*Disclaimer- This is a manual for use with the Great Plains Knife Fighting system by John Turner. It is being displayed on ZPI so that members have some idea of what knife fighting is all about.*
Large Frame Single Edged Knife Class
Synopsis
What Is and Why Use a Large Frame Knife?
Large frame knives are knives with a broad and heavy blade typically in excess of 5 inches. Large frame knives are often single edged or have a half blade or false edge on the back side of the blade. The weight and size of the blade makes it different from all other bladed weapons. They gain momentum slower than other knives, and are highly visible. Large frame knives are too short to use typical sword fighting techniques, and are much to long to use typical Drop Point Knife techniques which commonly use stealth and surprise. Smaller movements and maintaining momentum are important in large frame knife techniques. The surprise that comes in proper large frame techniques is that the opponent can not properly gauge range or reach. When technique is properly executed the effort required to do damage to your opponent is minimal.
Syllabus
What are we going to learn?
In this course you will learn how to use a large frame knife efficiently. If you continue to practice after the completion of the seminar, you will be taught how to progress in your training. You will be taught habits, training methods, drills and progressive customizable techniques. You will learn where, how and why to make a cut or stab and how to follow up afterwords. You will learn realistic information on cut and stab wounds and a realistic likely hood of death from those wounds. You will learn a little anatomy and physiology. You will learn to respect, not fear a large knife.
Legality
Is it legal to carry and or use?
In Illinois it is a complex issue. A knife greater than 3” in blade length is considered a deadly weapon. It is a category II weapon in the same category as shotguns, rifles and air-tazers. As far as the actual wording of the law it can be carried as long as its primary use is not that of a weapon to be used against another person. Local ordinances differ from towns to cities and counties. 720ILCS/5 does hold that any weapon can not be carried in a vehicle or within reach of the driver. It also states that on private property any weapon legally owned may be carried openly or concealed. Use of a knife in self defense is relatively clear cut. Any person in fear of their life or grievous bodily injury is allowed to employ any means necessary to defend themselves or escape. Be smart though. If you cut someone multiple times call the police and report the incident exactly how it happened as soon as possible. Self defense plea only holds if you report it. Once criminal charges are brought against your attacker they loose the right to hold you responsible for their injuries.
Health Risk
Spraying blood is pretty cool, so why is it dangerous?
Blood is dangerous. It can temporarily blind you or give you diseases that will kill you later on. Be aware when blood is present and avoid it. It is sometimes more deadly than the knife being used. Make your opponent aware that they are bleeding and use it to your advantage. Most people can fight with major cuts to their body with little notice, but the second the look at it they get sick to their stomach or pass out. If you get cut, don't look at it. You are in this scenario because someone is trying to kill you, so live first then worry later. If you get an attackers blood on you or in your eyes wash it out as soon as possible the longer its on you the more time a blood born pathogen has to find an entrance into your body.
Styles of Knife Use
What is the difference between Dueling, Knife Fighting, Sentinel Techniques, Small Circle Fighting,
Combat and Self Defense?
Dueling is the mentality that a person or persons are fighting for personal reasons and are limited to the individuals involved at the beginning but no more once the fight begins. Dueling takes into consideration that there are rules whether it is set pre-fight or cultural in nature. It is important to distinguish “duel mentality” from “combat mentality”, because dueling is limited in viewpoint. A duelist is focused only on the person or persons with which they identified as the primary threat.
Knife fighting is a broad term. It identifies that all individuals in the engagement are armed with knives. It is not a knife fight if only one person has a knife and the other does not. There are many styles and forms of knife fighting, but it requires that all individuals be aware that all individuals are present and armed with knives.
Sentinel Techniques are moves designed to kill or remove a person with as little alert as possible. They are meant to kill or remove guards without raising alarms or awareness of your presence. It is a single aspect of one of the many parts to combative techniques.
Small Circle Fighting is the idea that a series of bubbles of personal space surrounds you, and that any individual during combat who enters that bubble is considered an aggressor and must be dealt with by any means necessary to neutralize the threat. The large, medium and small circles are mentalities that are part of combative techniques. Small circle is important to knife fighting because the small circle range is typically 1-15 feet, well within knife range.
Combat is when you place yourself in life threatening scenarios either as a job or by choice, where to remain alive you must fight, capture, wound or kill any unknown number of aggressors. In combat although there may be rules involved, are not considered during the engagement. Combat is about do or die. The weapons present do not change the objective.
Self-Defense is a mentality that you will stop any aggressor from doing harm to you, your property or other persons. Self-Defense is limited to the idea that when the threat stops so does your actions. When an aggressor stops attacking he is no longer aggressive, and for you to continue to attack after the threat ends you are now the aggressor. In terms of knife use, justification for prolonged engagements will be difficult. The action would have to be immediate and severe to stop the threat immediately or allow for escape. Therefore typical knife as self defense techniques are deadly or crippling with as few movements and strikes as possible.
