0085 – FF Knife Assault

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Knife violence is a scary proposition.  Knife attacks are fast, vicious and difficult to defend against.

Take a look at today’s Friday Film to understand some of the challenges that we face when we deal with attackers with sharp weapons.

• First of all we must know and understand that violence is chaotic.
  • What begins as a fist fight quickly escalates into a lethal force encounter.
  • Kicks to the head while on the ground
  • Knife attack
• The longer violence continues the more opportunities for you to get hurt.
  • Instantly respond
  • Respond in an overwhelming, violent, decisive manner with commitment
  • respond with the maximum amount of force allowed by law
• If we end this attack in the first 15 seconds, the knife never comes into play
• If we shift the focus of the attacker from hurting us to protecting themselves, the knife never comes into play

Let’s take a look at the knife attack itself.

• The scum reaches into his pocket at about 27 seconds to get his weapon.
• It is likely that the victim did not immediately know that a transition had been made from punching to cutting.
• We see a few different kinds of motion with the knife
  • the big right hook
  • the overhand
  • the jab
• Defending against a knife attack is very difficult
  • We often don’t know we are being attacked with a sharp weapon
  • Fast
  • Repeated
  • Split our focus
• These reasons all lead to the fact that we must

1. Know when the fight starts
2. When possible strike preemptively
3. Instantly strike with the maximum amount of force justified by law to decisively overwhelm your opponent.