its paid sponsors, whose products you need!
“Stay ‘unreasonable.’ If you
don’t like the solutions [available to you], come up with your
own.”
Dan Webre
The Martialist does not
constitute legal advice. It is for ENTERTAINMENT
PURPOSES ONLY.
Copyright © 2003-2004 Phil Elmore, all rights
reserved.
RENOTT Western Knife Fighting Book/Video
A Review by Phil Elmore
RENOTT Training
and Supplies is an Ohio-based school dedicated solely to Western knife fighting. RENOTT’s Western Knife Fighting video and its companion book
were previously available online, but as of this writing can only be purchased
by calling RENOTT directly.. Both the
book and the video are intended to supplement RENOTT’s hands-on training course on the
topic.
I’ll start with the video. The tape, about three quarters of an hour in
length, begins with several inspirational quotes. No graphic editor was
used for the text portion of the video. Instead, a camera was pointed at
hardcopies of the text. At times the camera shakes.
Mike Ruppert, head of RENOTT, introduces himself and jumps right into the material as the tape
begins in earnest. Production values are generally poor, though the video
clarity isn’t too bad. Some sort of cloth backdrop is used behind the
instructors. I found it ugly and distracting. The lighting is good,
however, and unlike some instructional videos I’ve seen, I can actually tell
what Mike looks like. The camera zooms in when necessary and pans back
when preferred, avoiding those one-long-take-on-a-tripod static recordings that
constitute some tapes.
Also distracting — and much more of a problem — is the audio. While
the sound fades out near the beginning of the tape, audio technicalities aren’t
generally a problem. What is a problem is that Mike is, quite
literally, yelling almost the entire time he is on screen. Viewers
may find this as irritating as I did.
Incidentally, the tape comes with a paper hand-out on which is typed both an
outline for the tape contents (a very nice feature, particularly handy for doing
a review of the cassette) and a diagram of cutting angles. I don’t believe
I’ve ever purchased a tape before that came with such an outline, and this
little addition was quite welcome.
Mike says, early on, “As far as I know we’re the only club in Southern
Ohio that knows true pressure points.” He says RENOTT is affiliated
with George Dillman. This type of
statement sets the tone for much of the video, as Mike says things like,
“I’m an expert strangler and have in fact choked about 12 men out in real
street fights.” More than once he mentions Filipino stylists and
Ninjutsu practitioners to describe their shortcomings. (For example, on using
the “palming” technique to defeat the “Oriental”
knife-fighting reverse-grip style he demonstrates on the tape, Mike says,
“I personally have done that to many… Ninja Students.”). And
there are several unnamed knife instructors of whose teaching Mike does not
approve, including those from a “California company” and a
“plastic-handled Spyderco instructor off the West coast.”
Mike begins by explaining the difference between what he calls the full saber
(thumb on top of the handle) and quarter-saber (thumb on the side of the handle)
grips. I prefer that modification of the saber grip myself, when not using
a reverse or hammer grip, so Mike and I are in agreement there. However,
Mike goes on to say that that in RENOTT’s tests, the failure rate of a
“Filipino” thumb-on-top grip “to cut simple rope” is
unacceptably high — rendering those unnamed Filipino stylists incredibly
vulnerable to attacks by gangs of hanging rope, one presumes.
Mr. Ruppert advocates carrying only “tip-down” folding knives to
avoid the thumb-stabs only too possible with “tip-up” clip carry.
Again, he and I are in agreement. I prefer tip-down, though I don’t feel
so strongly about it that I don’t own and carry tip-up knives.
A demonstration of three different knife opening methods follows. One
can use the thumb hole or stud provided with one’s knife, Mike admits, but he
considers this method “slow and ridiculous.” I’m not sure why a
knife designed to be opened in this manner shouldn’t be opened in this
manner, as a tight wrist snap is all that is necessary to make it as fast as
anyone could possibly need it to be, but Mike is very adamant on this point.
He demonstrates the “blade push open,” in which the finger pushes
against the blade itself for better leverage (Mike has fitted the blades of his
knives with friction tape for this purpose) before executing a wrist snap.
This is a useful opening to know, but I consider any opening that involves
pushing against the flat of the blade to be inherently unsafe. Finally,
Mike demonstrates the “New York” opening, a handle-drop technique
involving holding the flat of the blade while snapping the handle down.
Mike emphasizes
knife sharpening heavily, telling the viewer that any knife fighting school that doesn’t
teach you to sharpen a knife is not doing you justice. He demonstrates the
sharpness of a RENOTT blade by cutting newsprint several times — and by shaving
hair from his arms. (Mike has what Thomas Harris called knife fighter’s
mange — patches of baldness in his arm hair.)
The hair-shaving, newsprint-cutting demonstration is followed by a detailed
explanation of how to safely close a rocker-bar locking folder with one hand.
There is also a good discussion of how to safely hand off a knife to someone
else. These are worthwhile techniques as shown, and among the few segments
of the cassette that I really enjoyed.
Mike goes on at length about his preference for the reverse grip over the
forward grip. I’ve never worried to much about this one way or another,
other than to dismiss those who tell you you must hold a knife a certain
way. Why eliminate valuable tools from your toolbox?
The “New York” open previously described appears to be the
foundation for RENOTT’s knife defense, in that it is presented as the fastest
way to open and attack with a knife. No repositioning of the hand is done
(unless there is “time” for that). Rather, the RENOTT trainee
opens his or her knife with the handle drop, and then, gripping the razor-sharp
blade with his or her fingers, slashes with the exposed one or two inches of the
knife. The companion text describes this as follows:
How to execute the New York Open from a pocket draw. The only type of knife
that should be carried is a blade-down clip-knife. The high profile blade
(blade sticks up above the handle for gripping — a hole is not needed at all
for opening) is gripped with the thumb pointed down to the tip and the index
finger bent 180 degrees on the blade so it is pointed to the tang. Remove
knife from pocket and keep the last three fingers of the hand off the handle.
The knife will not drop out of your hand just because you hold it by the
blade. Raise the butt of the knife from vertical in the pocket to horizontal
with the ground or even higher.Keep the forearm steady and drop the wrist sharply into the body at a 30-45
degree angle. The handle will open and lock into place. If you drop the wrist
straight down the handle will hit the palm and fail to lock. …AFTER the
knife opens fully you can wrap the last three fingers of your hand around the
handle. You cannot cut yourself with this grip. Your three fingers are locked
onto the handle and your thumb and index finger are on the side of the blade
away from the edge. You lose half of the blade length with a NY open…
This technique strikes me as quite unsafe, anchored fingers
notwithstanding. If my knife is sharpened to RENOTT’s razor standards, I
can’t imagine wanting to hold it by the blade (even with two fingers) and
execute slashes against resistance (clothing, muscle, skin with bone beneath it,
etc.) in this manner. Additionally — a point made to me by
Don
Rearic in conversation — I think opening a knife this way under stress
would cause the user to drop it as often as not.
With practice it’s very easy
to draw your knife by the handle and quickly snap it open as it was meant to be
opened. The RENOTT NY Open is useful to know, but teaching it as preferable
sounds to me like a solution to a non-problem.
There is a lengthy section on the tape devoted to the RENOTT ready stance, in
which the knife is held down behind the leg and the free hand is held vertically
to protect the head, neck, and torso. I don’t know as I would deliberately
hold my knife quite so far out of action as Mike does here, and I think the off
arm should remain fluid and be used for grabbing and trapping where applicable,
rather than worrying too much about precisely where it is.
Perhaps the most (unintentionally) amusing segment of the tape comes when
Mike demonstrates a carotid artery choke on himself. (To me, he appears to
be grabbing his throat too low to be choking the carotid arteries, but I could
be mistaken.) He literally starts coughing after choking himself
too hard. Kids, don’t try this at home.
The next segment covers how to execute leg cuts. It is followed by a
demonstration of the New York open followed by a “#1” angled cut.
These look to me to be giant, almost looping, 45° slashes. Mike
demonstrates them from the ready position. I don’t presume to consider
myself a knife fighting expert, but these really seem inadvisable to me.
Over-committing one’s strikes in arcs that look this large is just begging for
the opponent to get within the arc and neutralize the attack, in my opinion.
