Watch Out for the Pointy End: Knife Defence Manual to Assist in Training Citizens, Law Enforcement and Security Personnel

This book is a manual for the Knife Defence Course I taught at the Alberta Peace Officer's 2017 Annual Convention. It covers everything taught at that seminar and more.

This is a very systematic layered training. I want to be clear for those buying this book that to make this approach to knife defence successful you have to work through the book from start to finish doing each of the drills until you gain the principles and skills intended from them. I think some look ahead and try what they see as a "technique" and they are shocked that it does not work well. Without doing the drills they won't have the underlying principles required to make that "technique" work. I would ask that before judging the effectiveness of the book please take the time to work through it.

This is a system of counter assault. And while in this book it is presented to use against an assault with a knife this approach works against any sudden assault be that empty handed or with a stick or bat. The reason is that this system offers a tactical habit where the que is the assault, and the response is the approach trained in this book. For sudden assaults you can only have one response. There is no time to choose from options. If there is distance and time, then you have options but for a sudden assault you can only have one tactical habit trained into you.

Most knife attacks are knifings, which means they are sudden and start up close and personal. Knifings are most often done with one arm trying to control you as the other weapon arm stabs in short repetitive strikes like a sewing machine. That is the assault we must prepare for. But just as when learning to hit a baseball we do not start hitting the major-league pitcher's 90 miles per hour fast ball we must start with easier attacks building the foundation, principles and skills to handle that fast ball. This book presents a system that builds toward the end goal of being able to defend yourself against a sudden all out brutal up-close assault. It will outline how your tactics must match your strategy to achieve your goal of survival. Two sets of tactics will be provided based on the four strategies for survival: Escape, Distance and deploy/grab a weapon, disable, and control. The way to use this book is to read and work through the drills beginning with assaults from a step away, then within arm's reach, then one foot away and finally the brutal sewing machine strike attacks. The system offers techniques and ways to deal with the assaults but within those techniques are the underlying principles that make them work. Retain these and you increase your chances of survival.