#knife fighting

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💎Austin & Roger interview on the fighting style behind the scenes for Dune Part 2. (No music)

What is the deadliest weapon on the modern battlefield?  FPV Drones are the new hotness; Nuclear Weapons hang like the Sword of Damocles; Airstrikes plunge like thunderbolts with Jupiterian Precision; Artillery rains like a storm God’s deluge ( or at least it does when you have a manufacturing base); IEDs and mines lie in wait for the unlucky traveler; Precision rifles take their silenced harvests; and chemical and biological weapons lurk like an emperor’s poisonous consorts. But Yet… when you start adding up the bloody results of the full scope of the modern battlefield: Interstate wars, guerilla wars, Clandestine operation, Gang wars, Marriages… Shocking statistical realities reveal themselves. The deadliest weapon in American history… Is the Handgun.

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When you add up every official causality in every war the US has ever fought since the revolution, Including DISEASE depending on what you include as a war related disease… The approximately 1.2 million Americans who’ve died in all wars since the Revolution of 1776 is SLIGHTLY LESS than the 12000-15000 Americans who die annually to guns violence (90% of which are handguns) which very roughly averaged over a 100 year period would be about 1.2-1.5 MILLION Handgun deaths. (and the republic is 200 years old not 100, though populations do shrink dramatically the further back you go) And remember… This is just Handgun deaths OUTSIDE of declared wars… Within wars presumably some percentage of those killed are via handguns (think of all the policing, executions, feuds, enforcements, assassinations etc. that occur which can end with a handgun death… Even conventional wars are quite irregular in the manner civilians, partisans and soldiers interact).

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Applying the logic which we have already seen, that outside of the most war-ravaged countries ordinary homicide, gang wars, feuds, and clasdestine actions are VASTLY more likely to kill people than high intensity warfare… You quickly notice a trend. The 3 deadliest weapons in the world today in terms of body-count (your likelihood to be killed by them) varies between  • Handguns in the New World where guns are plentiful but open carry of rifles is not the norm • Auto and semiautomatic (and previously bolt-action) rifles in the third world of Africa and failed parts of the Middle-East where it is perfectly acceptable for gangs to walk about with AK-47s in their arms • Knives and bladed weapons in Gun restrictionist jurisdictions (Europe), Asia, Prisons, etc. If you die a violent death dear reader whether in the killing fields of darkest Africa, darkest Detroit, the trenches of forever war or the smuggling tunnels of Mexico, to an enemy you’ve never spoken a word to or to a spouse you said just one word too many to, it will almost certainly be to one of these 3… Even in the age of FPV Drones, IEDs, Cluster munitions, and Thermobaric rocket artillery… a super-majority of the time the person who decides you need to die will be within 2-200 meters of you see you with their bare eye or possibly a simple optic, and decide in sight of your face to end your life with the tool they have at hand. Knife, handgun, or rifle. And it’s very hard to tell which of the 3 actually leads the pack globally.

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However, notice something about these 3 weapons and modern warfare. Every single soldier in every army in the world goes through some kind of Rifle qualification, a soldier with no idea how to use a rifle (at least at the rudimentary level non-specialized soldiers are trained to) can barely be regarded as a soldier. Likewise across a wide sections of Infantry and various occupations handgun qualification is a right of passage for much of military life as well as the police… and of course civilians, hobbyists, and irregulars of all sort take courses, read books, look up manuals, watch YouTube videos… etc. Regarding Handguns and rifles of all sort.

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Who can say the same of the knife? who are the experts on knife fighting?  Who studied the blade?

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Seeing such a practical and mutli-use object one might wonder why I’m being so harsh on the bayonet? Why would I seemingly side with Marshall when I just opened this essay discussing why knives are indeed one of the deadliest weapons on the modern battlefield? Well notice the difference between the words “Knife” and “Bayonet”… For an object like the M9 the distinction might be purely semantic…  What is the difference between an M9 Bayonet and an M9 Knife? Nothing. But What is the difference between a “Spirit of the Bayonet” and a “Spirit of the Knife”?  Everything. The fundamental feature of the Bayonet, the very word, is that it affixes to a rifle, and is made specifically to affix to the specific rifle (there is no such thing as a universal bayonet). A Bayonet is a piece of uniform issued kit for a uniformed military. And the Bayonet’s entire origin and history is tied up with this. It is irreducible from this. If the drill instructor’s cry “Squad Affix Bayonets” cannot be followed by the timed mechanical manipulation of the bayonet… It is no bayonet. Its origin is in the 17th and 18th century with the pinnacle and peak of drilled uniformed line infantry. The bayonet is not to be improvised, concealed, smuggled, plunged into the unsuspecting back, disposed of…

