Mike Kanarek: The Importance Of Footwork In A Knife Fight
- July 22nd, 2010
- Posted in Miscellaneous
- By Mike Lee Kanarek
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The name of the game is to be in a position to cut without being cut. Easy said, but not easily done!
Because of the knife being an “extention” weapon to the arm holding it, if you are within arms reach you can both cut and be cut. So on a reach level from the moment the fight starts the fight is life on both sides to begin with. So what will be the determined thing that will give the advantage to one fighter over the other?
I found the answer to the way we approach knife fighting in HaganaH from the way Bruce Lee introduced the “5 ways of attack” in his Jeet Kune Do system, and later on how my mentor in the Martial Arts, Joe Lewis, further refined it for Full-Contact fighting/sparring in his Joe Lewis Fighting System. Both Bruce Lee and Joe Lewis are advocates of “the one that controls the rythm and distance, controls the fight” …that is done in their systems with methods such as broken rythm and specific closing the gap methods and strategies.
Taking from the method mentioned above and applying it to knife fighting I came up with a strategy of our own in HaganaH for knife fighting, or what we call ITK. ” The one that controls the rythm and ANGLE , controls the fight”!
Since the reach is not an issue and will render you even with you opponent, the one that has a better trigger squeeze to launch his attack will have an advantage at the biginning of the engagement and depending on the defensife skills of the other attacker, he will be succesful or unsuccesful in his attack. If the defensive skills of the other fighter muffles the initial launched attack than one more factor will determin a clear advantage: The Angle of the attack!!!
both Rythm and Angles are controlled by the footwork of the fighter.
Got to go on the mat to teach, more to come on this subject…
To get the advantage on the angle you have to either cut the angle on his attack , or turn him before he engages, or re-engages in a middle of an attack.
lets look at the first one first : cutting the angle. Cutting the angle is a tactic we use when he pulled the trigger first at launching his attack….if he is right handed and attacking in a positive energy your best shot is to cut the angle to 2 O’clock to avoid getting cut/stab and throw a knife jab to his throat. That knife jab will either connect and puncture his throat, or it will stab/cut his hand if he was defending his throat , or it will make him flinch. Either one of those three will buy you time to pivot on your lead foot and cut the angle to 3 O’clock with your rear foot forcing him to turn if he wants to engage you again. While he is bussy turning engage his arm/hand thats holding his knife….that will eaither make him drop his knife , and from this moment you have the Full advantage, or he is going to retract his hand from the pain and you will be able to trap/pin his hand against his body and capture the advantage!
Awesome Sir, you are a true tactician. I am looking forward to attending your ITK certification at the headquarters this August!
What MLK says is true to the T. Even as a novice knife fighter, I have employed such strategies, and I have found my knife sparring to improve more than I would have thought! Great stuff sir, and thank you!