Knife Fighting
There Will Be Blood
Knives cut and they cut on purpose and they cut by accident. If there’s a knife involved you’ll get cut. Then there will be wet, slippery, red stuff all over the place. Try not to freak out. It looks worse than it is, hopefully. When you train with a knife, it’s great if once in a while you can get some phony blood into the act. This will help with the feel of the mess. It’s a whole different dynamic when you grab an arm that squirts out of your grip.
Forward Grip or Reverse Grip?
The best grip is the grip where you don’t drop the knife. “Hold onto the knife” is the best grip. That means don’t change things around. If you commit to the forward grip, the blade pointing out towards the opponent, stay with that. If you chose the reverse grip, the blade going along your forearm, stay with that. The very worse thing to have happen in a knife fight is to not have your knife anymore because you were spinning it around or shifting it or let it get knocked out of your hand.
If you don’t have much hand to hand training you would probably want to use the forward grip. This grip also provides better weilding angles for the more experienced slicers and dicers.
The reverse grip is used in the same flow as you would use blocks and punches. A punch to the jaw would actually be a slice to the throat. A cross block and hammer fist with the same hand would actually be a slice to the forearm and a stab to the midsection.
Two Knives are Better Than One?
No, one knife is better than two. You need the other hand to grab, push, block, cover, parry, pull, strike, all of which you cannot do if you’re holding that second knife. What’s with the second knife anyway? You’ll distract him with the first one and stab him with the second? If one arm gets really cut up you’ll use the second arm as back up? Two knives will hurt more? I don’t think so.
Learn how to use the one knife really well. You’re already an expert at using a knife. You’ve been using one very well ever since you were a little kid making sandwiches and cutting up pork chops. You’ve already got the skills, you just need a little more information and some practice. You can check out these people if you want some great really applicable stuff: