Vladimir Vasiliev Knife Seminar - Saturday, June 3rd, 2005

It was great to see Vlad again. Feeling shy, I didn't want to interrupt his conversation with the other students, so I wasn't going to greet him before the seminar. Then I saw that he was looking right at me with a big friendly smile, as if he couldn't be more glad to see me. He's such a warm, kind person, it's hard not to feel comfortable around him. My mom and I went over to say Hello, and she told him that working with knives was her favorite Systema topic, and I admitted it wasn't mine but I hoped the seminars would change that. I enjoy Systema training no matter what the topic; working with knives is just not one of my favorites. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe it has something to do with the way the knife draws the consciousness. Some people focus so entirely on the knife when disarming me, wrenching the knife out of my hand, which seems rather reckless, and ignoring the rest of the body. On the other hand, the person wielding the knife is usually more aware of the blade than of the rest of his body, which can be helpful for self-defense. Even so, I can't help agreeing with Martin Wheeler, who once told us he'd run away from a schoolgirl with a rusty pen-knife. But I can't count on awareness, avoidance, and discretion as my only means of self-defense; some things are beyond our control. Knife attacks are some of the most psychologically challenging self-defense situations and I'm very glad to have learned a bit about it from an expert who is also an exceptional teacher.

We started out with the breathing and tensing exercises, which are described in the back of Let Every Breath. These are familiar to most Systema students. We lay on the floor and Vlad led us through inhales and exhales while tensing or relaxing different parts of the body, starting with the whole body, then just the legs, arms, and chest, sometimes fast, or slow, and rotating different parts. For example, we'd inhale and tense the arms and legs, exhale and relax the arms and legs and tense the torso. It's hard to isolate the parts, to tense the arms without the shoulders, or the legs without the butt. Incidentally, I saw a survival documentary (The Science's Channel's Survivorman) where this tensing and relaxing was described as a defense against hypothermia. If your spine feels cold, your body temperature might be dangerously low and tensing and releasing the muscles could save your life.

Vlad then asked us to feel our pulse in the temples, then the throat, and then the heartbeat itself. I couldn't feel my heartbeat, although I could feel it in my throat and temples. He then asked us to connect the pulses, but I was still distracted by not feeling my pulse below the neck. Actually I've never had much success with this particular exercise, maybe because of muscular restriction (‘trigger points') which can limit sensitivty to biorthymns.

After the breathing, we did a few pushups, for which Vlad asked us to move our arms around into different positions, straight in front, out to the side, slide the legs back, and then 5 without breath, also a few sit-ups. The no-breath is easier when you have no warning; Vlad would tell us to inhale or exhale and then ask us to do them. We also did 10 pushups on our partner's prone bodies, back and front, which is a nice massage in some places, in others, quite uncomfortable. Then some pushups using knives in one or both hands, balancing the hilt or the point on the floor and leaning into it to go up and down, or with both hands around the knife, alternating the hand that's on top. I found the latter to be the easiest. We did a few squats and some very difficult partnered one-legged squats where you hold each other's opposite leg straight and go down to the floor, sit down, and rise again without letting go of each other's legs. This was a tough one, I looked around and saw that very few people could do it. Also solo one-legged squats where your partner holds your hand as you go up and down. Vlad explained if they're having trouble balancing, you can help steady them, but if it's too easy for them, to move the hand around and throw them off balance.

Then he showed how wiggle underneath someone on the laying on their back on the floor by poking them with the tip of the knife to make them rise up again. He asked us to do this, on our stomachs, and on our backs, and he showed how if the person sank down again while you were still crawling under, continue to poke them to make space for yourself. It's a lot easier than doing it without the knife as we did at the Delaware seminar!

