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.