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Knives: Not Just For Stabbing
Part one - "flashing" the knife I used to carry a knife because I was often alone at work, or walking to school or town. I never got my driver's license and I was crazy enough to hitch-hike; also while driving with friends they would occassionally pick up hitch-hikers. But I don't consider it safe. I never hitch-hiked without a large rock in my purse and knife in the pocket of my jacket. When I first moved to the city, I was unused to being in such close proximity to vast numbers of people, some of whom just by virtue of the odds, were a few cards short of a full deck. I lived in the Financial District, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods I've ever lived in. The few residential areas are mostly luxury high-rises, but after dark, when the stock market closes, the streets are desolate. It's mostly office buildings and retail business that do not stay open late, when there are few pedestrians. I felt unsafe when I first moved here, and continued to carry my knife. In just a few years, there was substantial decrease in overall crime in Manhattan. It has not gone unnoticed by the city's residents. I ended up living in a neighborhood where I had previously been warned never to venture: Alphabet City. Junkies lay on the streets, families lived four people to a single room apartment, dealers tried to sell you heroin, assuming that you wouldn't venture into the area unless you were seeking drugs. Between the Hispanic gangs and the Hell's Angels, you had the feeling of always being on someone else's turf. A few blocks from my new home in Alphabet City, my friend was beaten up and had his jaw wired shut for months. But by the time I moved there a few years later, it was an entirely different place. The streets were never empty and fashionable stores began to crop up. I relaxed a bit and stopped carrying my knife. In retrospect it wouldn't have been much use anyway. My theory was that if I showed the knife to someone who was going to attack me, then might draw away. I guess you could say I carried it "for show," and fortunately I never used it or else I might not be writing this today. Luckily I now live in a very safe neighborhood, but I did make a conscious decision that safety was worth a little extra rent. Before I moved here, I did once "show" a knife to someone who was menacing me. I was returning from a bar in the Financial District at about two o'clock in the morning. I walked down to the Chambers Street subway station. There was no-one on the platform but a homeless man slumped on a bench, with a wheeled cart in front of him. I walked past him cautiously. When I am wary of a subway platform, I usually walk to the end of it, then turn around and walk back again. I prefer to see who else is standing on the platform with me, before walking back to the most well-lit or well-populated area. I walked past the homeless man cautiously, giving him a wide berth and walking past his back, rather than his front. I thought he was asleep, but as I walked past, he snarled at me savagely, and suddenly whipped an umbrella out of his cart and stabbed at me with it. If I hadn't stopped my approach, he certainly would have hurt me. It took me by surprise, but I tried very hard not to jump. I just stopped calmly, and resumed walking. I didn't want him to see that I was frightened. Maybe I should have gone up the stairs to where the booth clerk could see me. But I walked to the end of the platform, and unfortunately there was no-one else there. I didn't want to walk past the homeless man again, so I stood at the end of the platform. My knife was in my hand. It has a highly polished, silver handle, but the blade itself is a pen-knife style and it would be useless if I had to use it quickly. I knew the homeless man was approaching me, and I held it in such a way that he could clearly see it shining in my hand. I didn't look at him directly, but I knew he has stopped about 25 feet away from me and was standing, staring at me. He turned away and walked back to the bench. I don't think it was the knife, he might not have even seen it. It might have been my attitude, that I was ready to fight him, or more likely he was just crazy and might have had no intention of attacking me anyway, just wanted to scare me. I think the main reason I carried a knife was for reassurance. I felt slightly safer with my knife and steel-toed boots. Because I felt safer, I might have been more confident in those the few sketchy situations I've encountered, more than a few of them on subway platforms or on the train. I've met my fair share of wackos. Live here long enough and you see the boundlessness of human irrationality, and how reality can mean such dramatically different things to different people. when I discovered my highly polished knife in the pocket of a winter coat I hadn't worn for years, it was a suprising reminder of the tools I once thought would keep me safe. I have much better tools now at my disposal; there is no replacement for the confidence that my Systema training has brought me. Not that I'd always prevail, only that I have the will to survive, no matter what happens, None of the fights I've witnessed involved knives. I used to live on a block with many rowdy bars, the sawdust-on-the-floor, no-name-on-the-door kind of bars. I was frequently awoken by a fight on the street late at night. Usually the participants were so drunk they could hardly weave their way towards their opponents. They'd crash into garbage cans or fling them about. Sometimes the residents of the ground floor apartments would open their windows and yell out "Shut up! Shut the hell up!" Twice our front door was smashed in by what was clearly someone's head; the second time, there was blood all over the glass. I've also seen my share of fights in high school, including some mass attacks that ended very quickly. Fights have happened around me; very few involved me directly. But I've never seen a knife fight, never seen anyone draw a knife except to show it to someone. Here are a few descriptions of those incidents. When I was living in the Financial District, my friends and I were drinking in a lovely old-fashioned bar frequented by Wall Streeters. It was around 1 or 2 AM, and the bar was our last stop on the way home. There were only a few very drunken stragglers, most of them sitting by