For the past several weeks I was out teaching a series of seminars in the Pacific Northwest. My fellow instructors were Datu Kelly Worden and Professor Dan Anderson. Datu Kelly is a senior blade master in Modern Arnis, one of the 6 original Datu’s and he is an instructor over at Fort Lewis. Professor Dan is a former top ten fighter who maintained that ranking for over a decade, is the current Seniors World Champion and the most senior Modern Arnis practitioner in the US. We were booked to teach a seminar about “sticks and steel” the comparative use of impact and bladed weapons. None of us had talked to each other before the seminar but to confirm our being in Oregon and ready to teach. Why is any of this important? It’s important because independently of each other with no communication between us, we decided on what we were going to teach in each of our 2 hour segments on each day. We NEVER teach the same thing. Then Datu Kelly starts off with body alignment, posture and moving around and way from the attack. Professor Dan starts off with body mechanics and positional relationship from the opponent and body shifting away from the line of attack. Then I get out there and teach stepping out of the line of attack, body shifting to vacate the attack line and controlling the range from the opponent. All three of us before we taught the use of the stick or the knife or the empty hand decided we needed to teach and highlight the importance of body movement, body shifting and vacating the space of the attack.

While in the PNW I taught for over 11 full days and at several of those seminars the attendees including senior black belts, PSD, Security teams, law enforcement officers, US Military all requested that I teach body movement, footwork, stepping and body shifting and understanding range from the opponent instead of my usual slice and dice. Yes of course we did some slice and dice and real cutting but the interesting thing was the request of what is commonly known as “footwork”. Seems all my years of talking of get off line, step and body shift, step, body shift and you’ll be off line had finally sunk in. It’s the old Karate kid thing when Daniel asks Mr. Miyagi “how do you block a punch?” and Mr. Miyagi responds “Don’t be there”.  Don’t be there is about footwork including stepping, body shifting and getting off line of the attack. You can’t be hurt if you’re not there.

With officers getting cut, stabbed, and poked people keep asking me how we prevent this from happening. No one can prevent the bad guy from using some kind of poking, stabbing or cutting tool. What can be done is to understand body alignment, range and body shifting. Awareness and use of these attributes won’t necessarily stop an officer from getting cut, poked or stabbed but they will make a difference in the officer just being injured rather than getting killed.

Body shifting is what it seems, shifting your body from one place to another. This can ONLY be done by pivoting on the balls of your feet. Most people tend to pivot on their heels and there is no way to shift from one spot to another by pivoting on your heels. I know it might feel like you do but you don’t. Easiest way for you to see this is to stand with your feet shoulders width apart, feet facing straight out in a natural stance. Put a pencil on the floor between your legs, parallel to your feet evenly splitting the distance between your body / feet. Pick the balls of your feet up and pivot on your heels to the right and to the left.  Look down at the pencil between your feet. The pencil will still be exactly down the middle line of your body and evenly between your feet. Go back to your starting position. Pick up your heels and pivot on the balls of your feet. You will feel your core move side to side with your movement. Ok. Shift right and now look down at the pencil. Your body will be completely on the right side of the pencil and the pencil might actually make a line through your left foot. Pick up on the balls of your feet and pivot left and the mirror image happens. Your whole body and its core will be on the left side of the pencil and the pencil might actually make a line through your right foot. Pivoting on the balls of your feet actually moves you through space to a new spot where as pivoting on your heels leave you in the same spot just pivoted looking left or right with your core still on the line of attack. Remember pivoting on your heels is pivoting on a point in space and pivoting on the balls of your feet is pivoting AROUND a point in space.

Why is this important? Because under duress you react as you’ve trained or practiced. If you’ve practiced pivoting on the balls of your feet, then when you step out of the way, step back or forward, try to get out of the way of a strike, cut, poke or stab you’ll be moving your core off of the line of attack. If your core is off line away from the direct attack so are your vital organs, arteries and nerves housed inside that core.  This is why I said you might get injured because of the attacker’s intent and commitment to the attack but if your core isn’t there you avoid getting killed. Stepping off line is important because if you don’t get off line everything else is a moot point: dead is dead.

One of the side benefits of stepping offline with body shifting is the control of range and distance from your attacker. If you step off line and away from the attack one of the unexpected benefits of the movement of body shifting is that it actually brings one hip closer to the attacker allowing for a better counter attack. Within the secondary motion of pivoting is the action of hip rotation bringing your hip side hand into the fray allowing for an immediate and devastating counter attack following in on a tangent to the attacker’s line. “BAM!” Yes, it’s really that simple. I’ve told you before combat MUST be simple.

Let’s prove that it works and that body shifting puts you in the right spot to counter attack. Go back to your original pivoting drill only stand facing a wall with your hands outstretched you can just not touch the wall, or where your finger tips are a couple of inches away from the wall. One the balls of your feet pivot right and set down. Now reach out with your right and a touch the wall. You’ll probably have to make a fist to not crunch your fingers into the wall. By pivoting you have changed the range of your counter attack from nonexistent to impact with focus and you’ve controlled the distance between you and the attacker because they will be off line from you on their original line of attack and unable to reach or counter you. You on the other hand WILL be in range to counter attack and hit them with your hand, impact tool, edged tool or projectile tool.

There’s nothing fancy or complicated in this drill. You don’t have to be a training fanatic, an athlete or a martial artist. This is a simple drill you can do when you’re standing around, after shower, in front of your locker, before bed, waiting in line, getting out of your car; just body shift on the balls of your feet. Don’t worry about what it looks like to others as a matter of fact I hope your fellow officers ask you what you’re doing and you show them and they start to do it. Do it often enough and it will become part of you and how you step. If you let it become part of how you step then under duress when you are attacked or under pressure you’ll step and body shift or just body shift and without trying you will be off line from the attack, ready to counter attack the bad guy. If you’ll do this you are helping all of us on our way to stopping officers getting stabbed, poked and cut by the bad guys. As Mr Miyagi said “ Don’t be there!”

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department and for the State of Florida. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

There’s definitely some kind of knee jerk reaction as to what makes a knife dangerous. As a matter of fact there seems to be a mistaken attitude by some people especially those in power or position to influence society and its laws that some knife designs are deadlier than other designs, more dangerous than other designs or designed only for the purpose of creating mayhem. These self righteous people have even got the public, law enforcement and others believing this drivel. Let me state right up front that nothing could be further from the truth than the statement that some knives by design are deadlier than others.

Knives are mankind’s best friend yet they are treated with disrespect, fear and loathing all over the world. Without knives there is no civilization, no society, nothing we know of as normal life would exist without knives. Yet knives are constantly painted as the evil child, the harbinger of evil and the tool of the miscreant.

Knives have no lives of their own. They are inanimate objects that have a very specific design and intent which is for over 2.5 million years knives have done their jobs as matter separators and specifically as tools designed to cut flesh. They have no personality or intent other than making mankind’s life easier as tools that do the job they were designed to do simply and efficiently. Nowhere in their design is there a slot or place for the evil component or the dangerous component. They are simply knives. Yes people can misuse them, abuse them and do horrific things with them but its people driven NOT knife driven.

