Recently I have been engaged in a debate on the offensive use of an edge weapon. It has long been my belief that there are plenty of knife systems out there with great concepts but they often add in nonfunctional student retention filler and an elitist subculture mentality combined with sub par application and limited conceptual understanding of the reality of a confrontation and to me the end result is that they often become relatively ineffective for actually enhancing your ability to survive a violent confrontation. After much thought on this topic I decided to put the Knife Subculture ideology to the test.

 In our training we have examined many scenarios, which could include the use of an edged weapon if the defender decided to, we have also trained effective deployment, usage and defense, we have come to many conclusions. Yet we have never intentionally examined the offensive use of the blade as a method of self defense. So we set out to run as many scenarios as we could with the goal of finding out when a person would be capable of deploying and using a blade to include moral and legal justification. After much thought on this topic we decided to put the Knife Subculture ideology to the test.

I invited Sweet Basu and his friend Shik to train for about 3 hours. Our main focus was to experiment with realistic full out knife scenarios, we analyzed over 20 different scenarios, where the sole intention was to find the right moment to pull and use the blade.

We kept it very simple in order to be sure we could give the defender the greatest opportunity to use the blade. We structure the mindset so there were only 2 criteria the defender needed to follow, they were that the defender must only pull the blade if he feels both Justified and capable of using it.

With that in mind we ran each other through situations that we have encountered in our everyday lives, situations were we have looked back at and said I wish I had an equalizer in that situation. The being said it stands to reason that 75% of the scenario’s involved multiple attackers. The scenario’s ranged from walking down an ally and being approached by individuals who thought the defender raped their sister, robbed their mothers house, stole something from their car, was in their territory,  all the way to standard muggings on the street and at the ATM. We even threw in an Airport terminal and Subway terrorism attackers. Some scenario’s included one on one fights, some included attackers with no weapons while others included knives and/or guns. We made sure the defender had access to the knife in both the closed "tactical Folder" position as well as the Open "Fixed Blade" position. In every scenario the defender always had access to the blade and always had the intent to use it.

After each scenario we debriefed with 90% of them ending with me asking the question “where was the knife?” and “why didn’t you pull it?”. That is the real number out of 20 scenarios the defender only pulled the blade out 2 times, 1 of which he did not feel justified.

The one time he used the blade and felt justified was during our 5^th ATM scenario were Ronnie was withdrawing money, Shik and Myself  grabbed him from behind and started to ruff him up. After a little pushing and smacking around Shik told me to check Ronnie’s pockets. At this point Ronnie became concerned that if we had found the knife he was carrying that we might use it on him. He felt that in that situation he was justified and deployed it successfully which left me and Shik with some painful cuts and bruises.

However it is interesting to note that there is a good chance that Shik and I would not have died and Ronnie would not have murdered his attackers had he not been carrying the weapon. He may have been robbed and went home. However now he is a killer and he must justify that to himself and possible the police for the rest of his life.

We also ran several ground attack scenarios where the defender was tackled and mounted. During these attacks it was clearly more dangerous for the defender to waste valuable time struggling to deploy the blade when it would have been clearly more advantageous for him to deal with the attack utilizing our standard ground fighting approach.  Typically the blade got hung up in the pants pocket and was too difficult to pull out under the stress of getting punched in the face repeatedly.

Similarly we did some 2 on 1 with rear naked chokes, guillotines and standing arm bars. During these situations the blade could not be deployed either and the one time it was actually deployed and opened, it immediately went flying 5 feet away, as a result of the stress and energy of the struggle.

The rest of the times the blade was never deployed and I was left constantly asking “why didn’t you pull the blade?” there were only 2 answers to this question.

1. I didn’t even think about it.

2. I didn’t have the time.

In the end justification and the capability to use the weapon weren't even the issue's the defender had to deal with. It was more about the inability to focus and the fact that there is never a good time to deploy the weapon.  This is disappointing to me because I was hoping to be able to come back with some offensive knife insights to share. However as I mentioned the offensive knife work has only been valuable to us in an effort to make us better attackers for the sole purpose of making us better defenders. It is obvious that I still stand by my previous comments that pro-knife schools of thought are only those individuals who have not completely examined the realities, moralities and legalities of a street conflict.  Carrying a knife for self defense is a result of a perception of inadequate ability to handle a situation with out it. The knife for most people merely becomes a tool to raise their own ego which in most cases will only cause them to become increasingly confrontational, which is the opposite of defense and is congruent with aggressive behavior

I too often get caught up in the glamour of pop culture but we need to be training for situations where we will most often find ourselves. I own several knives and a few Swords, I am guilty of fantasizing about being in the same moment that Tom Cruise was in during the multiple attacker scene of the last Samurai. Where I could clairvoyantly perceive the every move of that moment and then effortlessly deploy my Katana blade thrusting and slashing through my enemies with masterful precision and at such great speed that I return my blade to it’s scabbard before my last victim falls to the floor. Walking away with out guilt or fear and only the mind of a hero.  This however is not real life and it was not even that way for Musashi. The entertainment industry and master marketers have disillusioned us, we must diligently search for truth, analyze the statistics and test our theories if we are ever truly to be safe. 

On another note… I do not feel the same rules apply for firearms and improvised weapons. Similarly I do not think the same rules apply for military or police. And I do find carrying a blade useful at times, however I’d rather carry a multi-tool or a Swiss army device at this point.