Knives - a serious thread.

[neonplanet40]

Ive done various martial arts mostly tai chi and scientific street fighting.

Now i would advise people to run if they can or do what they say. I was in Belfast on New years Eve last year and as i was walking to meet my mates i was confronted with a man who held a knife out at me and asked me for all my money or he would slit my throat.

At the time you dont get much time to think but i said to myself if i give him this he could stab me anyway? Wouldnt i rather go fighting? Well to cut a long story short he jumped for me but as with all martial arts your reactions become alot quicker. I cocked my 2 arms around the arm he had his knife in and i broke it quite severily. I then punched him in the throat and held him in an arm bar. I rang the police and they came and took him away. I didnt even get a warning over the force i used. Which i was suprised at.

But i mean my point is this could have went alot worse for me. i could have been killed. I would tell everyone to Run or do what they say. Its the smartest things to do.

if all else fails for me ill bring my samurai sword out with me hehe

[Butuz]

if all else fails for me ill bring my samurai sword out with me hehe

Well if you want to get a blanket ban on owning katana I suppones thats one of the best ways of doing it!

Butuz

[Zak33]

I'd ask one other thing guys, for you to all consider:

The blade is one of the oldest weapons of all time. It's why the sword took so long to be surpassed, and the reason the bayonet is still used

Bullets, while horrific, often are no worse than a random slash by a 10 year old with a craft knife.

Which brings me to my last point: In a crowd, always look and watch (sublty) as suitable looking lads wander past your back, especially in football matches, ques, gig's etc.
To hamstring someone with £1.50 of craft knife is too easy.

Just step forward, and be out of people's way. When out with your girlfriend, (ladies on the whole are clueless in spacial awareness terms, while shopping) Make it your personal mission to know what's going on around you, all the time, and spot the nobbers, and simply steer your girl to the other side.

I've done it all my life...it's why I hate London with such a passion. Sair knows now..she sees me watching everyone. But that level of concentration wears me out, so a trip to a large crowded area realy wears me out!

I have totally zero martial arts training. Life however, is valuable, and worth the concentration.

How many times has it saved myself or my relations and freinds? Prolly not many, and none for dead certain, though I have avoided two armed raids in bookies!

[Zak33]

by the way...an exceptionally good thread.

Remember.....hero's are the ones who live. That's why life is so short of hero's!

[Hans Voralberg]

Yeah, quite an insight tbh. I hardly recognise how fast knives can be drawn b4. Tried it out with mine, 2 second from take it out of the case and stab something ~2-3m in front of me.

And this probably is well useless in real life situation, knowing what kind of knife can save you me think. Craft knife is sharp and pointy, but too short, so enuf time to turn round and run if you're say 5-6m away from the attacker.
Pointy, double blade ones, unless well sharpen is quite blunt for slashing, so i guess you can run, because it is quite hard to stab someone running. Dont get stabbed though, once it stabbed in it can slice you up in no time.
The military like one imo is most dangerous, it can stab, and slashes well. If you're far away enuf, run like hell. Otherwise just surrender.

[chicken]

I'm not sure I agree with this whole "Don't argue, give them your stuff and run" thing. Yes it may be a good idea right then and there but if everybody did that then for every theiving pikey you have now there would be a hundred. You're making yourself a softer target by giving in.

[hitman67]

The best way has to be to turn round, look at the horizon and try to get there as quickly as possible, or the other option is to try and enlisit help from those around you.

[SilentDeath]

keyboard warrior here
the videos make a good point, but they are not realistic... but i would still I would just run.. maybe not if i were trained in some martial arts. I think it would be quite easy to disarm an unskilled knife wielder(ie your average chav trying to rob you) with good chance of not getting hit if you had the practice doing it.

the knife vs gun is not realistic because she doesnt move, or even aim the gun near him instead pointing it straight ahead. a 5 year old might do that but you learn to predidct posistion of objects when you learn to cross roads. if somone ran at you, you move to the side, and you look at them not straight ahead. at close range i expect guns could be much more usefull for blocking rather than shooting. Also is the bottom of most gun holsters metal? (stop you shooting yourself in the leg maybe?) is there any reson why you couldnt point the holster and fire through it?

...trying to block a knife with your arm is just stupid (unless they are too close and you can instead block against their arm - and in that case you wouldnt have a chance running away) but a well aimed shoe to the attackers hand could quite easly disarm a knife whilst also protecting your foot a resonable amout.

If your in a car, do you wait for them to pull you out? or do you let go of the clutch and drag there arm along with your car for a few hundred meters? that implys its in gear, but thats often the case unless your parked (example at traffic lights).. you dont have to show your going to do that, for example stick your hands up as if your gonna get out... and he wont expect it
if its not in gear, force the door into them, shut it then drive off.

[Stringent]

Only just tapped into this thread. Its sad that today we have to start looking over our shoulders more often. I don't like looking at 'gangs' because even a look can stir things up. My mum who is a teacher glares at these kids and doesn't understand that really she shouldn't because if they want to, for any reason they might just get nasty.