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The Bayonet is a proud uniformed part of a proud uniformed army. One charges the enemy with a bayonet, and as seen from 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and now 21st century battlefields the enemy pretty consistently runs from such charges such that many uproariously successful bayonet charges produce not a single bayonet kill… Rather a good percentage of the time (such as Afghanistan) they have a morale effect on the enemy similar to what the bayonet produces on southern civilians.

The Knife however have been killing for 10s of thousands of years… from battlefields to sacrificial alters, sleeping spouses to ascendant emperors, old women to newborn babes… All have fallen under the merciless indifference of the knife. Fatal knives have been made of stone, glass, wood, bronze, steel, plastic, fiberglass, graphite, and shell. Knives are anything but uniform varying from dozens of inches to under 1 inch, curved in every way imaginable, bladed and unbladed, concealable and disguised or ostentatious, bound and fashioned in every way…

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And yet whereas the removal of the bayonet, or the cutting of bayonet training would bee met with outrage… even removing the bayonet from drill (and thus saving maybe hundreds of thousands of man hours of training over the course of a decade in pure ceremony) would be met with outrage and think-pieces, and great odes to tradition. And yet NO such care, concern, or sentimentality is given to the vastly MORE traditional, historied, and lethal consideration of blades as whole. A 400 year old weapon system is centered in ceremony like no other weapons system save the rifle (there is no Antitank-guided-missile drill) yet the wider topic of the 50,000 year weapon category is quietly ignored. with the Exception of Don Pentcost’s brutal and often hilarious 1988 classic “Put Em Down Take Em Out: Knife Fighting Techniques from Folsom Prison”(ENTRY 6 on the Warlord’s Reading List) Shockingly little interest has been exerted studying the actual world of Knife violence and murder as a combat reality instead of a hypothetical or vehicle for eastern mysticism (or vehicle for the UK nanny state). And that which has been exerted has been largely squandered on Self-Defense from Knives, disarming techniques, and Knife vs. Knife fighting… All of which is largely a mix of fantasy, eastern mysticism, and goofy ww2 era combatives attached more to Hollywood and fictional morality plays completely divorced from how the hundreds of thousands killed by knives every year die bloodily, scared, alone, surprised and begging for their lives… and how their assailants effect their deaths via ruthless unity of action and forsaking of those moral hypocrisies. The problem of course is the reality of real world knife fighting cuts through (I won’t apologize for this pun) many of the moral confusions, hypocrisies, and fairy stories for children, voters, soldiers and officers that define the modern west and discussions of warfare and combat specifically. Indeed, as you will see, breaking these taboos is the essence of effective knife fighting instruction. Any honest discussion of the devastating effectiveness of this ancient technology must break through the Hollywood depiction of Knife fighting which Don Pentecost so aptly attacked in his work.

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Anyone alive has by now been exposed to MMA and UFC and has come to pretty much accept that wide swathes of traditional martial arts and self-defense are bullshit.

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But the central conceit of Martial Arts, the idea that popularized them, the central conceit of every Karate and martial arts movie from the 70s to John Wick… is that via strengthening and training the body in the techniques of a “Real” martial art one can attain a level of mastery which is nigh superhuman, whereby a person vastly lighter, weaker, and shorter of frame and body can defeat a vastly larger and stronger opponent with skill and technique. And… invariably, that via that superior technique, an unarmed person can defeat an armed attacker. Of course gun instructors and others can tell you how deadly stupid basically every martial arts disarms is compared to a gun, where compliance is basically always preferably except in cases where you expect life, liberty or honor are going to be permanently taken from you no matter what you do, and therefore you should risk it. But there are martial arts and knife instructors who only teach disarms… So it is widely believed, assumed, and/or culturally inculcated that knives are different and can be disarmed by sufficient martial arts techniques whereas guns probably cannot be. This is the part of my Lecture where I ask you to use your eyes:

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These are skilled Martial artists. You might object to some specific styles, or that your favorite UFC fighter could take them… But they do impressive stuff in the midst of this. These are fit guys. These aren’t the fat senseis in the strip mall your parents took you to to tell you to do pushups… Yet almost all of them are stabbed more than once per second. many over twice per second. Even the ones who do INSANELY well and even pin the attacker successfully receive stab wounds in the process that would be fatal in real life.  The exact ONE and only round someone arguably survives, he received fatal wounds a split second after the bell rang. And that’s on his Forth and final round, after losing and being killed and refining his technique in the first 3. Just 20 seconds.