themselves as the watched a game on television. There was a small commotion at the horseshoe shaped bar as people suddenly moved away from a very drunk man with his head almost slumped on the bar. He was clutching a knife with a blade about 9 or 10 inches long. He didn't appear to be ready to use it; he was slurring his speech and the only direction he seemed headed was down to the floor. But people were alarmed. My friend, a take-charge sort of person, immediately went over to him, spoke softly to him and patted him on the shoulder. He asked him to put the knife away, and the man agreed. He asked if he would like to take a taxi home, but the man refused. The bartender came over and joined in the suggestion for him to take a taxi home, but he insisted on remaining even though they had stopped serving him. My friend asked the bartender to put him in a taxi when the bar closed, my friend offered money but the bartender pointed to the money the drunken man had left on the counter and said there was enough. My friend, who was later killed in a fire, was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He was studying to become a social worker. He often helped the desperate, those who the rest of us do not even wish to look at, much less speak to. He approached the drunken man with the knife without fear, with only love in his heart. He was a rare soul and special influence in my life. A few months ago I saw two teenagers sitting on the subway looking at a stiletto. It was about five inches long and looked pretty dangerous. With a flick of the switch you could inflict serious damage and possibly death without having to thrust or use any strength at all. They were flicking the blade in and out, marveling at the mechanics. The people around them were casting wary glances and giving them a wide berth. I knew by the way they were examing the blade, that they had recently acquired it and were unfamiliar with the feeling of holding or using such a knife. Their interest was purely mechanical. I am not saying they would not use the knife, but not at that moment. I sat across from them, read the Times, and was unconcerned. More recently, I saw an incident with a knife that did alarm me. It was a rainy night and I was returning from Systema class. The subway was crowded as I exited and walked up the stairs to the street. As often happens when it rains, people riding the subway don't realize the weather until the get to the top of the stairs. Then everyone stops and fumbles around for the umbrella, or just stands there trying to wait it out. Naturally the people at the bottom of the stairs don't appreciate this bottleneck. And it's also inconvenient for those trying to go down the staircase as people start to flow around the bottleneck and ignore the "keep to the right" convention of subway stairs. A scraggly-looking guy with a long beard was trying to get down the stairs. Seeing the one guy who was causing the bottleneck (who was foolishly standing at the top of the stairs under the canopy, not moving, to avoid getting wet), the scraggly guy yelled Hey, you've got to keep moving, or something like that. Finally the guy moved off, but Scraggly Guy wasn't satisfied. He abruptly turned back up the stairs he had just been trying to get down and followed the bottlenecker to the street, weaving his way through pedestrian traffic. I stopped to watch him, curious to see what he'd do. He approached Bottleneck at a traffic light as he waited for the light to turn. I noticed he was fumbling around the back of his pants for something. As he fumbled, his shirt lifted up, and I saw a large flat silver item tucked into the back of his pants. It wasn't a knife, it was way too rectangular. It was also covered with ornate detail. I have no idea what it was, but clearly it wasn't what he was looking for. He slowed his approach to Bottleneck so he could fumble around some more in his pants, and I became suspicious. Why would he slow his approach, if he was so angry? Finally, he found what he was looking for and became to walk quickly to catch Bottleneck before the light turned. The slowed approach was so he could have his timing right to brandish his weapon as he approached Bottleneck from behind and tapped him angrily on the back. Then he showed him what he had pulled from the back of his pants, a long, bluish metallic cylinder that I immediately thought was a gun. Bottleneck looked terrified and jumped a mile. Scraggly Guy quickly stuffed it back in his pants and turned toward me, I hurried away. I heard him growling at the pedestrians as he lunged at them. I have no idea what he was carrying, it might have been the barrel of a gun, but it was longer than a pistol. It looked kind of like a silver nightstick. Whatever it was, he just wanted to show it to Bottleneck, not use it on him. He got the desired effect, Bottleneck was frightened. But I knew that he had no idea that he had held up Scraggly Guy on the staircase and invoked his wrath, and that it was a completely random incident in his mind. I think I was the only one who noticed the whole exchange from start to finish. And I don't know why I hung around. I would not have intervened, because Scraggly Guy clearly had a few nuts loose. There's no telling what he might have done. But there are always plenty of cops near this subway station and I would have sought one if things went bad. But when Scraggly Guy lurched towards me and the other pedestrians, I moved away immediately, fearing for my own safety. As you can see, I have very meager experience with knives. I've only seen them being shown, not used. And I sure hope that's all I see as far as knives are concerned. Part Two - Working with the handle and the flat of the blade A few months ago, Edgar showed us how to use the knife in ways other than cutting. He explained why it might be more to your advantage to control your attacker rather than just damaging him. Some of my classmates seemed surprised by this idea and asked why not just stab the attacker? Edgar demonstrated several scenarios where controlling was more useful, such as forcing someone to go with you to the police station, or getting them to give you information. It's more of a professional use of the knife and as I recall, some of my classmates didn't seem to take to it. When Edgar demonstrated forcing someone to give information by using the handle of the knife on the fingers, they