corresponds almost simultaneously with the attack serves to stop the attacker's flow of attacks and to prevent him from stabbing or cutting multiple times in the event of a knife attack.
In 2015 I created a video on this topic, which was mainly about re-enacting real knife attacks and what possibilities arise through Systema-training. The speed of the attacks also corresponds to a realistic attack level (yes, even Systema-training can be fast), which is why the attacker wore protection on his head.
Finally, a request: these are still training situations and are just examples. Copying movements will never help you in a real situation. Given certain principles, you must find your own method, your own Systema. This is one of the fundamental foundations of our system and is therefore not easy to understand nor to practice.
Keep going, it's worth it!