I ‘m in Israel right now and while I was a sniper training and qualification session deep in the Jordan rift/ Jordan Valley several officers and I had a discussion about the legality of knives, their carry and use. I found it interesting that in response to kids in gangs and terrorists the Israelis had the same knee jerk reaction as the Germans. My grandmother must be turning in her grave with that thought!  Seems that the Israelis because of certain peoples bad actions have decided to outlaw certain types of knives. They now say all folding knives can’t have locks and can’t have points. Now the laws are very ambiguous like in France and UK, giving officers judge, jury and executioner powers on each occasion but over all knee jerk draconian responses. Knives are not allowed if they have points, folders with locks, dirks, daggers, automatics, designed to be used for self defense and a blade length over 10CM in length. These knives are very bad as compared to simple slip joint pocket knives from the old days. Of course if you have a legal reason to carry a knife that fits the outlawed category it’s OK to carry it, unless your reason is self defense, security, or anything like that, but claiming you carry it for use in a picnic is A OK. In UK they tried to ban knives especially those with “pointy ends” and it took the Chef’s association to question the stupidity of the laws saying knives without points make use in the kitchen very hard if not impossible. In Germany they banned folding knives with locks but fixed blades are allowed and the same absurdity as in UK goes on in Australia. A few of the officers who obviously know nothing about knives and were from these countries tried to tell me why these laws and actions were OK and I had to laugh at their complacency and acceptance of these illogical, myth ridden, knee jerk reactions to knives. The knife users and tactical guys from these countries are against the laws and wish they laws didn’t exist! I’m glad they are on my side of this argument.

With that said let me talk of a truly dangerous type of knife. A dangerous knife is the kind of knife the bureaucrats and law makers want all of us to have access to. The bureaucrats and politicians want you and me to have what they perceive as a safe knife such as a slip joint knife. Slip joint knives have no locks nor can they take any force against their blades. A folding knife without a locking device is extremely dangerous to hold and use. Anyone like me who grew up with the old slip joint knives, be they Swiss army knives, boy scout knives or gentleman’s pocket folders knows of what I speak. Slip joint knives don’t have a locking mechanism but a holding bar under spring tension which keeps the blade from closing onto your fingers. It’s not designed to do anything but keep the inadvertent closing of the knife while it’s held in an open position. Any pressure on the back of the blade, on a slight angle to the blade will cause the slip joint to fail and for the blade to close onto your fingers. I hate this slip joint design and I like many others bear numerous scars on my hands and fingers where under use the slip joint has failed and the blade has cut my fingers and or my hands. To use a slip joint knife takes great care and slow dedicated cutting with exact blade alignment using ONLY  the edge because anything else is a recipe for disasters. A slip joint knife cannot be used for work especially hard work, rescue or the like because its very design can cause the user great harm while trying to do anything but simplistic cutting motions. I guess a slip joint knife is good for the emergency medical profession, surgeons and first aid companies by causing injuries that need to be fixed. Trust the bureaucrats and politicians to want a knife that does more harm than good and then legislate it as the answer to dangerous knives and behavior with knives.

The absurd idea that a locking mechanism makes a knife more dangerous than a folding knife without a lock is an oxymoron.  I heard several arguments from these people that a folding knife becomes just like a fixed blade therefore its dangerous because now it can be used for stabbing. No one buys a folder with a lock in it to expressly use it for stabbing except in some politician’s horror story to get attention to his or her media claims about evil knives and their use. Of course these same people say carrying a fixed blade is acceptable. But that begs the question of if a folding knife with a lock makes it like a fixed blade and a fixed blade knife  is Ok shouldn’t by logic the folder with a lock now be Ok because it’s now just like a fixed blade? Never try to discuss a logical perspective with person or persons who have an emotional perspective. Obviously the folding knife with a locking device is like a fixed blade in every safe way. The blade of a locking folder is rigidly held in an open user position so its blade is just like a fixed blade and it can’t accidentally close the blade onto your fingers. That’s a very good thing. This makes a folding knife with a locking device the perfect tool for hard use, work rescue situations and simple chores because it can be used without the fear of losing your fingers or severe injury. Personally I like my fingers attached to my hand so I’m all for folders with locking mechanisms. If an agency like OSHA was involved ONLY folding knives with locks would be allowed, all slip joints would be banned due to their proclivity to close on your fingers during use and causing injury or permanent damage to the user. Folding knives with locks are not more dangerous than knives without locks, they are not designed for evil use, and they are actually designed to protect the user from harm and to give the user the ability to do work, rescue operations and daily chores without fear of harm to themselves or others.

As I sit here in Israel I see that just like back home in the USA there’s been a rash of knife attacks and here in Jerusalem there were 6 knife related attacks in the last couple of weeks. Not one of these attacks involved a folding knife with a locking mechanism but the Jerusalem administrators have taken away any discretion from the police and anyone with any kind of folding knife with a locking mechanism will be arrested. Good guy doesn’t matter, bad guy doesn’t matter, intent doesn’t matter, just having it makes you and me a bad guy subject to arrest because it has a lock and it’s a folding knife. It sounds like Attorney Cyrus Vance’s knife logic in NYC all over again. By the way in the USA we at least have Knife rights.org, the NRA of the knife world protecting our rights against bad laws and attitudes of people in power like Attorney Cyrus Vance’s so we are able to maintain our ability to own, carry and use knives responsibly. It’s pretty easy and typical to blame the sins of society on an object and claim because of that object’s existence it forces you to do commit crimes or harm people.

So let me repeat myself a bit and state the bureaucrats and politicians have it all backwards. Knives with slip joints are the dangerous models which allow for injury or maiming and folding knives with locking mechanisms are the best knives for any knife user to safely own.

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department and for the State of Florida. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States

Information is circulating in law enforcement circles about a knife that allegedly has a metallic compound for a blade which might be undetectable by current security scanning machines. The whole knife folded is about the size of a credit card. The blade is housed and surrounded by a credit card sized piece of plastic. The blade folds off of the plastic while the plastic folds over itself into a multi-layered handle locking the blade into shape.

The agent that sent the information was worried about this new knife and its possible threat to security because of its ease of carry and hiding it. My first thought was, “cool, another plastic folding knife, but poor blade design.” In the pictures I saw it looked like a dagger design. I guess everything is a matter of perspective! I didn’t like the blade design; the agent is worried about hidden carry.

My interest was piqued and I went on a web search. I was wondering about this composite blade that the knife was made from. If the stories are accurate, what materials were used in production?  I found the knife.

In my investigation, what I was told is what happens in the telephone game. One person says something and tells another. As the saying goes around from one person to the next the story itself changes. What starts out as a red cart with a white horse becomes a purple dragon pulling a gilded chariot. There’s no intent to mislead or tell an untruth. We say what we thought we heard or read and fill in our own details. Let’s get this particular knife discussed and move on.  Here’s the tech quote from the web site.

RAZOR SHARP – Surgical blade technology with extra long 65mm cutting edge ensures longer lasting sharpness (Stanley® utility knife blade edge is only 25mm long). Blade made from high quality rust free stainless steel. Independent testing laboratory; CATRA awarded Cardsharp penknife; VERY GOOD status for sharpness (ICP mm) and life (TCC mm). Blade color choice: Teflon Black or Natural Brushed Stainless Steel.

The black blade I saw in the information pictures and clip (the same one the agent assumed was composite) turns out to be a black Teflon coating on a regular single edge stainless steel blade. Stainless steel is stainless steel and good grade or bad it’s still steel. That means it can’t hide from detectors.

LEGAL – Blade is less than 3” (76 mm) and is visible when closed so easily identifiable as a knife (optional clear body versions show blade from both sides – P.O.A). Note: legal restrictions vary internationally.

