The Tactical Life

Definitely do this. I used to drive through NYC a couple of times a month and didn’t know the knife I had with me could have been considered illegal. I say could have because the laws there are so vague that it is up to the judge to make the final call. There are knives you can legally buy in NYC that are illegal to possess in NYC.

Something to consider about knife attacks is that it isn’t just about the knife but the attacker. You could probably divide attackers into three categories: the pro, the amateur and the psycho. In my experience, I’ve found that defense tends to focus on attacks by “pros.” For example, I’ve seen a trainer tell someone playing the attacker he was holding the knife incorrectly. “No one would use a knife like that.” Yeah, a pro wouldn’t hold a knife like that but a pro wouldn’t let you see the knife until it was in you anyway.

The reality is that if you are attacked by someone with a knife they won’t be experts. It will either be an amateur (for lack of a better word) who will usually slash rather than stab or a psycho who will usually stab and stab and stab. The thing about stabbing a human is that is a lot easier for the knife to go in that it is to pull it out. Psychos are able to stab dozens of times because they are, well, psychos. This is why a pro will only stab you once. And when I say psycho it could also mean so overcome with anger they are temporarily insane.

In my hometown a young girl was stabbed to death, in front of her mother and perhaps hundreds of people, in broad daylight in the street during a street fair. The killer was a man who walked off the grounds of the mental hospital. He bought a knife, walked out of the store, and attacked the first, weakest target he saw. I know people who witnessed it and one of them is a big guy and he told me how he was wearing his work boots when he kicked the guy in the head (he was kneeling over the girl as he continued to stab her) and the killer just looked up at him as he continued stabbing. I bring this up for a couple of reasons: one is that self-defense should include defending others. In other words, how do you stop someone who is attacking someone else? How do you disarm them if they are using a weapon? The second reason is that it isn’t the just the knife but the attacker. This person I brought up was very mentally deranged. Some fancy disarm technique that supposedly will work against someone who attacks in a “professional” manner won’t work against someone who is crazy (and you can include someone on drugs).

On a side note, according to an ancient Roman text on military training, people instinctively slash when given a bladed weapon. Thus, part of the training was to teach recruits to stab. A normal person’s instincts is to use a less than lethal technique. Probably because a normal person is thinking about protecting himself more than killing the other person. That takes another level of commitment.

I agree , totally agree. This is one of the main faults with martial arts training, even mine: KM. When I was working the street, I never had a “fight” with a pro. Like you said, they were either drunk, on drugs, or crazy. The female who gave me a 6 inch scar on my left arm was a 110 lb. meth head who just went insane in a small room, slinging her arms and slashing any thing she could.

Again, I agree. IMHO, other than cranial vault displacement ( blowing their brains out) there are very, very, few techniques that will work against a crazy or someone on PCP. You can beat them until your arms fall off and they will still be in front of you. It took 4 of us to subdue a crazy off his meds and we all took a beating. Used the football technique, plied on and used a choke hold to cut off his air. He did not die. Yep, got sued for that one, but, eventually, he was was going to get someone’s gun and kill some one during the melee.

Damn good post.

Unfortunately, for LEOs, the one thing that will work is choking someone unconscious as even crazy people need oxygen but it’s forbidden.

Elephant tranquilizer dart.

Possibly two.

Thought for the day:

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Yesterday, I had access to a fire department training tower. I took advantage of this opportunity by climbing up and down 8 stories, using a weighted vest for half the workout and finishing out carrying two kettlebells. I have used weighted carries as my conditioning foundation since knee surgery a couple of years ago.

Note: I believe I have read articles on T-Nation in the past by a couple of authors who discourage this type of training. They know more than me, but, it works for me.

Some more information from Gunny:

In my opinion one of the most basic measures of useful fitness is the ability to carry a load. What I mean is the sheer physical ability to carry something from one place to another, this is nothing fancy, it’s just about getting that whatever, from here to there. Infantryman , Urban and Wild Land Firefighters, SWAT guys, lumberjacks, masons, etc, all have to deal with moving weight around and there are many other jobs that require you to lift and carry weight.