We also did a group drill with five or six people, tossing the knives around. At first we started with just one knife, throwing it randomly at another person, then two, then three, until there were as many knives as people. Vlad had asked us to catch the knives only by the handles, making this more difficult than doing the same drill with short sticks, as we did at Scott C.'s stick seminars. Pretty soon, all you could hear was the sound of clattering knives hitting the floor. Most people can catch knives throw at them from the front, it's the ones from the side that are tricky. Since we've been practicing some of these exercises in Edgar's subsequent classes, I've gotten a little better at catching them (alas, not so much at throwing them). One thing that helps is to stand back a bit so you can use your peripheral vision to see in all directions. If you were to draw a circle connecting the people throwing the knives, it should be rounded, if you're standing too far in from the others, breaking the curve, it's difficult to see the knives. Another thing that helps is to just let the knife come to you. Of course, you have to move to catch it. But if you focus on catching it like an outfielder catching a fly ball, you'll miss all the other ones flying in your direction. And finally, there's a paradoxical piece of advice that Edgar once gave me, long ago, when he was throwing a tennis ball at me from behind, dropping it over my head or pitching it from underneath, and I kept missing. He told me to just relax and not think about catching the ball. I couldn't believe how well this worked. As soon as I stopped focusing so intently on catching it, it became a lot easier. Catching the knives is no different, it's strange how the more you want to catch them, the harder it is, whereas if you just let yourself catch them without thinking, it's a lot easier. However, I only got the hang of these things in Edgar's subsequent classes; I recall that during Vlad's seminar, I was dropping the knives all over the place.

We spent a lot of time on Saturday learning how to use the knife and especially the tip of it to control our partners. Vlad told us that to use the knife effectively, the wrists have to be strong, but relaxed. A little bit later, he asked people to put their knives in a pile in front of him on the floor and had us all come in closer. There were maybe a dozen different knives, mostly practice ones. Someone was called up to translate, which I think allowed Vlad to be more precise in his explanations (many thanks to the bearded fellow who translated for us.) "The knife determines how you will fight, not the other way around," he said, picking up a short curved blade. "This couldn't be used for stabbing, it's for slashing," and said the same for a small blade. The most durable knives, he said, are the ones made entirely of one piece of metal. He picked up one with a hilt and said the pommel is useful so you don't cut yourself, but if the metal of the blade didn't extend all the way to the end of the handle, it would not be as strong. He talked about "mercy blades" used in ancient warfare, long stilettos used to put gravely wounded knights out of misery, and highly damaging four-sided bayonet blades used for stabbing. He described a large military blade as functional with a measuring ruler and serrated edge for sawing. He also talked a bit about withdrawing the blade and how difficult it can be, for that reason, it's not necessary to thrust so deeply to wound the attacker. For non-lethal defense with a knife, he suggesting opening a small cut on the face, rather than slashing the throat. This will cause a lot of blood flow and probably adverse psychological effect on the attacker. Vlad also explained how if you were cut, it was important to hold the wound so as not to bleed further. Aside from not bleeding out, it will also help control your own fear as well as preventing the attacker from seeing you bleed. He said you if you were cut on your hand, you could hold the knife handle against the cut in such a way as to minimize bleeding, and also prevent the knife from slipping.

While Vlad was telling us about the various knives on the floor, he slipped in an interesting anecdote about soldiers who were grievously wounded. He said that some of them had crawled for miles to get to safety, sometimes holding in their own entrails. But when they arrived and were under medical care, thinking they were safe, they gave up the psychological struggle and died. There was a kind of black humour in this story, but I found it rather sad. I think it illustrates an important point about the struggle for survival, particular as it was right after Vlad told us about how to mimimize bleeding from knife wounds. As Paul Genge wrote on the MartialTalk forum, a knife-wielding attacker can still kill you with his last breath, and the challenge of survival might be far more than incapacitating the attacker, just as the wounded soldiers' struggle was beyond crawling to safety.