Another oops; the knife is not quite what was stated or perceived. It’s not a “hidden knife” per se.  The knife is designed to be safely carried in one’s wallet or gear bag. It is clearly designed and able to be seen as a knife even when closed.  The company makes a see through plastic model as well.  If this knife is being carried by a suspect, they’d have to take it out of their wallet to use it.  This is not a simple task.  If the suspect is in custody or being handed over to corrections personnel, their wallet and contents go into a collection bag until reclaimed. The knife is not going to sneak into a plane or courtroom because of its steel blade which will set off the detectors.

The agent that sent this in has the right idea for sure.  However, he is a bit behind the reality of hidden knives and composite blades. They have existed for many years previous to this wallet knife. Keep in mind that just because something exists or is available doesn’t mean bad guys know of it or are willing to buy it. Actually, some are so simple that it’s actually easier to make them rather than to buy them. If you want to find out about hidden or undetectable knives that can cut, stab or poke ask the head of your local corrections department’s security teams.  Corrections staff encounter hidden knives constantly.

The manufacturer’s of “credit card” knives were never contemplating bad guys or terrorists misusing or abusing their tools. They were designed to give the average citizen, EMT, or officer a small, easy-to-carry pocket knife.

Spyderco makes a credit card knife with a modified Wharncliff blade.  Boker makes a card with a modified utility blade. SOG makes a Wharncliff blade. Tool Logic makes a credit card tool kit with a mini knife that pulls out for use. Channing Watson’s Credit Card Knife features a steel chisel-ground blade.  Crawford Knives makes a reverse-grind credit card knife out of titanium.  Microtech Custom Shop makes the Assailant II, a multicolor tactical Credit Card Knife with two sharp cutting edges.  Nemesis Knives NK-3 Titanium credit card knife has a thin, straight cutting edge on two sides of the card. Warren Thomas makes a titanium credit card knife with a rounded corner blade. Wenger makes a Swiss Army makes one with a concealed pull out knife.

There are a lot more credit card knives out there.  I just gave you an idea of their scope.  With all of these knives available, almost none have been used to commit crimes of any kind. Why? They just don’t fit the profile of what a hidden knife is to the regular bad guys. The exception to this is in corrections institutions. The concept of these credit card knives appear daily in any corrections institution in the USA.

Composite knives or non metallic knives are another story. I’m not talking of ceramic blades. I’m talking of plastic or industrial resin being used to make the knives and the blades. Many companies make them.  Several companies list these non metallic knives made out of plastic or fiber glass resins as “letter openers” or office knives.

G 10 and Zytel are the industry standard material.  They’re both glass fiber bonded into resin and it’s incredibly strong. G10 is the usual material on tactical knife handles due to its toughness and wear ability. G10 can be ground like steel and it will hold an edge and work almost like metal for a short time. Jerzeedevil, Knife Dogs, KISS, Blackie Collins, Roadside Imports, Saphire Blades, Fight products, and Szabo knives all make different versions of G10 or resin knives with all types of blade shapes.

Laci Szabo, the owner and designer of Szabo knives is a good friend. I’ve used and cut with Szabo G1o knives since 1997. They are incredibly sharp and strong. However, they won’t hold an edge for very long and are most effective against flesh not clothing. Just like the credit card knives, they are seldom used for crimes or terrorist attacks. These knives are undetectable, easy to conceal, and carry. They existed for many years before 9-11.  They just aren’t popular with the regular mainstream knife world or the dark side of that world.  The reason probably is that the material is hard to work with.  The material is hazardous to breath in when grinding the blades or making the knives.  It is very expensive to purchase.  The kissing cousin to these knives appears in our corrections institutions where inmates will convert anything into a tool for poking, stabbing or cutting.

With the rise of China and its manufacturing capabilities and cheap pricing, some of these plastic knives are getting easier to purchase.  The main point is they’ve existed for a long time.  They don’t appear in many crimes or terrorist attacks.  Most likely, they won’t become the great threat they are assumed they’d be.  If the threat was real, they would have already been in use. Becoming aware of them now when they existed for years is fine, as long as one doesn’t try to translate that into panic or knee jerk legislation.

How can you deal with the undetectable knife or a hidden knife?  The same way you deal with a steel bladed knife be it openly carried or hidden.  Search the suspect properly and thoroughly. How do you deal with the undetectable or hidden knife in an attack?  You deal with the attack like any other knife attack with stepping off line, body shifting, and awareness that the bad guy is trying to harm you.

What a knife is made of is no consequence once it’s drawn to be used.  It might only be plastic but you still have to be aware, knives cut flesh.

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Arnis, Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department and the State of Florida. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. He trains LE, military and others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

Another law enforcement officer was severely injured from a close quarter combat (CQC) attack.  This time,  the attack came from an emotionally distressed former corrections officer who was resisting arrest. The appalling number of LEOs down or severely injured because of close quarter attacks causes me to question why LEO’s are getting killed by simple attacks and why they aren’t trained to deal with these attacks.

The former corrections officer, Christopher Sargeant, had been on sick leave from Riker’s Island Jail in New York City before being dismissed from his job.  Sargeant had been employed at Riker’s since 2006. He had been a member of the Marine Corps from 1999-2003.  Unlike the officers trying to arrest him, he had been trained as a close quarter combat instructor.

Sargeant had never been deployed into combat, but he was trained to deal with CQC.   He had a folding knife in his hand.  As the officers tried to control him, he knocked all of them to the ground.  In the ensuing struggle, one officer, a 13 year veteran was stabbed in the arm and received a 4 inch cut on his stomach. This injury was serious enough to require surgery while the other officers involved were treated for minor injuries.

The arresting officers were extremely lucky that Sargeant didn’t accelerate into full combat mode.  The incident could have quickly deteriorated into a fiasco with several or all of the officers down. It’s obvious the Sargeant was in control of the situation because he knocked all of the arresting officers to the ground.

It’s also obvious he wasn’t trying to kill them or do them serious harm, because if that was the intent they’d be all cut to ribbons and probably dead.  It’s also obvious the officers weren’t trained to respond to this type of attack up close and personal.

Officers are being injured or killed because they don’t understand the need for close quarter work and are caught off guard when it happens. Their reaction time is gone, shock prevails, responses become nil and simple direct attacks overwhelm the officers.  In other words, they have no idea how to respond to the situation.   Police departments don’t understand that the expense of and time in training close quarter is well worth the investment to save officers lives and limit liability.

Officers need better close quarter training. Close quarter combat training saves lives and limits liability because the officers know exactly what to do and what not to do to shut someone down. It was with that dual perspective approach that Hialeah Florida Police Chief Mark Overton had me bring in combat reality into the officers training I recently did.   I am a blade expert, but good blade skills teach great empty hand skills.   I call the crossover Blade to Boxing.

The vast majority of people, between 88%-92%, are right-handed. Because of this, there are only 4 perspectives of combat between human beings. Not thousands, not hundreds, but only 4 simple perspectives. There is only:

1) right hand to right hand

2) left hand to right hand

3) left hand to left hand

4) right hand to left hand.

Because most of the world is right handed you encounter right to right situations most of the time. The second most important situation is left-handed good guy to right-handed bad guy because this will still happen 88%-92 %.

A primary right-handed attack mostly comes to your left side. The secondary right=handed attack comes from across the bad guy’s body to your right side. This is biomechanical function not rocket science. The bad guy telegraphs exactly where he’s going to attack you because of his limited bio mechanical structure.   People only have 2 arms making this pretty easy to figure out.

