How to Defend Against a Downward Slash with a Knife

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Tres Tew. I'm an instructor here at Yeshua's Ryu Martial Arts and today I'm going to be talking to you on behalf of Expert Village, about how to use a knife for self defense. Now I'm going to be talking to you a little bit about how to defend yourself against a downward slash. Your opponent is coming with an overhead strike like this. Now, lethal force, I can come straight into the arm pit. There's a main artery coming right here. If you don't want to use lethal force, what I'm going to do, I'm going to catch here and pull down into what technically we call "four corners." I can either come right here, and kind of force him to go wherever I want. Drop your knife. He's going to do it; I've got full control. I've got my knife to his throat, plus a very painful technique. So, from there, you've got a couple of options. One: you've got lethal force when he comes over, you are stabbing in. You've also got knee if you want to bring him down. You go ahead and bring him down. You just go ahead and stab him in the leg. Just make sure that you get that initial block. You can come in here; anything you want to do. That's probably the most lethal, though. If you want to keep him from coming after you, just go in there. That's how to defend yourself against a downward slash. "