How to Judge Distance of Attack With a Knife

Video Transcript

"TRES TEW: Hi, I'm Tres Tew. I'm an instructor here at Yeshua's Ryu Martial Arts. I'm going to be teaching you about how to use open hands to defend yourself against the knife and this'll be on behalf of Expert Village. Okay, now we're going to be talking about judging distance. This is very important concept when you're going against the knife attacker. Again, be safe. Nick here is going to be attacking me with his knife. Now if he is within this range, I'm probably not going to want to turn and run away. In a knife situation the best thing to do, knife or gun, is to run away, they can cause very serious damage. But in the event that you are not able to run and they're right up on you, you're going to have to make a decision as whether or not to move in for the attack or to move back and try to keep some distance between you. If you do move in for the attack it's going to have to be sudden. Moving back is also going to have to be sudden because a knife is nothing to play around with especially if you're being attacked seriously. I mean, all it takes is that right there and you're gone because one little cut leads to another and so just keep in mind the distancing, also the distancing of your kicks. I know I probably not going to want to kick him up close so I'm going to knee to knee strike. If I want to kick, to keep him at a distance. A lot of front kicks will keep somebody from attacking you because your kicks are longer than their arms. But also you got to be aware that they're probably going to want to attack your feet as with their knife if you do it too much. So a couple of kicks to keep them at a distance is good and if you're able to take out a knee and then get out of there. Knife is nothing to joke around with. And that's how to judge distance, just keep in mind the range of their arm, the length of their knife and just make a decision based on that."