thought he was pretending to mug the other person. It's such a different perspective, civilians vs. professionals. But though we are civilians, we can learn a lot from studying the professional techniques. We spent some time talking about why it's best to avoid fatal stabbing of an attacker for legal and ethical reasons. It may be because my classmates were largely not from the U.S., but it was a very strange concept to them and my classmate told me that he'd just "carve someone up like a turkey" if they attacked him. There's a widely-held belief that "self-defense" entitles you to use lethal force. But you will be much better off to use the minimum force. Most importantly, if you have the capability to disable an attacker and keep yourself safe without killing the other person, that is the more ethical action. Killing in self-defense may seem like a good idea in conversation and speculation, but it will change your life forever. Legally, you may end up in jail or even facing the death penalty. Especially if there were no witnesses to your acting in "self-defense." It's not merely a matter of saying to the jury "I acted in self-defense." If it were that easy, then every murderer on trial would try the self-defense argument. When the person who attacked you is dead, you're alive and healthy, and there was no-one around to witness what happened, the jury has only your word that your actions were necessary to preserve your life. It is only responsible of the jury to want proof that you had no choice but to apply lethal force. Even if you wind up severely injuring the attacker, it may still be hard for you to argue self-defense if there were no witnesses. Sympathies may drift to the attacker if he's severely injured. He'll probably have family members to tearfully testify how they have suffered because of what you did to the attacker. It's not as straightforward as just saying, I had no choice. If you can use the minimum force to keep yourself safe and disable the attacker, that will make your life a lot less complicated from a legal standpoint. And from a spiritual standpoint, killing your attacker may change your life in ways you can hardly imagine. You will have to live with the knowledge that you might have disabled your attacker but chose to kill him instead. That could make for some uneasy nights. There may be times when you have no choice but to use lethal force, but as described in the Russian System Guidebook, you should never do so callously. In killing someone, you take away "all a man has, and all he's ever going to have," to quote Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven). Controlling someone through pain compliance can be a better solution than just killing them; from a legal and ethical standpoint. It's funny how when given a practice knife, we want to "cut" with it. My partner continued to use the knife to "cut" me rather than trying any of the pain compliance. A knife has a dramatic impact on the psychology of the one who wields it. As Denis demostrated to our class recently, the hand and wrist that hold a knife become tense as the consciousness is focussed on theknife. So we started by trying to relax these parts. We held the knife while our partners grabbed our wrists. Edgar showed us how by relaxing the wrist and hand, you can rotate the knife around and use the handle to apply pressure to the underside of the forearm to get your partner to release. Other parts of the forearm are also sensitive to pressure. Also we worked on avoiding a grab to the knife hand by capturing the fingers with the handle of the knife and using that to apply leverage. The fingers are very sensitive, especially over the nails. It was easy to make my partner drop by using the knife handle on the finger or fingernail. Edgar showed us some more advanced work: how to present the target of the knife wielding hand, move the hand slightly to "draw" your partner as his hand follows the target, and then rotate the hand around and capture the fingers with the handle of the knife. We also used the knife handle against the collarbone as our partners punched us. Edgar showed us how to keep someone down with the knife handle after they've fallen by using it to press on key points. We practiced trying to rise from the floor while our parters applied pressure with the knife to keep us down. Edgar also demostrated how to slap someone on the arm with the knife handle. It makes a loud noise, stings a little, but doesn't hurt much. Edgar explained the effect is psychological, and the attacker loses confidence after being touched with the knife blade. We finished the class with a little work on drawing the knife from the pocket, waistband, or ankle. For a faster draw, you move the body part where the knife is concealed toward the hand. In the front pocket, you can stretch your leg straight back as you draw, keeping your spine aligned straight with your leg. This pushes the knife from the pocket into the hand. If the knife is carried in the waist, front or back, you can swivel your hips to bring it into your hand. For an ankle holster, you bend your leg to bring it closer to your hand without breaking form. We found drawing from the ankle to be the hardest, maybe because we were drawing from our socks in lieu of holsters. We also worked a little on preventing the draw from the front pocket, by clapping our hand over our parnters' drawing hand the instant we perceived them going for the knife. This requires a sudden, forceful lunge forward, to apply the entire body weight to "seal" the pocket and prevent the draw. It's hard to imagine I'll ever be proficient enough with a knife to carry one for self-protection. I am learning a lot about knife disarming and I would feel less threatened by a knife attack today, than a year ago before I began my training. For example, if someone threatened me with a knife and told me to get into a car, or tried to get me to walk somewhere else, I would not be as likely to comply as I would have been before I learned Systema. In addition to learning the mechanics of knife disarming, I've learned a great deal about the psychology of knife-wielders. Those who attack with knives to commit violent crime are often mentally unbalanced. Keeping a cool, professional additude when faced with a highly emotional, violent knife attack may ultimately be the best defense. |
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