The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

“Stay ‘unreasonable.’  If you
don’t like the solutions [available to you], come up with your
own.” 
Dan Webre

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Copyright © 2003-2004 Phil Elmore, all rights
reserved.

Ten Days to Better Knife Fighting

A Book Review by Phil Elmore

Keith Pascal’s
10 Days
to Better Knife Fighting, which I received in
PDF e-book form, is an impressive stack of paper.  Weighing in at 200
pages (though, to be fair, Keith likes to use a lot of white space to
emphasize passages), the book is a drill-focused training curriculum. 
Keith states that it “will help you improve your knife fighting skills, so
that you will be able to defend yourself in almost any clash of blades. 
Guaranteed.”

That’s a claim that takes guts to make.  I’m not about
to theorize whether the book’s contents – or any book’s contents – can
guarantee a given level of success in fighting with an edged weapon. 
What I can do, though, is offer a concise and objective look at what
Keith’s book contains.

From the outset, Keith tells the reader to “run away quickly
from any book that advises you to block and then counter.”  He points out
that students depicted in his book’s photos are checking, not blocking. 
Checks, by definition, don’t maintain contact (according to Keith) “long
enough for your opponent to cut” the checking arm.

Keith writes clearly in a style that is easy to absorb. 
As an instructor he obviously takes a didactic, perhaps pedantic tone (your
perception will vary based on your level of experience).  Breaking the
text up into small, easily read paragraphs, he sprinkles the text liberally
with photographs (some of which are really interesting and have a truly
artistic bent).

“I am not teaching you how to instigate a fight,” Keith
writes.  “You are into self-defense – it just so happens that every one
of your responses cuts.”

As the title implies, the book is divided into ten sections,
each intended as the training program for that day’s session.  In Day
One, Keith explains the importance of cutting with your first movement to deal
with a knife.  He describes an imaginary bubble around the body,
penetration of which prompts an intercepting cut.  In the drills
outlined, training partners work together exchanging techniques, moving back
and forth to trade attacking and defending roles.

Keith also explains the use of the hand check “for safety,”
in order to stop the opponent’s knife arm from continuing its path to your
center after you cut it.

By definition, these drills involve using a knife to
defend against a knife – a “clash of blades” that can be construed as
reinforcing an unrealistic “dueling” approach.  Keith commented on this
in e-mail to me, saying that he thought he’d stated clearly that this was
reciprocal training and not dueling.

In Day Two, Keith elaborates on Day One’s drill.  He
wants you to keep your hands in front of your body to shorten strike time. 
He warns against cradling or chambering the knife arm and runs through using
the knife – both the blade and the spine on a single-edged knife – to stop an
incoming strike.

Day Three is devoted to fighting to the outside of the
attacker’s body, to his blind side.  As a
Wing Chun
practitioner and knife exponent I prefer these methods to fighting to the more
dangerous inside.  Day Four, though, follows up with fighting to the
inside – which Keith admits is something at which many martial artists cringe. 
Nonetheless, he jumps right in, describing partner drills for this aspect of
knife-on-knife defense.  He also describes a drill in which the attacker
feeds successive attacks with knives held in both hands.

The book is dotted with little tips and extra segments, such
as an “eye fake” that makes “a killer knife tactic” and various “super
practice” sessions for each day’s work.  There are notes, too, through
which Keith alerts the reader to specific points, and even some martial arts
“quotes to ponder.”

At the halfway mark, Keith reflects on the first five
sessions.  “In the last five days,” he says, “you have been exposed to a
large variety of exercise.  Some will be new to even the most seasoned
knife fighters.  How do I know?  I invented some of them.”  He
then moves on to Day Six, the drills for which focus on developing reactive
speed.  Redirecting an incoming knife is also covered.

Day Seven’s exercises involve range – entering another’s
offensive range and the dangers of “duking it out.”  Day Eight is a brief
treatise on knife throwing (to end a fight, to intercept an approaching
attacker, or to distract, Keith explains).  Following up throws or drops
with unarmed strikes is illustrated and discussed.

At the Day Nine mark, Keith suggests using colored markers
for partnered sparring with “knives,” including role playing for marked (and
therefore disabled) limbs.  In the Day Ten section, he devotes more time
to kicking and punching in conjunction with knife defense, “using whatever it
takes.”

Concluding Day Ten, Keith writes that 10 Days to Better
Knife Fighting “could serve as a complete system” for the beginner. 
He hopes the more experienced will also pick up useful drills or insights from
it.  “I am not trying to change you,” he explains.  “I do hope you
find something that helps you to further refine and define your personal knife
fighting style.”

My e-book was accompanied by a bonus treatment of Slicing
Checks and Blocks and a text on Circle Stabbing for Fast Improvement.  You can find a link to purchase
10 Days to Better Knife Fighting
on
this page.

Few subjects are as immediately polarizing as “knife
fighting.”  There those who object to the very term, considering it an
example of weapon fixation to the exclusion of developing realistic
fighting skill.  Some readers will doubtlessly despise this book,
while others will find that it suits their outlook perfectly.  I’m of the
opinion that there’s no such thing as a book on “knife fighting” that I don’t
want to own – but I won’t try to convince you that the contents of this
training guide are gospel truth or heretical lies.

The book is about knife
fighting, which is good enough for me.