This straight forward ability is a real measure of overall body strength, endurance and durability. It also has a tough mental component as it can only really be developed through hard grind workouts, however as a foundation of fitness it has no equal. Now having said all that what is the best way to obtain and maintain this component of fitness? In the military forced marches with heavy packs is the go method to for them. Firefighters and SWAT guys train with gear and workers that have to bear weight do so every day as part of their jobs. But if you’re a person that isn’t in one of these occupations you can still gain a lot of benefit from doing some training in this area.

For myself and others I’ve trained, I’ve seen the best results (in the shortest amount of time) from stair climbing with a weighted vest. Now while from time to time I do some long hikes humping a heavy pack, but for really digging into this, I find weight vest stair climbing is the best. I’m not talking about running up and down stairs, which without a vest is mostly an aerobic workout, but deliberately paced weighted walking up and down stairs. One good thing about stairs is that they are pretty much everywhere; indoor fire escapes are in every building and outside there are parks, sports stadiums and many other places that have some great places to climb stairs. Here on base where I work there are several places, but my go to is a 44 step outdoor fire escape on the base auditorium building. Once a week I throw on my 40lb vest and stair climb. I walk without holding the rails on the way up, but do so on the way down to keep from busting my clumsy ass. Normally I will do around 45 laps in an hour (51 is my PR). Now that may not sound like much but look at it this way. The standard amount of steps per floor in a new high rise is 12. So 45 laps of 44 step is 1980 steps (counting up only), or 165 floors. Look at it this way, that’s the equivalent of climbing the 104 floors of One World Trade Center with an additional 61 floors. It’s a tough workout and though I normally run 2-3 times a week otherwise, this hour of stair climbing is a much harder overall body workout than running or lifting weights. My legs, back and hips are always sore the next day. It’s not easy, and at times a little boring, but I do it , as I know it provides me a level of conditioning no amount of just running or gym work ever would.

The weird thing is I’ve had more than a few people attempt to caution me as too the long term effect of this workout on my back and knees, but I’ve been doing this exact type of workout for many years and never had any injuries from it. In fact it’s been the opposite, I think it has helped me prevent injuries by strengthening the core muscles and other tissue around my joints. I feel the immediate benefit when I go backpacking with my sons. We are doing some rock climbing and backpacking in the Adirondacks and in Yosemite this summer and I know by investing an hour a week in this workout will have me in prime condition for those trips. I highly recommend this for those who want to take their conditioning to a higher level without a large time investment. Start with a light load and short time and increase as you get used to it. Be sure to warm up well prior to and stretch out thoroughly at the end. Be cautious coming down, you don’t need to rush and I would recommend never to run on stairs with a weight vest, too easy to fall and get hurt. Give it a try, it’s not easy but well worth it if you are looking for a way for you to amp up your core fitness.

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I’ve read articles about how we (humans) have evolved to be runners (and I would assume also walkers) and that weightlifting is unnatural. The idea is that we are supposed to be skinny, which would also imply relatively weak. Being heavier than you would be if you ran 10 miles a day is not a good thing (and again, not as nature intended). Obviously, being obese is not good. There are probably adverse effects associated with being extremely muscular even with low body fat. With that said, we are clearly designed to lift and carry things and therefore have some degree of strength in order to do those tasks. For example, a pregnant woman is carrying extra weight. Adults need to be able to lift and carry babies and children. Our hunter gatherer ancestors had to carry what they hunted or gathered back to the group. We see this in other animals who carry their prey away to eat it somewhere safe from other predators or bring it to a den to feed their young. We also needed to be relatively strong compared to our body weight in order to climb trees and in some cases we had to carry things or even other people while doing so.

So if carrying a carcass for miles to bring it to the family cave is not bad for the knees then I don’t think climbing stairs while wearing a weight vest would be. It would probably be safer as the weight can be evenly dispersed. Dan John has talked about loaded carries for years and he is still going strong.