Vlad also recounted a story about a man who was stabbed in the back of the shoulder with a knife, but kept on fighting, then later, when he was told he had a knife sticking out of his back, he passed out. Thinking about how he told us that it's not necessary to thrust so deeply, I can't help wondering about whoever stuck that knife in the guy's shoulder. Not only did he lose his knife, but the guy kept fighting. It's hard to thrust deeply without also exposing yourself to danger from hyperextending your arm or getting very close to the opponent's blade. If you miss the vital target and thrust too deeply into cartilage or bone, it could cause you to lose the knife, or tarry too long trying to get it out again, giving the attacker a chance to retaliate. There was a recent rash of subway stabbings here in NYC, 4 victims in 24 hours. One of them said that he didn't notice he had been stabbed until he looked down and saw blood. There are also anecdotes about people who have been stabbed continuing to fight, like Jim Bowie's legendary "Sandbar Fight", which is probably somewhat exaggerated by popular imagination. But it is documented that Bowie was shot through one lung and stabbed repeatedly with sword-canes, yet still managed to kill his assailant from a prone position with his famous knife. Vlad demonstrated that cuts and slashes can damage an attacker as well as a thrust. Loss of blood, even from a minor wound such as a cut on the face, can cause psychological distress which will weaken the resolve of some opponents.

Even though the above discussion was a bit later in the seminar, I think it makes sense at the beginning of these notes. But returning to the proper chronology, Vlad demonstrating putting someone down by poking them with the knife tip, then making him stand up again also using the point of the knife, and asked us to practice the same. For this, the person being poked was stationary. Vlad walked around the room offering pointers. He was very engaged with the students and I think he spent time teaching everyone individually. He poked me down to the floor and then up again with the point of the knife and I moved quickly to avoid the pokes. He said, good! But I wasn't sure what he was complimenting me about, as I thought that the exercise was mainly for my partner, but when we did it again in Edgar's class afterward, he explained it's also sensitivity work for the partner being poked up and down. At the seminar, I didn't quite understand this, nor did my partner, and we were waiting for pressure from the practice blade to force us to fall rather than yielding to light contact which would be more appropriate for a knife. Of course a real blade would make anyone look alive if poked! We also did the same thing but with the one person moving away and trying to escape the knife, and the other following and using either the point to poke, the handle to apply pressure to the areas exposed, or using the knife as a lever to lock the neck or the arm, to collapse them. The knife handle works very well against the fingernails and collarbone.

Next we did an exercise where your partner grabs your knife hand with one or both hands and you rotate your wrist to use the handle to apply pressure to the undersid of their wrist to break the hold. For this, Vlad told us the wrist has to be relaxed, it cannot be done if the wrist is tense. We spent a brief time on grab and escape drills, first, empty-handed, then using the knife to counter the grabs. We also practiced a dexterity exercise. One person makes triangular opening with both hands by placing the thumb and forefingers together, hands flat and palms facing outward. The other person has to thrust the knife through it, moving away, and back again, from different directions. Then the other person moves the opening around at different levels and side-to-side, then finally, walks around and moves the opening, at which point it does become tricky to thrust the knife into the opening, timing is critical.

We did a group drill where one person used the knife to defend against two. Vlad demonstrated this slowly: the two were only to approach the one with hands outstretched at head level, as if to grab. They were not to rush in and tackle the one in the center; we all had to respect the knife even though most of us were working with dull practice blades (Earlier, Vlad told us that live blades are rarely used in martial arts training for legal and moral reasons, all it takes is one idiot to inflict serious and possibly lethal injury to a student). The person in the center had to use the knife to defend against their approach, using the tip to cut, the edge to slash, putting them into each other, etc. I corralled a Systema teacher for this one, as I felt it would be good to get some extra advise, so we had a group of four. But I don't think one extra person makes much of a difference. The teacher in our group went first to give us some ideas. I went next, I wasn't sure exactly how to proceed, but the teacher said I was doing well. Suddenly Vlad was at my side saying, good! I got nervous at his sudden, unexpected presence and froze up. Vlad gave us a brief demonstration. I saw that he was much more proactive with the knife, where I had been sort of waving aside the attacking people; he was using it decisively, making small cuts and slashes, in a more offensive way. After that, I forgot my nervousness at being observed. it was easier to continue. Vlad's demonstrations are more helpful than any words, just watching him makes the principles so much more clear.