To respond to these basic attacks I teach a simple dill that actually gets applied to any incoming attack because its concept driven not technique driven.   I refer to it as Progressive Intercepting Hand.  I use the conceptual structure of forehand, backhand, backhand or the reverse structure of backhand, forehand, forehand.

Picture a right-handed attack and its coming to the left side of your head or body. You step back with your left foot and intercept the incoming attack with your right hand using the inside of your arm or hand called a forehand.  This intercept motion is to stop and destroy the incoming limb. You clear your right hand and with your left hand using the back of your forearm or hand in what is called a back handed motion you check /trap what was the incoming attack. Then with your right hand you counter attack with another back handed motion. Three simple beats of right forehand, left back hand, and left back hand are the basic motions of close quarter combat.

The bad guy attacks you with his right hand and you respond inside his arm. With your right forehand intercept you destroy the inside radials and flexors of the arm impairing the radial and median nerves rendering the arm useless. Then with your left back hand you smash the same points on the arm while checking the motion and then the check becomes trapping the arm jerking it out of its rotational socket. With your right back hand under the arm you rake the arm upwards wrenching or dislocating the elbow and finishing the motion by breaking the floating ribs.

The bad guy uses his left arm.. What do you do now? You do the same thing to the bad guy’s left hand attack only now you’re on the outside of the arm. You intercept with your right forehand intercept you destroy the outside radials and extensors of the arm impairing the radial and median nerves rendering the arm useless. Then with the left back hand you smash the same points while checking the motion and then the check becomes trapping the arm jerking it out of its rotational socket. With your right back hand under the arm you rake the arm upwards wrenching or dislocating the elbow and finishing the motion by breaking the floating ribs.

The bad guy uses a combination of punches and attacks with a right punch then a left punch. You intercept the right punch and you respond inside his arm. With your right forehand you intercept it and you destroy the inside radials and flexors of the arm impairing the radial and median nerves rendering the arm useless. The bad guy immediately attacks with his left and using your left back hand you smash the same points destroying the outside radials and extensors of the arm impairing the radial and median nerves rendering the arm useless. Your intercept becomes a checking the motion and then the check becomes trapping the arm jerking it out of its rotational socket. With your right back hand under the arm you rake the arm upwards wrenching or dislocating the elbow and finishing the motion by breaking the floating ribs.

So much for that infamous right –left combination attack!  Now you can see it’s no different than a single right hand or left hand attack.  Actually there’s an infinite amount of translations and innovations off of this simple three beat response. It’s this simplicity that my PIHM series brings to the reality of an attack. And of course the response is definitely a measured response to a direct physical attack at you.

As you see since anyone can do this against any attack you don’t panic when it happens up close and personal.  Those simple direct attacks are easily overcome by you using a basic single three beat response. If the officers knew this basic response then the situation such as the assault by former corrections officer Christopher Sargeant wouldn’t have played out as it did.

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department and for the State of Florida. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

Over the last six weeks, three law enforcement officers have been killed by stabbing.  How we look at these three incidents depends on our perspective.  Perspective is everything. How we see an event, look at an object or apply judgment to something is based on perspective. Point of view matters in life.  It changes perception of what we think we see.

Michelangelo’s statue of David is beautiful to behold if viewed from the correct perspective. The proportions of this statue are atypical of Michelangelo’s other work.  The figure has an unusually large head and hands, particularly apparent in the right hand.  The arms are longer than usual. The statue was originally intended to be placed on a cathedral roof line, where the important parts of the sculpture would necessarily be accentuated to be visible from below.  From that perspective, they would seem to be in correct proportion.

The statue weighed six tons when complete and was deemed too heavy for placement on the cathedral roof.  Several alternative sites were found for the statue. David was placed on a pedestal within a courtyard.  People could view it from a walkway placed around and above the statue.

From this point of view, as you looked down at the statue, David the beautiful became David the troll. David’s large head looked oversized.  His long arms and large hands seem to reach to the floor, giving the appearance of a misshapen being. How could Michelangelo have carved such a hideous statue of David?

Florence Italy’s City Council moved the statue to a new location where it sat on the ground placed at eye level with people able to look directly at it. David was no longer a troll but an out of proportion sculpture that looked poorly conceived and improperly cut from the stone. City officials were upset with Michelangelo because in two different venues the great artist’s statue was clearly not beautiful nor worth the price of the commission.

With guidance from DaVinci, Botticelli, and Michelangelo the statue was moved again to a new location and placed back on a pedestal where viewers had to look up at the statue as Michelangelo had originally envisioned.  Obviously a pedestal is not as high as a cathedral roof, but with the new vantage point, he once again became David the beautiful young man who, with God’s help, killed Goliath. Perspective is everything.

As LET’s knife expert, I advise that there is no reason for any law enforcement officer, security officer or law abiding citizen to be without a knife. A knife is your best friend and a multi-use tool.  You are within your Second Amendment rights when you carry this tool with you wherever you go except where it is expressly forbidden, like on a plane or in a court room.

On March 9, a 34 year old man was acting suspiciously at the Montesano, Washington courthouse. Officer Polly Davin was dispatched to check out the suspect. When close to Davin, the suspect stabbed her with either a knife or a scissors. Superior Court Judge David Edwards went to Davin’s aid and was stabbed in the neck by the suspect. The suspect knocked Davin down, wrestled her firearm away from her, and then shot the officer with her own gun. He immediately fled the scene.

On February 7 in Mobile, Alabama, Officer Steven Greene was stabbed and killed by a suspect he was transporting. Green was taking the suspect from Mobile Police Headquarters to the Metro Jail. The suspect had hidden a cuff key and a small knife somewhere on his person. Neither had been found in a preliminary search.

While being transported, the suspect removed the cuffs and then let Green remove him from the car while pretending to still be cuffed. While waiting at the door to the jail, the suspect was side by side with Green.  He used his hidden knife to stab Officer Green in the neck and the back. He took Green’s keys, fleeing with the officer’s vehicle and the firearms in the car.  He was subsequently killed in a police shootout.

Details are just emerging about the March 19 death of a Lake City Florida corrections officer who was stabbed to death at age 24.

From one perspective you could form a knee-jerk reaction:  “Look at how dangerous knives and scissors can be in the hands of a criminal, so let’s enact more restrictive laws about the carry and the use of sharp objects.” New York City, Boston, and Germany have such laws.  This would not help, because bad guys don’t care about laws and repercussion of breaking them.  Only law-abiding citizens care. Law-abiding citizens and LEO’s are disrupted by restrictive laws.

From another perspective, you could unfairly chastise the police for failing to find the cuff key or the knife carefully hidden by the suspect.  In many towns, police stations aren’t equipped to do those kinds of intensive searches. Officers’ resources are limited and the bad guys are planning ahead on how to defeat the police.  Unlike the officers, they have no rules or procedure to follow except to break the law, cause mayhem, and destruction.

From a similar but different perspective, you could complain and chastise the towns for not making the courtrooms safe.  After all, the bad guys are really out to get people and the only thing that matters is protecting those that protect society. The cost of doing so is minimal compared to the cost of officers and judges being injured or killed. The reality is that sometimes budgets and the physical issues of existing buildings and venues cannot be upgraded or improved.

There is one perspective that matters in preventing these type of events.  It is not about the right to carry knives.  The perspective that counts involves preparing the officers for close quarter engagements.  Distance is not your friend.  Real action occurs where you can smell the bad guys’ breath and body odor.