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The mythology of modern martial arts, the modern morality play of Hollywood knife fighting, was obvious in the 1980s and spelled out and ruthlessly mocked by Don Pentcost in “Put Em Down, Take Em Out”. That a morally upright, spiritually centered, balanced, trained, disciplined, and merciful unarmed good-guy can- with cool confidence and a reassuring smile- take on a knife wielding opponent unarmed and effectively disarm him, even without hurting the assailant. A bad-guy tough of some failed moral character will brandish a knife at a morally upstanding hero, say or demand something, hold the knife way out in front of him leading with it instead of keeping it close to the body, then the hero will either disarm him, or say something morally upstanding, provoking the attack (in which the attacker will lead even more, and then disarm him… At which point the villain will be shamed in front a girl he was trying to impress or his friends or simply god… And run away. This makes highly marketable TV. Little boys, their minds wired to look for warriors to imitate and desperate for role models, get to admire and latch onto some Hollywood hero for his competence at violence. And no mother will complain about her boy seeing such a toothless morality play philosophy of violence. Likewise no parents will get pissy and take their child out of a martial arts class that teaches such a toothless idea of violence…  The Hollywood executives get their market, the Fat Sensei gets his cut of the family’s sports budget, mom doesn’t have to worry about Junior getting violent ideas or developing any of the honor culture or aggression that has marked every single group of boys actually trained in violence in history… And Junior thinks he’s learning real skills and becoming a man… Until he either gets disillusioned and embarrassed by his childhood Karate lessons if he’s lucky… or doesn’t, and becomes an interracial crime statistic when a thug shouts something obscene at his date and he tries to be a morally upright, spiritually centered, balanced, trained, and disciplined gentleman… You know: like a retard. He might as well try to pull a Micheal Jackson and Jesus the rifle away.

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I’m going to tell you the golden rule of knife fighting right now: A KNIFE FIGHT IS WON BY THE MAN WITH THE KNIFE repeat that into the mirror. Understand every variant of its meaning. Contemplate this. Go through your questions on knife fighting and sub in the golden rule. “What if both men have knives?” A Knife fight is Won By The Man With The Knife. two men with knives facing eachother basically never happens, anymore than high noon quickdraw duels. It is vastly more likely 2 men with knives will attack someone then 2 men with knives will fight eachother. Even when both men have knives one of them will be faster, angrier, have the element of surprise, and be initiating the conflict… And the other will be unaware or caught off guard or struggling to draw the blade. This will be decisive 95% of the time. 2-4 stabs per second is the rate in the vital first second when the defender doesn’t know what’s happening If however two men with knives do fight… 2 stabs per second was the rate for defending martial artists. And it takes a dozens of seconds to bleed out, so both would be screwed if they actually went at it.

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Decades of Technique, martial arts training, military discipline, harsh conditioning, fanatical faith… All of it is ultimately worthless at the moment of conflict in a knife fight compared to nigh-suicidal psychotic will. Many a special forces soldier, black belt martial artist, ancient hero of legend, boxer, bodybuilder, etc. Have died when they were stabbed to death by their psychotic wife or girlfriend who thought they were cheating.  THINK ABOUT THAT. The most advanced training in the world, decades of discipline, years of physical refinement and competition, the pure spiritual certainty of eastern enlightenment or Monotheistic crusader/jihadist faith, the favor or even blood of the gods themselves… Does not consistently defeat a jealous 4’10” girlfriend with a kitchen knife and a psychotic rage.

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This overwhelming, unavoidable logic of knife fighting basically drove the development of swords, since the only defense against a knife is being outside of its range, this has driven since time immemorial the development of longer blades that could out-range each-other, shields to block, and techniques to hack the blades and limbs of your opponents to create openings. If you want to truly “win” a knife vs. knife fight (which again basically never happens) the way you do it is by having a longer better knife that can more easily and more devastatingly strike and disable your opponent’s limbs or body from a range where they cannot strike you.