Returning to pairs, we did a fairly straightforward drill where your partner comes at you with the knife, you take him down and make sure to control the knife or disarm, but using one arm only. This sounds harder than it is. Actually, I find that using one arm doesn't make much difference. Sometimes it can even be easier, because when using one arm, there are less choices, less to think about, you just have work with what you have. For some reason, I find that the restrictions free my mind, maybe because I have a kind of reserved, restrained personality, and if there are too many choices, I find myself unable to move decisively. I think that's why working in confined spaces, especially against the wall or in a chair, is some of my favorite Systema practice.

We also did the same drill but both partners had knives. One person attacks the other, who has to use the knife to defend, by using the knife to rotate or lock the attacking arm, or just taking them down, but making sure to control or disarm their knives and positioning your own knife at a vulnerable point. Our focus on Saturday was very much on using the knives, and especially being aware of both the attacker's blade as well as our own. The knife leaves no room for sloppiness. Vlad said it's important to know where the knife is, not where your hand is. He demonstrated aiming his hand at someone's neck while the point of the knife missed entirely, or slashing in a wide arc and cutting himself accidentally, as examples of how this lack of awareness can be costly.

Vlad also showed us a bit about withdrawing and drawing the knife. For withdrawing, he had someone hold the knife between their palms, hands pressed firmly together, with the handle facing outward. Vlad showed us how pulling the knife straight out was very difficult, as mentioned earlier when he explained that it can be difficult to withdraw the knife from a body. He demonstrated twisting the knife, then withdrawing, and also rocking the knife either upwards or downwards, then withdrawing with a rapid whiplike motion. I found that with the rocking the knife up or down, you have to withdraw it quickly, dropping your body weight as you pull it. Simply tugging won't do the trick, you first have to twist or rock it up or down, and then withdraw it as if cracking a whip. Even though it's only between one person's two palms, it's actually a lot harder to withdraw it that one might have guessed. Vlad also had us leading the person holding the knife between the palms, walking around holding the handle of the knife, leading them up and down, etc., and they had to follow and stay close. He also showed up how you can draw the knife from the waist or pocket by extending the leg back, moving leg first, to make it come out more easily. He had us practice this and when he came to me, he said I should make sure to move the leg first before drawing the knife. Not only does it allow the knife to be drawn more quickly and easily, it's also a distraction, because the movement of the leg camoflauges the knife itself. To practice the draws, our partners approached us and we had to draw the knife as Vlad had shown us and touch them with it, front or back. Sounds simple, but timing is everything, and sometimes, my partner had already walked too far past me by the time I drew my knife.

For our final exercise, Vlad asked us all to walk around, and each time he clapped, we were to draw our knives. At first we didn't quite understand, everyone just drew their knives and sort of wondered what to do. Then he told us that when he clapped, we were to either fall or roll, draw the knife, and be in a position of readiness with it. I've always enjoyed these "clapping" drills where you have to fall or roll or lay flat each time the instructor claps. It's very much like a game, but at the same time, it's completely practical, you don't have a chance to plan what you are going to do, so it's great for practicing spontaneous movements.

Vlad asked us if we had any questions, but I don't think anyone did on Saturday evening. He explained everything quite well, sometimes through a translator, and he also went around the room instructing us individually. A great experience for all of us, I am sure. A few hours later, Edgar and Peggy set up a marvelous Russian banquet and we all enjoyed many delicious authentic foods, wine, and beer, and good conversation with friends. Although I will post again about Sunday, I just want to include a quick thank-you to Edgar and Peggy for being such terrific hosts, and for arranging another fine seminar at Fighthouse, and of course, many thanks to Vlad for coming all the way from Canada to teach us, and to everyone who came to participate.