The perspective that should be focused on is real time officer training in how to function in close quarter street combat.  The correct perspective is about using the right tools for the right job.  Teaching officers how to use hand-to-hand, close quarter knife and extreme close quarter combat training is as important
as knowing how to use a taser, OC spray or how to fire a gun.

Close quarter training is time and some money well spent, enhancing the officer’s ability to survive an attack rather than be zipped up in a body bag with a toe tag. The proper perspective of all these events which happen on the street daily is that they are a showcase for needed training, whether or not it is politically correct, liked by the legal departments or the public information officers.

In my opinion, there is only one perspective that needs approval from law enforcement agencies to ensure officer safety and control of the bad guys. That perspective is that close quarter training with hands and knives is paramount.  Good training in close quarter with hands and knives is essential.  This is the right, correct and only perspective to have on these and similar events.  Perspective is everything.

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department and for the State of Florida. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

This week, Newburgh Police officers in Orange County, New York shot and killed a suspect who they say came at them with a knife. Officers tried to stop Michael Lembhard, age 22, for an outstanding warrant.  He ran from officers into an apartment building.  Police followed him inside.  Officers say that he changed at them with a knife.  Officers opened fire and killed him.   They were not hurt and are currently on paid leave while the incident is investigated.

Lembhard’s family said police broke down the door without a warrant, that Lembhard only had a small pocketknife, and that at least nine shots were fired. Lembhard was a father of two.  The family claims officers pointed a gun at the head of one of the children.

Perhaps if Lembhard had complied with police orders, rather than running into his home, none of the children he knew to be inside would have been jeopardized. Police are not commenting on that part of the story as the investigation is ongoing.   As in all stories of this type where family members complain about police actions, all the drama could have been avoided by the subject complying with the lawful orders of police.  Charging at a police officer with a knife will never end well for you.

Nothing in the report gives me any information to re-think what happened. The other details given have no bearing on what happened or on the suspect’s decision to attack police with a knife.  The fact that he did so is not disputed with either police or the family members involved.  Everyone agrees that a knife was in play.

Whether or not the police “broke down the door” is irrelevant in why the suspect pulled a knife to attack the police. The alleged incident of police pointing a gun at family members during the initial situation also has no bearing on the suspect drawing a knife to attack police. The suspect fleeing and getting cornered has nothing to do with the response of the suspect drawing a knife and attacking the police rather than surrendering peacefully.

The family has complained that it “was ONLY a pocket knife” and would have the public believe that excessive force was used.  Police confronted Michael Lembhard under duress as he launched a lethal attack showing no remorse and crazed courage as he attacked superior numbers with a knife.  The police fired nine shots.

Nine shot were reasonable. That’s basically two shots per officer.  This is not an excessive number of shots while under duress.   About 60% of all shots miss under duress, so the officers did a great job. It’s not as if firing nine shots is some fantastic amount of fire power against a crazed or determined attacker with a knife.

Several of my team members who are snipers have remarked that if someone like me had a knife, they would want to be about 500 yards out with a 50 cal and just blow my head off rather than let me get within 30 feet of them. WHY? Anything can happen under duress.  With a knife involved, the situation can very quickly go from bad to worse.  Usually it’s the person or people without the knife who get the worst.

Let me give you all a hint that might save your lives.  NEVER bring a gun to a knife fight, for range is your friend.  I can get rid of that range very quickly. Once I’m in the middle of your group, your guns can’t be used without shooting each other.  I’m going to cut you to ribbons.  Shoot me or the suspect at distance and preserve your own life and others. A knife is lethal force and has to be respected for what it is capable of inflicting.

Everyone has to take personal responsibility for their own actions.  No one but Michael Lembhard is responsible for drawing out a knife and attacking the police.  Such an attack would be seen as possibly lethal, certainly dangerous, and irresponsible by any sane person.  Of course it was seen that way by the officers who were trained to respond with force to the act of being attacked.

I find nothing wrong in this first account of the situation. How could I? A suspect wielding a lethal tool called a knife attacked law enforcement officers.  As a result, he was shot and killed. Newburgh police responded appropriately based on the media reports at this time.

The police actions were the only sane, safe response by the officers.  They shot and killed the suspect before he could harm any of them or anyone else in the area. The suspect showed no sign of giving up, he did show intent to resist, and the resistance in this case was with a lethal force tool.

You all know I’m the knife guy.  I really love knives, but I’m not stupid about them.  I am not so blinded by my love of knives that I cannot see the obvious.  Knives are lethal force tools and nothing can change that.  I am a less-than-lethal guy and a measured force guy in my personal application of force with a knife.

Law enforcement officers must have a duality of vision about knives, just as I do.  If someone uses a knife against us, it’s a lethal force situation.  We know what our response levels can be to resolve the lethal force situation.  In our response, we know that the best actual response with a knife is to use it in a less-than-lethal manner to cause biomechanical shut down. This dichotomy of action and situation coexist because of the laws defining what is lethal and the actual application of our response to that situation.

However, make no mistake about it, knives are LETHAL FORCE tools.  Knives can and will easily kill, maim, or injure someone.  Lethal is lethal, dead is dead – period.  A knife is a very serious weapon which should not to be taken lightly.

As for the “but it’s ONLY a pocket knife”… give me a break. What all of us carry is a simple pocket knife.  A three-inch bladed pocket knife can cut off your fingers. It can cut at least twice its length in depth.  I don’t have that much depth on me to say “oh no worries, it’s only a flesh wound.”  Three to six inch deep cuts and my organs are spilling out.  I’m bleeding everywhere.

A three-inch blade can fillet you down to the bone, cut through biceps, quadriceps, and basically butcher a person just like a simple hunk of meat.  A simple three-inch pocket knife can sever muscles, tendons, cartilage, nerves, and blood vessels.  A knife is a tool designed to cut flesh and it does its job very well.

Newburgh New York Police officers reacted as they should have to protect themselves and others, to preserve the safety of the situation and to stop the suspect from doing very serious damage.  They shot and killed the suspect while he attacked them with a lethal force tool capable of maiming them or killing them.

Remember, if you’re ever in that situation or a similar one, don’t be fooled or swayed into complacency because “it’s only a pocket knife”.  Make sure you go home to your family and the bad guy is stopped. Knives are lethal force tools.  Lethal is lethal, dead is dead.

Learn more about this article here:

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Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

Every officer thinks they know how to cut. I’ll bet you think so as well. I mean how hard can it be to cut someone? How to actually cut something or someone is very important: because if you’re not cutting with your knife’s edge then you’re not using it properly and you might as well be using a stick!

Most of you think that if you own a knife that you know how to use a knife.  However, it’s the same as having a firearm.  People think, “I own a firearm therefore I know how to shoot it.”  Is it a common trait that because we own something we think we understand its use because of that ownership?

Cutting is actually like punching in that it’s a learned skill, not a natural skill like hammering, slashing and hacking. I know I got some of you at both ends of the spectrum with that statement.  Some of you get a little excited with blood pumping and an adrenalin dump about slashing, hacking, and hammering.  Others went “yeecchh” about the same ideas. Let me say we aren’t going to do any slashing, hacking or hammering with our knives right now:  that’s NOT cutting!

Anybody can hack.  This is what you do with an axe or a cleaver. Hacking is commonly called chopping. You chop wood and you chop veggies. Slashing is the simple motion of a sword swinging from one extreme to another, from the open or closed position usually with a body caught in the middle. You’ve seen this in the movies as warriors slash at each other in mortal combat.

Hammering is that reverse grip or forward grip pounding or stabbing using percussive motion.   Think Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock’s Psycho does a great hammering / stabbing scene in the infamous shower scene: the knife going up and down as the chocolate sauce runs down the drain. Chocolate sauce looks like real blood more than anything else used in the movies especially in B&W movies.

Cutting? Cutting is putting the edge of the knife onto the target to use in a controlled simple motion. There’s a touchy-feely elegance to the act of cutting: the sensuality of drawing your edge through the target and the tactile response as it splits open the target’s flesh. The act of cutting is called slicing and you slice open the bad guy’s flesh.

Knives are edges that are designed to cut flesh. They weren’t invented or designed to do anything but cut flesh quickly and easily. They are matter separators, plain and simple. I assume most of you took basic physics in school.  I bet some of you remember elementary school where in both cases they taught us basic forms that had function: a wedge is one of those shapes. A wedge is really two inclined planes mounted back to back. Yes, a knife blade is a wedge shape in cross section. Wedges split things into two parts.

As matter is parted by the thin tip of the wedge and pushed up the inclined sides, a channel is made separating the two sides of the matter. We call this a simple channel or in a person a simple wound channel.  The longer the length of the edge, the longer and deeper that wound channel becomes as that edge is pulled or pushed along the surface of the cutting material. The longer the edge is in contact with whatever you want to cut, the deeper the edge will actually cut: not the harder, the faster or the stronger, but the longer!

By the way, that’s why knives have a slight belly to them.  They’re designed so that the arc that our arms make when in motion combined with the belly of the blade make an exact tangent “target to blade” to ensure a smooth deep cut throughout the arc of that motion. We’ll discuss blade shapes and geometry in a future article. It is fascinating how the shape aids in the cutting motion.

Let me bring this to a level anyone can understand. I’m sure you have all cut cucumbers, zucchinis, carrots and the like. I know they’re not bad guys but they make great stand-ins for practice. For clarity’s sake I’ll tell you that the tip of the knife is the toe and the butt of the edge is the heel. OK, let’s grab those veggies and begin our cuts. When you put your knife’s tip just past the zucchini and with a forward rocking motion bring the edge down and slicing it through the zucchini you are actually doing elegant cutting. This is one of those famous chef moves that leave everyone watching breathless as the chef effortlessly slides the knife in a continuous rocking motion, making the edge glide though whatever he’s cutting turning it into a pile of razor thin perfectly shaped slices. This is classic “toe to heel” cutting: which is where the old axiom of knife use came from, “if I can touch you, then you are cut already!”

Picture laying the edge of your knife on someone and with the same forward rocking motion as with the zucchini, all fluid with grace and no overt strength: slicing them open effortlessly and maintaining contact throughout the motion. What a stunning cut: perfect! In real time against a bad guy you don’t just lay the edge on to him but you intercept the bad guy which puts your edge into him and THEN you slice through him using the edge of the blade.

Of course the reverse is true, so if you put the heel of the knife’s edge on the zucchini and with an upward rocking motion bring the edge upwards and back towards you, you will be slicing through the zucchini with a draw cut. This is the classic heel to toe motion most of us think of as a knife cut. Again in real time you intercept the bad guy placing your edge into him and then you draw the edge through the bad guy slicing through him with the knife blade “heel to toe”!

Either of these two motions leaves you in a position to reverse the motion without losing contact and in the process doubling up your cuts: “toe to heel” leaves you all set for “heel to toe”. There’s no space or gap or vacuum for the bad guy to fill with a reaction or a counter that you can’t stick the edge immediately back onto him because as Professor Presas used to say to me “He cannot touch you..You are already there!”

So remember slashing, hammering, and hacking motions carry your knife through the target and past it or to the target and back away from it. Either way you are left with a gap or space, a vacuum that has no action or knife in it.  Usually that’s where the bad guy has a chance to do something. With the act of cutting, the slice keeps your knife right there in the field of action ready to cut forward “toe to heel” or backwards “heel to toe” as you need to without leaving a vacuum or space for the bad guy to fill. It’s a great feeling when you control the action and the bad guy with the edge of your knife!

SLICE AND DICE IS NICE!

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

Knife training needs to be simple and direct, especially for law enforcement where the object is self defense response (SDR) with a knife. It’s not like learning a martial art. Martial arts are a labor of love spanning many years of trial, tribulation, hard work, and acquired learning. They have a beginning and no end based on the use of techniques driven by conceptual motions, each one progressing from the other. It’s a never ending process of trial, learning, and understanding.

Knife training isn’t knife fighting. Knife fighting is a close quarter interpersonal war / killing art. Knife fighting is a specialized way of fighting which uses knives designed specifically for fighting and killing the opponent. Knife training is a simple direct way to understand the use of a knife and its application under duress.  You then learn to apply that understanding in an actual physical application such as a SDR event. Knife training can be learned in hours, not years and applied right away. Knife training isn’t rocket science.  Anyone can do it and master it.

Law enforcement officers have a lot on their plate. Any training has to be simple enough to be absorbed (yes absorbed) right then and there and stored away till needed. If it needs constant repetition, diligent practice, and large blocks of time no one is going to do it. If the training overwhelms everything an officer needs to do daily on the job then the training, even if shown to save lives, will be put on the back burner and eventually forgotten.

So what kind of training is simple, direct, and allows an officer to retain the training after only a few hours? It’s called Gross Motor Skill Training (GMST). It works because the skill set is designed at the lowest functioning levels of an officer under extreme duress.

Let’s take a look at how we as people function. Human beings are very complex and capable of learning and doing things under difficult times. Our brains have several functioning levels of thought or in simpler terms we have three speed brains: fine, complex, and gross.

Fine thought is creative, elusive, and expanding, Complex thought is attention to detail and it can be expanded by training and perseverance.  Gross thought is plain simple thought such as fight or flight, details aren’t important nor can they be called up. This three-speed brain is unfortunately in control of a two-speed body. The physical body is only capable of fine motor function and gross motor function, there is no such thing as complex motor function. Push a person into stress and all sorts of things happen.  The first is that the brain can’t do fine thought. The brain steps down a gear into complex thought.  It’s this second level where training allows one to maintain a sense of control longer than a non-trained person. This doesn’t mean one is functioning at fine thought or close to it; it’s a conditioned space of thought like an overdrive gear in a car.

A good example is watching professional fighters or athletes in pregame or warm up.  Each of the fighters displays amazing skills and abilities.  Each person knows that their fighter will use these skills to defeat the opponent. The fighters get into the ring and all the fans start yelling at the fighters.  Do this! Do that! Why didn’t he see that opening? How could he miss that punch or kick?

When the fighters were watched preparing for the fight in training or warm up, they were in their element.  The level of stress and duress were minimal. Once in the ring against an equal opponent, that stress moved the fighters down to complex levels. The crowd watching is seeing it from fine thought levels.  This leads to lots of loud yelling and frustration from the spectator’s point of view.

The fighters seem incapable of doing the complex moves and techniques they did in the pre show or training previews: which is actually the truth. When one of the fighters moves down to gross level function from stress, from impact or submission the fight is basically over. It can be seen immediately and the crowd can sense and see a fighter in survival mode while the other is still in complex fight mode. Remember this is only sport.  Duress affects trained athletes who strive to minimize any degradation in their skills under stress.