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This brings up the second point.  Don’t Bring a Knife to a Gunfight. But likewise a Gun is massively disadvantaged in a Knife-fight. If a knife is SUCCESSFULLY out ranged it is not a knife fight and the knife will almost always lose.  Every other weapon ever developed in history exists first and foremost to out-range a knife. If they can do this, they win. HOWEVER If they cannot do this, they lose. Modern police pistol training revolves around this paranoia of knives getting closer than a police officer can draw or employ a pistol.  None of them that I know of teach unarmed knife disarms.

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The oldest continuously read existent texts, works that never needed to be truly rediscovered (older than all but small 4-32 line poems and fragments included in later books of the Bible; and continuously read, unlike lost epics or records such as Gilgamesh or the Egyptian Hieroglyphs) are of course Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.Composed sometime around 800-700bc. And at the center of the Odyssey, “the Greek New Testament” is something rather shocking: A mass casualty terrorist attack. The massacre of 120+ people… 108 Suitors, 12 of Odysseus’s traitorous servant girls, and some number of the suitors personal servants… In a manner that resembles nothing so much as the Virginia tech massacre, right down to the pre-planned barring of doors, and exits, and the removal of weapons or tools that might serve as such.

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4 men: 1 Veteran, 1 Novice Aristocrat, and 2 Slaves… Massacred 120+ people almost entirely BY HAND. Via the use of slightly longer knives and knives on sticks. A ratio over 30 per person evenly split or probably over 60+ for Odysseus if we assume he had to pick up a lot of the slack from these green fighters. Don’t assume this is mythological and can be ignored… Homer’s description of his non-magical fight sequences are highly tactical and gritty detailed, such that many commentators and soldiers since have speculated that he simply HAD to be a veteran to get so many details correct, or to have gotten incredibly detailed input from soldiers. Whilst archeologists have pointed out his accounts do not reflect 11th century bronze age warfare that predominated at the time of the historical Troy (Homer doesn’t understand how chariots archers work)… They agree he REALLY understands how warfare worked in the 8th century Iron Age when he was composing the Iliad and Odyssey.

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Mass stabbings are shockingly common… Indeed one gets the impression that they are profoundly under-reported in the west due to the political battle surrounding mass shootings and gun control. The dramatic thing about them however is how dramatically fat the tails of the distributions are. Given a weapon with effectively “infinite ammo” one can immediately see the effects of will, fanaticism, ideology, clarity of malice, and the contrasting lack there of. Many of the attacks are plainly pathetic and you can see the attacker’s hesitation and lack of focus with 3-10 injured and none killed, almost certainly mental illness related… With others you can see the premeditated malice. The Chinese in particular seem to produce people who can produce knife deaths that dwarf most US mass shootings… This may be due to the population, something about the Chinese condition producing more ideological extremism, or simply Chinese culinary practices producing vastly more people experienced with turning living creatures into severed meat… However this is not the upper limit of knife violence.

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Of course the deadliest mass blade attack in history was the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 were slaughtered within 100 days by Hutu “Extremists”… Who I feel the need to air-quote not because their actions weren’t extreme, but because if they managed to amass the manpower to kill 800,000 people in a country of 8 million at the time… They can’t have been that non-representative of the Hutu Population… They might have indeed been “Hutu-Centrists”. 10% of the Pre-war Rwandan population, killed in 100 days. 8,000 per day. Each day the equivalent of a major battle in antiquity. If we assumed one murder per man, that’d be 20-25% of all surviving men in Rwanda having killed someone… however of course, we can safely assume most of the militias were killing vastly more than 1 per member.

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They didn’t need basic training… They didn’t need mental conditioning… they didn’t need technique or martial arts classes… They didn’t even really need a coherent chain of command, many were directed by AM/FM radio. This is simply what hominids are adapted for as the most basic form of violence and warfare. You can see little boys discovering sticks or pool noodles, without being shown anything, will intuitively start sword fighting and feel compelled to practice these exact muscle movements the same way kittens and puppies and other carnivorous animals will intuitively chase each-other and wrestle when they’re young. Now think of your ethnic rivals in your own country… would they do this to you and your people given simply the right spark and direction? Would your people do this to them?