I tend to steer clear of confrontation (thankfully haven't had much of it). If someone did come at me with a knife then I would probably freeze, unless instinct kicked in and legged it. I am by no way means fit, I probably could run away quickly and most likely would. Unless one is cornered in which I would have no alternative but to fight or die. I hope it never comes to that.

Those of us who have had the fortune of being taught a martial art, really what are you going to do if a gang of 4 surround you and pull out knives? Even if you turn and run, there is nothing to stop them throwing it in your back.

Every circamstance is different. If you get threatened at knife point to get out your car ... drive off? Even if its a red light and you get beeped or something you still have your car. Don't have windows open to wide, switch the air con on! Keep doors locked. The general jist is, get away if you can.

[megah0]

The most important thing you learn with a martial art is how to avoid confrontation, simply through regular sparring you learn body language and subtle changes in posture and even facial expression for when someone is about to attack.

For example the lead shoulder drops, the hips twist slightly, the feet move apart widening the stance, the eyebrows draw down to protect the eyes, the chin tucks in and the jaw clenches.

Spotting these things can make a massive difference to how you view a potential situation allowing you to walk away without anything ever developing.

[Kumagoro]

This story really depresses me you see these random attacks all the time in the UK on
the weekend. OK not with knives but often random punching and kickings.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006290055,00.html

There is a video which shows what happened, but I dont recommend watching it.

[Moonshade]

I would try to run...or hope that someone nearby, if there was any, would call for help or maybe intervene if that was possible. Hm, a couple of years ago I was at a knife point...I was out with a couple of friends we were supposed to go to the movies, but we were kinda early so we decided to walk a bit instead of taking the subway all the way there. Usually I don't like this part of the city during the night, since I know there can be a lot of weird people there. But I thought while being with my friends, it would be okay. So we started walking and this is a perfect place for robbing and such acts since there are dark alleys and stuff. But we thought there are a lot of resturants around so you could always scream if something happens, right?

So we laugh about even bringing that up and continue to walk. Altogether we are 4 persons (this includes me) me, 2 girls and a boy. The girls decided they had too go pee so we agree that they could walk back a few minutes to one of the resturants and ask there, we all have cell phones, so no worries. So us two that are left continues to walk a head, we are soon near the parliament, where there are no people, we walks on this bridge and just listen to the water below us.

Then these guys (3 of them) are walking up to us, they are wearing black baggy pants and dark coloured sweatshirts. One of the guy starts calling me names, like hoe and stuff and my friend does not tollerate this and tells the guy to shut up! Although he shouldn't have done that...the guy he told to shut up walks close to him and tell him to never talk to him like that, ever again. He tried to be brave I guess, maybe for me..so he says something like; "I can say whatever I want to you, since you can call my friend hoe". Then one of the other guys takes a hold of me and all of a sudden I see the blade infront of my eyes..I don't know where it came from. The guy with the knife says: "Now you are going to apologise or otherwise your firend here is gonna have some more serious problems than just listening to words she does not wanna hear"...at this point I'm scared, and I mean to death and about the thing Lowe said in the first post...you do whatever they ask you to, and that was exactly how I felt then. I couldn't scream, I was too afraid, the only thing I could think of was that I would do whatever as long as I didn't got hurt.

My friend felt the same way so he said that he was sorry and he let them insult him and he didn't even blink when he got a slap in the face so that his nose started to bleed. The guy with the knife still wouldn't let me go, at least not yet. He tells my friend that he should have thought about this before he told them to shut up...he takes the knife point and slowly presses it against the lower part of my neck. It hurt, although not very bad...the weird part is that when that happend the only thing I thought of was that my friend shouldn't be sorry for me, it wasn't his fault..this I felt becuase I saw that he was crying. Then they went off and I got the longest hug in the history.

It could have gone worse, I know that...so I must say that I'm relieved I just got a scar. I would run if I could or wish that there would have been other people around to save me or whoever was the victim. At this time I was only 14, now I'm 18...I was little and scared. And the guys they were probably around 20-25...that was the only thing I could tell the police because I couldn't remember much more...as far as I know they never got them behind bars ...

Knifes are really dangerous! I just watched the movie; Pay it forward, it's really good and there is also the scene where a little guy get stabbed so badly with a knife that he dies..and this guy who did it (12 years old)...he couldn't believe it. But you can actually die, they are weapons!

-- Moon

[kasavien]

Thats a terrible story, glad that you didn't get hurt, it shows though that if you get into a violent situation you can't predict how things are going to go or how you will react to that situation. The fact of the matter is that you can always plan to run away or give them your things or whatever else they want, but things won't always happen like that so you may have to react otherwise.

I wonder if i was ever in a situation like that (and i hope i aren't) but what would happen if i turned round to them and screamed my head off, not a girly scream but more of a roar, me being 6ft and near enough 100Kg, they certainly wouldn't be expecting it

[Moonshade]

Nah, not really hurt..but I got a scar and it wasn't unpainful..but I could have been way worse. I've been in other situations too when you don't react as I would have thought I'd do. But I won't share everything unless not right now since I have to go offline soon.

Whoa, yeah they'd probably not expect that... that is a tricky thing with being a little girl I'm about 5ft and weight about 48-49 kg . *tiny*

-- Moon