Knife Duels on the Street

This is largely a response to Metatron's video "Knife Fights - BEWARE OF LIES". First let's point out that Metatron's conclusions are more or less correct, it's his premises I have a problem with. What he gets right:

1. If you are concerned someone is going to stab you, body armor is the obvious solution.
2. People with no contact sports or martial arts training should probably run the at the first indication there is a weapon being deployed.
3. The flashlight is a really handy self defense tool for people who do have contact sports or martial arts training.
4. Most of the knife disarms in traditional martial arts (TMA) are not functional and won't work for most of the people who study them.

However the problems in Metatron's presentation also exist in numerous excuses for why people aren't training in weapons for self defense. Starting with #4 above, TMA technique teach principles that if practiced in Free Sparring can turn into real disarm skills. I pulled off a disarm against someone bigger and better than me in 2019 in the first few seconds of this video:

Metatron repeats this assertion that you can't see a knife coming before you are attacked by it. There are a few problems with this. First, to quote myself: 

"...carrying knives with civilians on the street is common because knives have very real utility outside of self defense. Knife duels are so common with civilians that one security-related team I was on broke up or investigated multiple knife duels over the course of a few years... in that public outdoor setting a one on one knife duel was more likely than one unarmed individual getting attacked by a knife.... it is often possible to deploy a knife as you see trouble coming, and that trouble's plan of attack very well may be trying to stab you... when emergent circumstances arise the average person is going to access a box cutter, kitchen knife or folder a hundred times faster than a firearm."

There are numerous cases of knife duels happening on the street, and knives being deployed in self defense and even home defense. For example: 

The second problem I have with this "you can't see the knife coming" assertion is that anytime you can't see what is in someone's hand, you know they potentially have a weapon, and the main thing to watch out for is hands in pockets. I have been taught this on the job several different times so I believe is is no secret to anyone. This is evident in the "Man pulls out knife and gets knocked form bouncer" video where a bouncer sees a knife even though his attacker is at close range, and KO's the attacker with a quick boxing combo once the attack escalates. Note that the bouncer could have easily deployed his own weapon if he had wanted to.

Metatron describes the approach that someone trying to shank you in prison takes, when you are being attacked with knife on the street. First no, they are much more likely to pull out the knife and try to intimidate you with it than they are going to be rushing in to stab you. But as Metatron asserts if they do it right they will put forward pressure with their lead arm while trying to reapeatedly stab you with the knife in their power hand. The problem he is Metatron's assertion that WE will just stand there and get stabbed as this happens. Someone with American Football, Rugby or Hockey training will likely shoulder check the attacker as he comes in, probably putting the attacker on the ground. A fencer, kumite point fighter, or other LARPer is likely to hop around sideways just out of the attacker's reach. A boxer or kickboxer will instinctively side step against that forward pressure and counter (see that bouncer video for how effective those counters are vs. knife.) Grapplers will naturally engage the forward pressure with a take down before they realize they are being shanked.

Metatron says that "it's hard to corner someone who has decided to run," and that he advises everyone to run from a knife fight. The problem is that if you do have decent self defense skills to handle someone with a knife, running becomes a more dangerous option because YOU ARE GIVING THE KNIFE ATTACKER YOUR BACK. Running from someone with a knife is much harder than Metatron thinks:

If you have decent self defense training you should be able to see the knife coming and handle that person with the knife. Most people aren't trained in athletics or martial arts, which is exactly why miscreants like knives in the first place. If you know you have decent self defense training unlike most people, you know you can probably out fight the knife wielding miscreant. But you do NOT know that you can outrun them:

And Metatron sights the fact that he lives in one of these Western European countries were people are basically not allowed to carry weapons. Too much self defense advice is coming from sheltered people who haven't actually ever been in a dangerous situation before, while the rest of the world outside of Australia and Western Europe are training to deal with real, life threatening violence. Just repeating the assertions of knife fighting naysayers doesn't make those assertions true, it just make those misconceptions more common.

Civilian vs Professional

It is absolutely 100% true that professionals (security, law enforcement and military,) often have a lot of experience putting their hands on people and thus have a very good sense of what techniques will actually work in a fight and which ones will not. However bad self defense advice begins when professionals forget the advantages they have over civilians.

Professional advantages:

1. Professionals have a legal responsibility to protect people or property, and do not have to justify their involvement because it is their job to be involved.
2. Professionals have an obligation to neutralize the problem causing individuals, usually by apprehending them.
3. Professionals have a set of tools and resources provided to them by their job descriptions and employers. This includes hand cuffs, tasers, pepper spray, guns, uniforms, established duties, training and legal protection.
4. Professionals have an established support team to help them.

Civilian disadvantages:

1. A civilian's primary objective is usually rapid escape, and they are more likely to be viewed as a trouble maker engaging in brawls than a hero doing their job the longer the fight continues.
2. The civilian's goal is survival and reduction of inconvenience, not capturing bad guys.
3. When a civilian employs any self defense tool he has no employer, uniform, established protocol or legal team to back him up in court. 
4. Civilians are usually on their own. When a civilian pins an attacker, it's just as likely more attackers will arrive as it is help will arrive first.

One example of fairly misguided advice I hear is "no one is getting in a one on one knife fight outside of Westside Story." This makes sense to professionals who either aren't allowed to carry a knife on the job themselves, OR who themselves carry a firearm on the job. From the professional perspective knife fights are most likely to happen in prison, with one person having a shank and the other person being assassinated, because the shank is the most likely weapon to be employed in that environment, and shanks are rare enough there that it is unlikely the defender will have one on hand. From the professional perspective there will only be one knife in the fight, never two, and it will be against someone with no weapon at all or someone with a gun. 

Yet carrying knives with civilians on the street is common because knives have very real utility outside of self defense. Knife duels are so common with civilians that one security-related team I was on broke up or investigated multiple knife duels over the course of a few years... in that public outdoor setting a one on one knife duel was more likely than one unarmed individual getting attacked by a knife. The street is not prison, it is often possible to deploy a knife as you see trouble coming, and that trouble's plan of attack very well may be trying to stab you. It is all fine and good to own guns, but when emergent circumstances arise the average person is going to access a box cutter, kitchen knife or folder a hundred times faster than a firearm.

The most important example however in this age of MMA, is the advice professionals are giving out about what martial arts to study. Grappling arts where the focus is on taking down and controlling the opponents are ideal for most professionals. The professional is being paid to be there all night anyways, and the assumption is going to be that the professional was doing the right thing. The professional has help coming so that the longer the physical confrontation lasts, the more likely it is to end in their favor. 

Grappling arts do not have this same appeal to civilians. The longer a civilian is entangled with an attacker on the ground, the more likely his whole night is going to be ruined by police reports, and the more likely he is to have to take time off of work to have to testify in court in the future. The longer the physical confrontation continues for the civilian, the more likely the attacker's friends are to show up and make the situation much worse for the civilian.

It is no wonder then why striking arts and weapon arts are more popular with civilians. The footwork practiced in almost every striking or weapon art is potentially evasive and can help the civilian escape faster. The clinch work practiced in most striking or weapon arts focus on the civilian trying to stay on their feet and mobile. The civilian wants to KO, slow, and/or outrun the attacker rather than apprehend or submit the attacker. 

There is a certain subset of grappling that is extremely valuable to civilians, but as far as I can tell is not widely available to civilians. In MMA this type of grappling is the sprawls and getting up to your feet as practiced by Sprawl & Brawl fighters. Most grappling arts practice techniques that can potentially be used for this strategy, but they never practice this strategy, and without practice that strategy will not materialize in a real self defense situation.