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The knife as a weapon at the strategic and tactical level exists to create and exploit extreme differences in will. EVERYONE has knives, the vast majority reading this could, if they were possessed with sudden life or death urgency and clarity of purpose, dive out of their seat (send their laptop or device flying) and grab a knife from within arm’s reach or run and grab one from the next room over in less time than it takes to finish this sentence. Those who do not have a knife near them could very quickly fashion one by smashing a window, or their device, wrapping their hand around an article of clothing or torn cloth, and grasping one of the shards.

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Probably the greatest tactical espionage operation that has ever or will ever be carried out, in human history, was John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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When Mrs. Lincoln’s scream upon realizing her husband’s state broke the confusion… Booth was already mere steps from his exit. Countless men and officers, many otherwise very daring heroes who’d charged positions and engaged in hard fighting, were later distraught and commented despairingly that they had had loaded weapons on their person and an extraordinary amount of time to shoot Booth, yet had done nothing.

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Now really CONTEMPLATE this: John Wilkes Booth was an actor with no combat experience. He was assassinating maybe the most important man in the world, right next to a skilled and veteran infantry officer, in a room with dozens upon dozens of veteran officers and soldiers, in a militarized city with THOUSANDS of officers and soldiers… Controlled choke-points at the bridges of the city… And not only did he succeed, not only did he successfully get away, not only did he avoid being shot or even drawn upon… but he did all of that whilst arranging to also get center stage, make his statement, and take the equivalent of a theatrical bow after just making himself the most wanted man on earth. A veteran Delta Force Officer with 20 years combat experience could not do this… Yet Booth was not an elite veteran, he was untrained civilian thespian.

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“Sic Semper Tyrannis” is of course an ancient phrase in Roman history sometimes attributed to Brutus’ ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus who overthrew the last Roman King and established the republic, but was more famously invoked by the descendant who assassinated Caesar. Unlike Dante, early Americans admired Brutus and Casius, and the phrase was commonly used by almost every faction of American life, the founders, George Mason saw it included in the Flag of Virginia, in the lead up to and during the civil war it was used by both Southerners and Abolitionists, and since it has had a storied history… Timothy McViegh was arrested with the phrase emblazoned on his T-Shirt. But of course it is most associated with the Assassination of Julius Caesar, the most staged and restaged assassination in history. Booth himself played Mark Antony in a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (ironically playing not an assassin but the aggrieved friend and avenger). However these bottomless layers of theatricality and symbolism can miss the base fact of the Assassination itself… The original assassination was an act of theatre itself.

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As we’ve covered pens, shivs, kitchen knives, dining implements, and sharpened toothbrushes have all been used to kill within the past 10 years…. A knife can be formed from just about anything, But the social meaning of these knives can be just as important… The 9/11 Hijackers (if you believe the official story) were able to hijack the planes with box cutters which were not restricted at the time. By contrast the 1960 Assassination of Inejirō Asanuma by Otoya Yamaguchi, the chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party was done with a Wakizashi a tradditional Japanese Short Sword… Chosen specifically to communicate the idea of tradditional Japanese cutting down the communist threat to Japan.

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That man’s most ancient and fearful weapon is also man’s most basic and useful tool ensures that such confusions, manipulations, and creations of meaning are inevitable. the same blade with which an ancient mother might cut the umbilical chord, or prepare a family meal, might also be used to murder the father or perform the sacrifice.

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The best defense against a knife attack is anticipating it and avoiding it. A knife is a zero range weapon. Even if you are in a country which doesn’t allow you to carry a gun, simply anticipating, avoiding, and running is enough to avoid random knife violence. Thugs don’t like to chase their marks if they weren’t lazy, they’d get jobs instead. By contrast if you think someone might try to stab you, go armed, move through space paranoidly, choose clothing that provides protection from knife attack, secure your home, apply bolts, hide out in your vehicle… secure your phone where you can’t be tracked by it. Etc. It would be the height of Hollywood folly to train for a handgun fight expecting to stand and shoot your opponent’s bullets out of the air. Even quickdraw duels are largely fantasy. Gunfights are decided by who gets their weapon trained on the other man first, who has the element of surprise. The one initiating the gun fight almost always has his weapon drawn, ready, and knows where his opponent is before his opponent even knows there will be danger.