Mike goes on to discuss moving from a New York open forward grip to his
preferred reverse grip. He also spends some time discussing large knife
fighting (another RENOTT course) and the purpose of blade guards (quillons).
Mike’s demonstration of the “inverted V” cut with the reverse grip
appears to me to suffer from the same large, overcommitted strikes as does his
previous slashing demonstration, as near as I can tell. It’s not clear to
me what he’s targeting, either, though he says it could be the neck or the arm.
It’s a big, full-body motion that I just can’t recommend in good conscience.
The discussion to which I previously referred, in which Mike talks about
using the “palming” technique to defeat an Oriental, reverse-grip
linear attack, is next. Repeatedly on the tape, when Mike says that
“Filipino students [do this],” or “Ninja students [do
that],” I just couldn’t help but be put off. Without naming precisely
whose students these are, and where, it seems inadvisable to me for anyone to
generalize in this fashion. And without knowing to whom Mike is referring,
there’s no way to know if his knowledge of the systems he is criticizing is
accurate or not. I’m quite sure he is stating the truth as he sees it, but
I wish there was some way more easily to analyze the validity of these
assertions.
A demonstration of the reverse grip against left- and right-handed attackers
is followed by free-hanging rope cuts and balloon cuts timed with an electronic
timer. I enjoyed these sections of the tape more than the others, because
they feature Mike’s assistant instructor. He speaks in a normal tone of
voice and seems much less agitated, unlike Mike’s more animated, louder
instruction.
The last segment of the tape compares and contrasts draw cuts (pulling
through the cut), chop cuts (hacking with the edge), and thrusting (pushing
through the target). Mike asserts, in the tape and in the companion book,
that cutting is far superior to thrusting with blades under five to six inches
in length. This, to me, seems very questionable. It is equivalent to
saying that a thrust from a Buck 110 can’t hope to equal the offensive power of
a slash from the same blade. Generalizations of this type — again, akin
to eliminating valuable tools from your toolbox — simply do not help one in the
pursuit of self-defense.
Mike’s assistant begins to wrap up the tape at one point, at which Mike
interrupts by shouting out a few more technique tips. The tape finally
ends when the assistant again closes the instruction and walks off camera.
The companion text, Basic Defensive Knife Techniques Course, is a
photocopy job bound with plastic spiral binding. It contains considerably
more detail than the video, much of it in expanded outline format. Lengthy
lists of credentials for Mike Ruppert and Robert Walko are included, as are
RENOTT’s training rules.
There’s plenty of worth in the book, though the outline format is a bit
fragmented and not very enjoyable to read. Everything from knife
construction and nomenclature to legal concerns is presented. There are
sections on knife grips, opening and closing techniques, carry methods, and the
pros and cons of various grips and techniques.
One section on “knife myths” again reiterates Mike’s disdain for
stabbing when compared to cutting. It also includes a discussion that I
did not mention from the tape, involving placing one’s back to a wall.
Mike claims, on the tape, that this is advantageous, and that “all
animals” either “crouch down” or put their backs “to a
wall” when confronted because this is the best way to prevent an attack
from behind. As the book states:
ALL animals put their backs into a hole or to a wall when fighting
desperate fights. The animals are right and the moron combat instructors
are wrong.
There is also a list of recommended movies and books. The list includes
a curious mixture of texts, from the excellent books by
John
Clements on swordsmanship to the mediocre Prison’s Bloody Iron.
Techniques demonstrated on the video are covered in detail in the text,
with references to a full-color section of copied photos that appear at the back
of the book. (Detailed explanations for the photos are included in a
separate section.) Though they appear crudely copied, a welcome addition
is the inclusion of relevant newspaper and magazine articles (used with
permission), including an excerpt from the captivating
Ayoob
Files: The Book.
I would most certainly not recommend buying the book by itself, though the
video can stand without the companion book. Ultimately, however, I can’t
recommend either one (though the video from RENOTT is relatively inexpensive by
the standard of other instructional videos on the market). There’s
material of real worth here, but it is mixed with assertions with which I simply
cannot agree. This, in conjunction with the… irritating… nature of the
presentation’s audio, makes RENOTT’s Western Knife Fighting video less than
satisfactory.
Save your money.