Thought for the day:

“If you try violence, I will defend”

I read this article several times and was baffled by the lack of response from the victims. I don’t know whether the author deliberately left that out for a better sounding story or there was no counterattack from any victim. I realize this is NYC and self defense is a bad afterthought, but, if someone is attacking you with a tree branch, you have a right to defend yourself from injury. No one had any weapons or training to defend themselves? Not even a tennis racket or cane? I realize he is probably a crazy, but, damn,I will not have someone beat my ass and steal my vehicle without a fight.

Correct, cardiac mass is inversely correlated with body mass. The heart doesn’t know whether it’s pumping blood to adipose tissue or skeletal muscle, all it knows is “this is more mass, I have to work harder”.

There’s a cap as to how big one can get, sumo wrestlers would be a prime example of athletes who succumb to premature mortality because they’re just so heavy (both fat and muscular)

He attacked a car. The driver got out and then ran away. Apparently leaving his car running so the attacker could take his car. You are in a car. Stay in your car, if you are just going to run away if you get out, and drive away.

If you aren’t someone who is physically capable of handling a crazy person armed with a branch, then why are you getting out of your car to confront him? Did the person not think that the nut job would start attacking him? And it’s NYC, you don’t get of your car and leave it running. Everyone knows that. It’s probably illegal to do that there.

This is something that always amazes me about some of these people who live in cities; they seem to have no understanding about where they live. Someone attacks your car and you get out. You don’t think that they will now steal your car? Someone attacks your car with a branch and you get out thinking you can what? Argue with him? Calm him down? This can’t be the first time you’ve seen a crazy person, it’s NYC.

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I think you mean that it’s directly correlated, right? In other words, the more body mass, the more cardiac mass we would expect?

Yes.

Thought for the day:

Defendere et domus tua.

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“If you don’t train on your own time and on your own dime the bad guys will kill you or someone who counts on you.”

Tony Blauer. I haven’t heard that name in a while. I remember him saying that when confronted by an aggressive person, ask yourself what’s the worst thing he could do to you at this moment as well as what’s the worst thing you could do to him.

He said this in an interview and asked the interviewer for an answer. The guy was thinking punches and kicks. Blauer said, “I could throw this hot coffee in your face.”

I recently went through a course on “practical” knife defense.not a bunch of flash that would require you to have a spider sense to do. They cover “advanced” ppl and how to identify who is advanced and who isn’t to a degree.

The information the guy covers is based on knife attacks caught on video. You referring to the “psycho” resonates a lot with the course. The shirt grab and stab is an extremely common attack and the attacks come fast. I’ve drilled these full blast with training partners and it’s not defending 1-2 attacks and a break to think it can be 2-3 a second if you don’t spin out and break their grip.

Another great point is if you engage in a knife fight there’s a high likely hood you’re getting cut. So you might as well be prepared mentally.

I think it’s more important drill whatever you’re practicing with the attacker playing every role randomly, trained /untrained/psychopath. You learn to adapt.

I posted this vid in a different thread a while back. This type of training and preparation really needs to be more commonplace. To not prepare students properly is, literally, a grave disservice.

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Options in order of preference (assuming you have no gun):

run the fuck away/avoid the situation
Grab a chair or similar to keep the knife away from me/others
Try to get hand/wrist control and hope, hard, that the many cuts I’ll recieve arent too serious.

Actually these are valid options and in reality what most ppl should follow.

On the course I did recent wrist control is considered. They only advocate going for full wrist control on a sleeved opponent . Actually gripping someone’s wrist even with 2 hands while standing is very difficult not to mention when they rip their hand back you’re getting your hands cut most likely. Sleeved grip you can hold a strong athletic persons arm in place very easily. You can still get cut however rolling the grip where the back of your hand touches the back of the attackers helps.

Ultimately though, yeah I’m gonna be looking for something to use as a weapon, shield or something if I’m not strapped (which I usually am)

Wrestlers do it all of the time.

While wresting someone with a knife?

He has the knife regardless of what he is or is not wearing.