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Knives are the exact same. Sure there might be a scenario where a guy out with his girlfriend ever so cleverly starts removing his jacket, getting it over one arm and then when threatened with a knife. ever so cleverly smashes a window with the protected hand and comes back with a shard of glass of his own… There are a million one of tricks that might work in a million fantasy scenarios… But it doesn’t change the fact that your odds of survival, once you are unarmed and someone is at hand with a knife, are pretty-much as bad as the man held up by a gun. If you don’t have an equivalent weapon of your own at hand immediately, the odds are wildly deathly against you, and even if you do the odds are extremely against you because your opponent controls the engagement. Unless you are heavier, stronger, more aggressive, and get a blade of your own as fast as possible, your will get horribly injured. The only time I have EVER seen an unarmed man defeat an armed man, the unarmed man was twice his weight the armed man seemed exhausted from drugs, and he still got a dozen attempted stabs that could have been devastating. Also the races were exactly the races you’d think could be that wildly different in skill. The Hollywood fantasy of heroically coming away unscathed after winning a violent encounter that impresses your girl is just that… a fantasy.  It appeals to you because you’re a loser who’s alienated from any sense that you have a right to commit violence, and so simply impressing a girl by bullying a guy at a bar or threatening a homeless person who looks at her funny (which would actually get her going though she’d never admit it) has been drilled out of you by your teachers and Hollywood. . The reality is that any meaningful defensive knife fighting… Is OFFENSIVE KNIFE FIGHTING.

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Per Don Pentcost, the most efficient and hard to block way to attack someone with a knife, the way prisoners themselves really have never developed a counter to, is to hold your primary knife hand back close to your body like a spear whilst holding your blocking hand forward like a shield… Similarly to how a boxer leads with his non-dominant hand, holding his dominant hand back. Then the attacker alternates between jabbing with the forward hand to distract, block, and bind up the opponent, then stabbing for the body with the primary knife hand while they’re unable to defend themselves. Repeat 2-4 times per second, be aggressive.

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Of course this is far from comprehensive… There’s tons of stuff to do with stab-vests and knife resistant clothing, riot control, and once you get up to longer blades with more reach technique comes back into the matter as the longer blades employ various tricks to overcome shorter blades. Again this was warfare right up to the 1600s… People have iterated a LOT on how to hack each-other to pieces. But I hope you have seen what I wanted to emphasize.

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And yet even as knives and shivs alter history, define prison life, define crime and non-state and irregular warfare in much of Europe and Asia… And remain historically the most relevant and important weapons to maybe ever exist… Conventional militaries teach little except incredibly antiquated bayonet drills, and the popular conception and understanding of knife fighting is driven by Hollywood morality tales and crappy self-defense course lies.

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So, this was based on this post @coffelna made where I said it’s unlikely based on canon and also wouldn’t make sense for him to learn on the run. This is absolutely not meant to be something condescending, just a the well-meant opening of a discussion on whether or not Neil is good at close range combat fighting.

It’s pretty long so I’ve divided into three parts (still the same post) with the first one analysing canon evidence, the second theorising on what he learned on the run and the third about his training in Baltimore

Disclaimer: I can’t fight. I don’t know how to fight, never learnt how to other than the basics of boxing during PE—I never even fought physically with my sibling. I don’t know how to fight other than the research I did a while ago when I fell into a rabbit hole of sword fighting and other forms of close combat. I also don’t know anything about guns (possibly even less than about hand to hand). So if any experts who do know more than me have any critique to give I’m more than willing to listen & talk

Disclaimer #2: this is biassed. I am writing this kind of from a biassed perspective in that I love that Neil can’t fight. I think it’s hilarious that he’ll mouth someone off only to then have to hightail it out of there to avoid getting hit. I think it’s essential to his character arc that he can’t fight, for very literary reasons and stuff that I’m not here to explain right now (he learns to fight from Matt after he starts caring about the other Foxes → learning to fight so you can defend what you care about. yeah. I just. Love. It), but yeah, I am speaking from a biassed pov, which may cause some tunnel-vision arguments, though I try not to let that influence my arguments too much.

Disclaimer #3: if you want to imagine Neil as a god of knife/fist fighting please do so. If that’s what’s fun for you, then that’s amazing and I’m not here to bash on that. I’m not calling you delusional nor should you think that your ideas of Neil fighting are invalid because they’re not canon, or because can’t I find any reason for him to be good at close combat. This stuff is fiction, and you’re the one who imagines it for yourself. Having said that, don’t bash on me for my preferences

The purpose of this research post is to be helpful, more importantly educational. I certainly don’t condone the use of this knowledge for malevolent reasons. I want to help writers with their stories and I figured this would make their search for such information easier.