Basics
Those are pretty cool techniques but why do they work? Terms and terminology.
Stances- Teach you how to position your body in a way to make movement easier and set yourself up to attack or easily evade. By learning stationary stances you are able to feel how your position is stable before and after movement. Common stances; centered prepared, right/left prepared, forward/back defense, right/left defense, forward attack, backward attack, right/left attack, diagonal attack.
Movement- Body movement is the most important part of knife fighting. Movements have to be smooth and exact. Common movements; corner stepping, leaf stepping, drop stepping, skip stepping, lunging and reposing.
Grips- Gripping the knife allows for you to control when and where the blade or point is facing at all times. A proper relaxed grip will enable you to move your knife more quickly and fluid. The fluidity of the arm is important for it allows rapid change of grips. The Common grips; saber/reverse grip, true/reverse grip, false/reverse grip, blade pinch, throw/reverse grip.
Lively- Is the movement of the blade. Between defending attacking or just keeping the blade moving, lively refers to the ability to keep it moving and making your knife hand less of a target.
Slashes Gouging and Thrusts- Slashes are used to distract or disable an attacker. Rarely will you be able to kill an individual with a slash. A hard slash can penetrate to the bone, but major veins and arteries are protected by the bone structure. Gouging is a hybrid of a slash and stabbing motion gouging is meant to create deep tissue damage and organ damage. Because gouging requires deep penetration it is a slow attack and often only used as a kill stroke in a combination of slashes that first disable the attacker. Thrusts and stabs are as varied as slashes, but deep penetrating thrusts will kill an attacker fast. Stabs are similar to a jab with a fist. They are quick and are meant to create a reaction. Stabs will often be used in blocking and parrying because they are quick and can extend your reach. Thrusts are used much like gouging techniques because they are slower require a bit of strength and put you in a much closer range.
Blocking
There are many ways to defend against a knife. In general it is best to intercept the attack by using your knife to attack their knife hand. Interception is the most common taught defensive action using a knife. Hilt Locking allow you to use your knife's hilt and blade to immobilize or redirect an opponent’s weapon. The parry will be used most often in a sparring environment where multiple rapid attacks can not be blocked as much as slightly redirected. Blade blocking is rarely used, because of the risk of injury, damage to the blade, or chance of loosing the weapon. Offhand blocking uses the hand without a weapon to redirect, halt or capture the attack. This allows you to follow up with the knife hand to disable the opponent.
Throwing
Throwing your only weapon seems like it might not be a smart idea. There are specific tactical advantages to throwing your knife in certain situations. At extremely close range 10-15 ft a knife thrown has little chance of missing and can impart more force than you are physically able to stab. A knife should never be thrown more than 15ft if you do not have a back up knife. A thrown knife does not have to do a lot of damage to be effective. Knife throwing is usually a distraction to avoid an immediate threat and escape from the situation.
Drills
Sparring, Multiple person drills and Kata how do they help me learn to fight?
Forms allow you to practice slowly and safely techniques that would normally kill or maim you or your practice partner. In all practices of martial arts forms are employed to teach an new technique. Most martial arts teach “formal techniques” which are recognized as forms in this document. To memorizes movements they must be done repetitively. It takes about 200 repetitions to competently repeat a behavior. It takes up to 3000 repetitions to make instinctual any conditioning. Movements repeated in a slow controlled way condition the proper movement or response.
Kata are preset forms either solo or with others that instill the ideas of combining techniques and movements. They are useful for re-enforcing the over all system or the use of techniques. All Kata can be done solo even a multiple person Kata. There are roles in a Kata “defender, attacker, victim” and each role can be done solo to help memorize the series of movements and techniques for each role.
Sparring is broken into 2 major groups, free-forms and simulated fighting. Free-forms are unset use of techniques moving at a slow pace to to allow for recognition or presence and use of all learned techniques. Free-forms is used to gain competency in a realistic situation. Simulated fighting is what is commonly recognized as sparring. Rules are set pre-fight and simulated weapons take the place of real ones to ensure safety of the participants. It is a useful practice to see how your techniques hold up under stress and speed with a competent or equally trained opponent. The major problem is the focus on simulated fighting also sets the dueling mentality and often becomes competition oriented.
Multiple Attacker Drills can be used in any other type practice above, but the focus is dealing with many aggressors at once or in rapid succession. It helps keep the trainee's perspective accurate. At any time in any way you could be attacked and recognizing the threat or threats and dealing with them accordingly are the utmost importance.
Copyright © John Turner 2009 MMI, The Large Frame Knife Fighting Manual is being published for use as reference or study material on ZPI with express consent of John Turner and MMI.