Law Enforcement is NOT sport. Law enforcement can be life or death.  The stress levels are more intense than sport. Fine thought goes out the window immediately. Not only does the brain shut down but the body can’t respond. Officers who train to maintain the complex level of thought under extreme duress find out their body has dropped to gross motor function.  That means the officer can think of what to do but the muscles of the body can’t respond nor function in that way. As the brain hits gross thought level one’s fingers begin to fumble at simple tasks for they cannot do fancy motions.  They can clench a fist or open it, but no fancy twirling or dexterity drills are possible.

Under life or death stress other functions begin to fail or do fail completely. Vision goes from wide angle to a narrowed sight range like looking through a piece of 4 inch pipe.  It’s called tunnel vision.  There is no peripheral vision. Officer’s team members or partners completely disappear from view unless they are directly looked at. Your sense of time goes amok; it’s called tachypsychia.  It’s why we get the effect of seeing the proverbial “life flash before your eyes” or the incredible slowing of time to a crawl.

With all of this happening there’s another simple biomechanical issue that cannot be changed by training, wishes or intent or even gross motor skill.  Human bodies only function one way. There are three basic motions a human being can do because of biomechanical design. A human being’s arms can only be open or closed. The first motion is the arms are hinged to go from the outside of our bodies shoulder height palm out to the inside hip level on a downward diagonal ending palm up.  This is how our shoulder joint, elbow, and wrist work in conjunction with each other.

The second motion is on a low horizontal motion of inside to outside, from palm down to palm up as the arm approaches the outside of the body to a recovery position, like doing a biceps curl. The third motion is either downward clear the space or short upward vertical motion of cover the head palm neutral facing inwards. These three motions are gross survival motions.  Anyone can do them:.  If people couldn’t do them there would be no people alive, for these motions are imprinted in each person to protect the body and the head without direct thought or conscious action.

What has this to do with knife training? Everything! For knife training to be effective it must incorporate both gross survival motion for biomechanical function and the use of gross motor skills. In this case, the training incorporates GMS which is the bottom line of protecting one’s self.  Those motions are duplicated to be the same as one’s offensive knife skills. This way there is no hesitation or thought during situations of extreme duress or stress. One reacts to the situation with a correct response that is designed to save lives.

The basic idea of where to cut in training with a knife is to target the opponent’s hands. No hands no attack, no grabbing, no holding of a weapon. That’s pretty simple and direct. If you simply cut the bad guys hands the attack is over. Knife training must teach this aspect. Many want kill shots and termination, but shut down is far more effective and simple!

In my next article I’ll discuss the actual motions and applications of these motions and how they enhance a simple direct approach to knife training.

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

I hear the refrain constantly in my DEW and Tactical knife re-certification classes… “What do I need this training for? It’s only a pocketknife. I carry it in my pocket in case I might need it, you know, to cut something like a seatbelt. I don’t need training to use a pocket knife!”

These are actually true statements if all you intend to do as a law enforcement officer is occasionally pull out your pocketknife and cut something with it.  In that case, you’re right; you certainly can do that without training. Training gives you more and better options, but the steps I offer below can save lives.

You can use your pocketknife in an untrained manner to defend yourself, your partner or a citizen from imminent injury, attack or death!  Anyone can do this. More importantly YOU can do this!

Let’s get rid of the obvious issue of cutting and how to cut. Most, if not all of you, have seen knives used in movies: the wild swinging, the tight intricate cutting, sword like slicing, stabbing moves, and thrusting moves both in forward grip (tip up) and reverse grip (tip down).   Now that you know what I’m referring to, just go ahead and forget it all. It is all pointless stuff.

Everyone actually knows how to cut.  You do it every day when you eat, cook or do chores. Using a knife to cut ISN’T about knife fighting but using the knife on the bad guy just as you do to your food, on projects or during prep work for cooking. If you hunt and or fish you are way ahead of the curve.

Let me give you an example. I was brought in to teach a group of butchers from a well-known grocery store in Florida.  The grocery chain executives were concerned because a few of their butchers had been attacked going to and leaving work by people trying to get the meat that they thought the butchers had.

The butchers thought since they used knives every day they would be comfortable learning how to effectively use them for self-defense response. After a bit of teaching, they came to me and asked, “Is this for real? We do this every day to the meat. You want us to do it to people? Isn’t there some special way to do this? Isn’t there some secret way of cutting?”

Obviously the answer is NO. There’s no secret way of cutting. What is important is getting your knife to a target where you cut the target. You’re all shooters, so think of it as sight alignment and trigger control. The knife is a tool; a matter separator. It’s an edge designed to cut flesh.  Knives were NOT designed to cut wood, clothing or fiber, or anything but flesh. Humanoids have used knives to cut flesh for 2 million years. That’s a long time. So let’s end this discussion on how to cut with the idea of the bad guy EXACTLY as you would a piece of meat. Remember EVERYONE CUTS, EVERYONE BLEEDS. There are no men or women of steel!

The two things you need to practice a bit… OK, practice a lot… accessing your knife and getting it open. You don’t have to do them at the same time or even close to the same time. But you do have to practice getting your knife into your hand from wherever you keep it and then opening the knife. WHY?  If you can’t get your knife into your hand, you can’t open it. If you can’t open it, then you can’t use it.  Therefore everything else is a moot point.

You don’t have to go to a class or training hall to practice: During the day, during routine activities such as sitting in the car, at your desk, waiting in line, talking on the phone, just randomly access your knife, pull out your knife.  Every few times you do this actually open the knife. What you are doing is training yourself to access your knife under minimal duress. You’re doing something else probably not conducive to accessing your knife.  This is a good way to make the motion of accessing your knife natural while you think and do other things. This will be the reality in an altercation or confrontation, so you must learn to safely open your knife after you access it. Use both hands to do this. Then you’ll come to the realization that you need to carry two knives so it’s easy access from either side or if one of your arms or hand is unavailable because it is engaged doing something else or it’s injured in some way.

Ok, let’s cut right to the chase, pun intended. What are you going to do with your knife when you are in the bad situation of dealing with the bad guy? You are going to cut him. Let me say that     the bad guy feels about getting cut the same way that most of you do.  The bad guy does not want to get cut.   If the bad guy grabs you with his open hand, he’s going to do damage to you with his other hand with a knife, a gun, or a stick.

Cut the bad guy’s grabbing hand off of you.  As I tell my students when I demonstrate in person, “turn f-i-n-g-e-r-s into f-i-n-g-e, leaving the ‘r’ and the ‘s’ on the floor.”  I then demonstrate using a stuffed glove and slice off a “thumb” and a “finger” from the glove, dramatically leaving two “digits” fall to the floor.

Cut the bad guys grabbing arm. Cut him in the biceps. You’ll gain space as the arm extends and the grip loosens or fails. Cut the inside forearm, you’ll gain space as the grip fails. Cut the     forearm AND the biceps. The bad guy has his knife hand back, the empty hand forward in the classic ‘urban myth’ stance of the deadly knife fighter? Cut his empty hand off. Cut his fingers off. Cut the arm.

You didn’t get your knife open? Use the knife like a Yawara stick, Dulo y Dulo or Kubaton.  Smash the grabbing hand, breaking the hand and or fingers till the fingers don’t work releasing you. NOW OPEN YOUR KNIFE! Cut the bad guy. Smash the forearm and or the biceps with the knife as a Kubaton so the bad guy’s arm doesn’t work. This isn’t rocket science.