This is great for the stories that take place in ancient times, apocalyptic setting, and/or contain characters that are blacksmiths, bladesmiths, survivalist, etc. This information would help to make them believable. For example, what if they are teaching another character how to make a knife? Or how to defend against an attacker with a knife? Or how to treat a knife wound?

This post is meant to make a writer’s life a little easier by giving them a starting point. It doesn’t contain EVERY information about knives, but if you know what you’re looking for than I encourage you to look it up.

How To Make A Knife

WikiHow - How to Make a Knife

Mother Earth News - How to Make a Hunting Knife

Mother Earth News - How to Design and Build a Knife

The Crucible - 9 Steps to Forging a Knife: Everything You Need to Know

Begin To Blacksmith - Beginners Guide to Forging a Survival Knife | Blacksmithing Basics

Internet Archive - The art of blacksmithing by Alex Bealer

Reddit: Blacksmithing - Writer, not a blacksmith. I need to know how long it takes to learn basic blacksmithing and how much iron is needed to equip a smithy.

Krudo Knives - How to Build Your Own Forge | DIY Knife Forge Tips & Advice

Reddit: History - How long did it take to forge weapons back in colonial times? Or even swords in the medieval age?

Survival Mastery - How to Make A Knife: DIY Instructions on 3 Different Types of Knives

Reddit: History - How did people sharpen knives in ancient and medieval periods?

Brown County Forge - How to Make a Bushcraft Knife

DIY Blacksmithing - Make Your Own Bushcraft Knife

Sensible Survival - How to Make a Primitive Stone Flake Knife

Youtube - Wannabe Bushcrafter: Primitive Slate Knife (video)

Bushcraft Days - How To…. Make and Use a Simple Flint Knife

Primitive Ways - Hoko Knife

Alderleaf Wilderness College - Knife Making Course

Alderleaf Wilderness College - Survival Stone Tools Class

Gone Outdoors - How to Make a Knife in the Wild

Reddit: Blacksmithing - Update report: First knife using DIY soup can forge

Youtube - Neels Van Den Berg: Forging a Knife - Full Process Explained in detail (video)

Outdoor Life Magazine - Survival Skills: How to Make Knives from Rocks

Popular Mechanics - How to Make a Survival Knife Out of Stuff You Already Have in Your Garage

Youtube - Korea's best handmade knife master. Knife making process (video)

Modern Survival - How to Make a Primitive Bone Knife

Bushcraft Days - How To….Primitive Skills – Bone Knife/Bodkin

OffTheGridNews - How To Make A Survival Knife You’ll Brag About For Years (Part 1)

OffTheGridNews - How To Make A Survival Knife You’ll Brag About For Years (Part 2)

Instructables - How to Make a Knife

Instructables - Making a Survival Knife Out of a 16'' Saw Blade

Survival Sullivan - How to Make Your Own Knife

Mother Earth News - From File To Knife: Make a Bushcraft Knife Using Simple Tools

Youtube - Primitive Life: Make knife from iron (video)

Mother Earth News - The Make-It-Yourself Copperhead Survival Knife

Art of Manliness - How to Make a Knife from an Old Saw Blade

Survival After End - How to Make a Knife in the Wild (Build Stone Blade for Survival Situation)

Reddit: DIY - The "dirt cheap" (literally) guide to forging a knife

Reddit: DIY - Full process of making a knife from scratch

Reddit: I Want To Learn - IWTL how to make a knife by hand

Youtube - Hunt Primitive: How to Make and Use a Stone Knife (video)

Survivopedia - Survival Weapons: DIY Knives For Off-Grid Survival

Archaeology Southwest - Hands-On Archaeology: How to Haft a Stone Knife, Dart Point, or Arrow Point

WikiHow - How to Make a Knife Sheath

Art of Manliness - How to Make a Sheath for a Knife (Or Anything Else)

Craftsman Ave. - Forge a Survival Knife (Introduction to Knifesmithing)

Youtube - Making a Primitive Elk Bone Knife (video)

