Self Defense Against Knives

Video Transcript

"In this series, we're talking about the traveling business woman, threats they may face and techniques that they can to protect themselves. We're going to cover a simple defensive technique when someone is swings at you, either with an open hand, sorry with a closed hand, open hand, or even a knife. The goal of this technique is to quickly stop the attack from coming any closer. So if I come over here with a knife to Amy, she reaches her hand up, puts energy into the block and, even though she's stopping the attack, with her other hand she's going to be striking me at the same time. This is really, really important. If she just tries to defend the knife over and over again, eventually, I'm going to be able to get through. She needs to quickly turn it from being a situation where I'm just stabbing and stabbing and stabbing, to a place where I stab once and I'm then I'm forced to defend against her attack. So I come in and she punches right away. I can go straight over head. I can even go to the side of it. And, even if I come, if I come underneath, she can block by putting weight into it and punching forward. In a room, another possible scenario is maybe the crazed person has a knife and they're trying to gain entry and they actually could bring the knife through for intimidation. When a perpetrator has a weapon, oftentimes, their goal is to intimidate the victim into doing what they want. They don't really want to use it, necessarily, but we don't really know that. So, in this instance, I'm going to, I can't get through the door because the door is chained, so I bring the knife through. Maybe I'm thinking she'll be afraid enough to open the door for me. Well, she's going to very simply slam the door with her hand and then kick the door with her leg to cause damage to my arm. If the knife drops, she should immediately get it away from me."