The bad guy has the weapon hand forward and the empty hand back? Cut his weapon’s hand off: cut his fingers off. Cut the forearm, cut the biceps, cut the forearm and the biceps, and cut all three: the hand, forearm and biceps. The weapon hand will no longer be trying to damage, threaten, injure or kill you or someone else.

By cutting the bad guy, you’ll get an immediate physical attitude adjustment from the bad guy. The bad guy’s attention will no longer be on attacking you. It will be how NOT to get cut anymore. Make the bad guy the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“Eh, what? You bleeding bastard, I cut your arm off; it’s lying on the ground!”

“No it isn’t”

“Yes it is!”

“It’s only a flesh wound: come closer so I can bite your legs off.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNKSzmM44gE

The basic idea is the closest weapon (your knife) to the nearest target (his grabbing hand or weapons hand). This is a simple, direct, less than lethal response to a lethal situation that anyone can do.  Just use the knife that’s in your pocket!

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American     Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons/ tools as an instrument of self-defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007.  Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.

There it sits right in front of you. It says “Police Special” on the blade. The knife’s got a flipper and it’s sexy tactical black.  It seems to ooze the essence of tactical right at you. It’s got to be a good tactical knife; because it surely looks like one! Besides being cool and tactical, it’s designed for law enforcement because it says “Police Special” right on the blade.  “BAM” as Emeril Lagasse says, they’ve got you. They pitched it and you bought into it. It’s the modern hard sell to law enforcement.  This is why officers have so many ‘plain Jane’ knives that only “talk the talk but they can’t walk the walk…”

The law enforcement profession is hard work. The duties required and the jobs that need to be done need effective tools, tools that can do everyday things, get abused a bit and still keep on working, or in this case cutting. It’s not a matter of being pretty or looking tactical or deadly.  The question is will this tool actually perform under duress to not only do the tough jobs, but save a civilian or officer’s life. If a knife can’t do those things, who cares what it looks like?

Many factors go into choosing a good hard use knife.  Some aren’t what you usually think of when purchasing a knife. It has nothing to do with your best friend’s opinion, the sales pitch, or opinion of the so called knife expert in the station. It’s not just about the blade, the blade shape, the handle, its color or the fancy opening device. That’s the obvious stuff, the stuff that got you to buy it, like the hot car ads. Let’s talk about these and all the other factors that can make or break your choice of a tactical knife.

One of the first issues is size. How big or small do you want this knife? It should fill your hand, with a bit sticking out past the base of your palm. Usually a tactical folder with a 3 inch blade will have a handle of about 5 -6 inches that fits comfortably in most hands. If it’s too big or too small you don’t want it.

This leads right into a secondary issue on size and it fitting into one’s hand: the ergonomics of the handle. Is the handle comfortable in your hand? It shouldn’t be too thin, too light, too thick or too heavy. It should have purchase in your hand, meaning that under duress, with sweat or blood on it, you aren’t going to slide on the handle. Sliding off of the handle means loss of control and the tool, while sliding down the handle means loss of one’s fingers leading to loss of control of the tool.

One should be able to hold the knife with the same grip concept as holding one’s firearm: the bottom three fingers are the strongest grip, a firearms grip and neither grip should allow your hand to slide off or slide down the handle. The handle should be shaped so that you can latch on to it. If the knife is really smooth, with rounded shapes and slick, then it’s not the handle for you.

The last important factor on the handle is what it is made from. Avoid slick stainless steel, high polished mircarta, smooth plastic, or polished aluminum. Best choices are: G10 (industrial fiberglass filled resin), textured zytel plastic (or something similar) rough linen mircarta, brushed aluminum or rubber.  Choose something that has surface tension you can grip, even when it’s wet, whether from sweat or blood!

The right knife lock is critical. Even if the knife is only used except for basic cutting, then insist on a good lock.  A good lock keeps the blade from falling onto your fingers. If the knife is to be used with static and kinetic force against the lock for trapping, redirecting and locking, then the lock strength is paramount. All you have to lose is your fingers when the lock fails.

Some locks are designed for force against the lock such as the Axis lock, the Compression/ball lock, Puzzle lock, the Arc lock and the Tri-Ad lock to name a few. The second consideration about a lock is where the lock release is located.  Do you have to take the knife out of battery to release the lock? Is the lock release easy to access?  Can it be done without releasing grip on the handle?  Can it be accidentally released under duress or pressure? I prefer a lock release that approximates my firearm by position, magazine release, or de-cocking lever.

Another key issue is accessibility. If you can’t get to your knife, it might as well not be there. It’s not just where you carry a knife, such as the pocket or a holster.  The question should be, is the knife easy to grab and engage without having to do complicated motions or thinking about it. This leads to one of the most contentious issues with a tactical folder… is the knife held in one’s pocket tip up or tip down?

Tip up means that you have to index the knife by sticking your hand deep into your pocket and grabbing the knife at its lowest point.  If it is tip up, the pivot point and top of the knife are deepest in ones pocket.   You would have to draw the knife out of your pocket and rotate from palm down to palm up before the knife is in a usable position… a minimum of three steps.  Tip down means you grab the knife by the pivot end, now near the top of your pocket, and draw it up in a usable position: a minimum of two steps.

Try doing this with a tip down and a tip up: both under duress and casually to determine which position is best for you BEFORE buying the knife. I personally prefer tip down.

Clip placement is also important. If the pocket clip is near the end of the knife, the entire knife is in your pocket, making it very hard to grab. If the clip is positioned so that there is handle showing above the clip, then there is something to grab.  This is not so important when you have all the time in the world and fine motor skills, but it’s VERY important if you are under duress, losing those fine motor skills.

If you want an assisted opener of some kind there’s many that use a rear flipper, or ones that use the motion of drawing or striking of the knife to assist in opening such the wave or kinetic ramp. Stay away from automatic knives, front opening or side opening springs and buttons can malfunction or even fail at the worst times. The buttons, disks, thumb studs, and holes in the blades should be positioned so you can open the blade by a simple rotating motion of your thumb in a pinch grip.  This is called “single-handed opening.”

Does the knife you’re looking at come with a matching functional trainer drone?  I can hear the “well it doesn’t matter because I don’t want to practice “knife fighting!”  Actually it does matter.  You don’t need to practice “knife fighting,” but you will need to safely practice accessing the knife, opening the knife, engaging the knife, and closing the knife.  You should not do this with a “live” blade even though you can.  It’s really bad if you cut yourself while practicing.  Practice ONLY with a safe trainer drone.  Most of the top-name knives will have red safe trainer drone to match their live blade knives.  Of course, if you have a functional trainer drone, you can safely practice biomechanical cutting, trapping, locking and other uses of the knife without fear of harming yourself or your training partner.  Remember, how you train is how you fight!

With all of this in mind, try out a few knives.  Take the knife for a test drive BEFORE you buy it and put it in your pocket.  Once it’s in your pocket it really is a police special knife!

Bram Frank has studied various fighting arts such as Wing Chun, JKD, and American Freestyle Karate for over 40 years. Currently, Bram is Director of Edged Weapons training at the S2 Law Enforcement-Security Institute. He is the SME (subject matter expert) on knives for the Hialeah Police Department. For the last 10 years, Bram has concentrated on the design and use of edged weapons / tools as an instrument of self defense and their use in military, police, and anti-terror applications. Bram was Black Belt Magazine’s Hall of Fame Weapons Instructor of the Year 2007. Action Martial Arts Magazine and their Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2008 named Bram the Grandmaster of the Year 2008. He trains others in Europe, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States.