Primitive Ways - A Cutting Edge: Creating a Steel Blade in a Primitive Setting

Primitive Ways - Making a Leather Knife Sheath

Primitive Ways - Deer Hide Knife Sheath

Survival Resources - Making A Leather Knife Sheath

Sensible Survival - Make a Rawhide Knife Sheath – Part 1

Mother Earth News - Birch Bark Knife Sheath

Primitive Ways - Antler Handle Knife

Gone Outdoors - How to Make a Knife Handle Out of Deer Bones

Alderleaf Wilderness College - How to Sharpen a Knife

WikiHow - 3 Ways to Sharpen a Knife

Mother Earth News - How to Sharpen a Knife

Gone Outdoors - How to Use a Brick to Sharpen a Knife

How To Use A Knife

WikiHow - How to Become Good at Knife Fighting

WikiHow - How to Defend Against a Knife Attack

Survival Junkies - How to Use a Knife for Self-Defense | Knife Handling Guide

Youtube - USCCA (U.S. Concealed Carry Association): Basic Knife-Fighting Techniques: Into the Fray Episode 168 (video)

Black Belt Magazine - What You Need to Know to Realistically Use and Defend Against a Blade

Writer’s Digest - FightWrite™: Knife Fights, Part 1

Writer’s Digest - FightWrite™: Knife Fights, Part 2

Recoil Magazine - Solitary Knife Fighting

Urban Fit & Fearless - Self-defence against knife attacks: evidence-based approach, part 1

Urban Fit & Fearless - Self-defence against knife attacks: surviving a knife attack , part 2

Outdoor Life Magazine - 8 Different Ways to use a Survival Knife in an Emergency

Popular Science - Eight survival knife skills you might need in an emergency

Field & Stream - 8 Ways to Use a Bushcraft Knife to Survive in the Wild

Gone Outdoors - How to Hunt Deer With a Knife

Youtube - Hunt Primitive: Skinning a Deer with a Stone Knife (video)

Instructables - How to Split Firewood...With a Knife

Art of Manliness - 5 Critical Knife Skills for the Outdoorsman

Off Grid World - Top 10 Uses For A Survival Knife

Gear Junkie - How To Make Firewood With A Survival Knife

Backpacker Magazine - Survival: In The Wild with…Only a Knife

The American Mountain Men - A Basic Manual on Knife Throwing by J. B. Wood

How To Treat A Knife Wound

Reddit: Ask Reddit - What does it feel like to be stabbed?

The Crime Fiction Writer's Blog - Stab Wounds Don’t Always Kill

Redwood’s Medical Edge - Author Question: Surviving Stab Wounds to the Abdomen

Reddit: Writing - Dramatic, but non-lethal places to get stabbed/shot?

Reddit: Ask Paramedics - Writer looking for advice, stab wound first aid.

Scout Life Magazine - How to treat a knife cut

Primal Survivor - How to Treat a Knife Wound When You Can’t Call 911

Scouting Magazine - How to bandage an accidental pocketknife wound

First Aid For Life - How to help someone who has been stabbed or is seriously bleeding

The Survival Doctor - How to Treat a Wound in a Survival Situation

Backpacker Magazine - Treat Deep Wounds

Western Hunter - Knife Safety and Emergency Wound Care

Recoil OffGrid Magazine - Plug ‘Em Up: Puncture Wound First Aid

WikiHow - How to Attend to a Stab Wound

SHTFandGO - Simple Emergency First-Aid: How to Treat a Stab Wound

Youtube - AmericanSafetyEMT: Knife Wound First Aid (video)

Worst-Case Scenario - How To Treat A Knife Wound

The Prepared - How to clean a wound

Art of Manliness - How to Treat an Impalement Wound

Survivalist Prepper - Prepper First Aid: Trauma and Large SHTF Injuries (audio)

Reddit: Ask Historian - How likely was a Roman soldier to survive being wounded in battle?

scene in question

You don't have to be an expert Martial artist or incredible gunfighter to take this lesson to heart. This simple self defense tactic, when put to good use, could save your life and others should the time arise and I love that it was demonstrated to some extent at least, in TBB. This was the first lesson I was taught when I got my first knife. More protection since I walked everywhere as an angsty teen(now angsty adult).

The Twenty-One Foot Rule means that it takes only 1.7 seconds for someone armed with a knife to cover 21 feet from a dead stop. This leaves the person with the gun only about two seconds to unholster their gun, raise it, find a line of sight and finally fire on their assailant who has the knife. Typically, at that range, it's nearly impossible,no matter the skill, rank and expertise, for the gunman(Fennec) to land a definite shot on the knife wielder. Making the person with the knife(Hunter) have the advantage.