NEW Wallerstein/Vadi article online

[Casper Bradak]

Morozzo in particular has a several good disarm techniques in which you grab your opponents dagger blade. The thing to remember in that case, is you don't just reach out and grab his blade and nothing else. It would be more likely he could slice your hand if you had a poor grip. Most grabs done vs an opponents dagger blade are also done with the other hand at his hilt, hand, or wrist. That is far safer.
In m experience though, a lot of the time you could still safely grab his long narrow blade with one hand, but you need to be quick and use a strong grip. This works best against long, narrow fighting blades though. The shorter it is, the more likely you'll catch a slice.
Slices can be pretty nasty, but I think you'd have far less luck with them in combat than in the ideal sausage cutting. They can be tough to get in to any degree of true effectiveness in a fight, especially a combat environment.

[Jay Vail]

Morozzo in particular has a several good disarm techniques in which you grab your opponents dagger blade.

Fiore's dagger disarms all involve blade contact.

The thing to remember in that case, is you don't just reach out and grab his blade and nothing else.

In all Fiore's disarms, some of which we went over at Southern Knights, you also have hold of his arm.

This works best against long, narrow fighting blades though. The shorter it is, the more likely you'll catch a slice.

Intuitively, that seems true. However, Hockheim recommends blade contact disarms virtually identical to Fiore's against the common small folder. Contact is with the FLAT however in his demonstrations. He claims, as a former police officer, to have performed such disarms on the street.

[Jared L. Cass]

Great! Isn't test cutting fun? Had to wait till the wife left? Been there...for me it's the neighbors though:) Glad you thawed that thing out and started to cut!

Just some additional comments. Not sure if they'll change your thinking or not, but at least they'll hopefully get you experamenting and questioning some more <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

You wrote:"The question seems to be if you grab a knife blade can you get cut with it? My concern is that combat is not a time to do a lot of thinking about fine motor control, it seems unwise to have to grab a blade and make sure I'm applying the right amount of pressure and keeping my movements with the blade. If you grab someone else's blade they can flick or twist it a bit and draw the sharp edge on the insides of your fingers."

The thing to remember here is that once the blade is grabbed (and as we mentioned previously: the wrist, hand, arm, is controlled), you are imediatly or even simataniously doing other things. Like throwing him, breaking/dislocating things, head butting him, stabbing with your own blade,...ect. It's not a case of "Ah-ha! I have grabbed your blade. Now I'll just stand here and try to take it away from you." Also, the bit about moving with the actions of the attacker... not too hard. All you need is to "follow" once, idealy. Not forgetting to hurt him in the progress. Does that make sense?

One note about these:

"In testing the idea, I tried to slice a thawed keilbasa with our largest knife. They have not been sharpened since we got them last year, so it's not a "razor" thing. It cut through the keilbasa with no problem. I both held it on the counter and held the keilbasa in my hand so the resistance wasn't absolute." also: "From the section of the blade nearest my hand it took less than 3 inches to slice through a medium weight sweatpant cloth and do damage to the keilbasa, even when I was holding both in my hands."

I notice you specifically say "our largest knife", is that the widest, too? Remember the other posts on cutting ability of wide blades. See if you can find more of a "thruster", if it was a case of the widest. You also specifically said "...section of the blade nearest my hand". Hmmm, not sure if that's fair. It's psysics and the most powerful part of a knife for deep cutting ability. Now, if the experiment was set to mimick getting right in the face of an opponent and digging that edge into his bicept or neck or where ever...you win:) How well did those tip cuts work for you, though?

Really enjoying this topic,

Jared L. Cass, ARMA Associate, Wisconsin

[leam hall]

Same same, chief. I avoided the tip the first time because it seemed more advantageous to the cutter. This time I held it in my hand with a double wrapped handkerchief. Still able to cut through.

I think, though, there are some points missing in the discussion. If you think about it, a knife is small and the opponent can quickly change its angle of pressure. Also, you can't say "Pick the right type of knife to test cut with"; is your opponent going to only try to cut you with the dull ones?

Truthfully, I think John's admonition to "Question Everything" applies here. If you have no choice and it's grab the blade or die, go for it. Otherwise I'd suggest controlling it at the hand and putting it someplace safe, like his rib cage.

[Jared L. Cass]

"Also, you can't say "Pick the right type of knife to test cut with"; is your opponent going to only try to cut you with the dull ones?"

This is very true. What I've been concentrating on the entire time of the discussion, though, is on the roundel/bollock dagger we see being grabbed in the manuals. I still believe and know from my own experiments that a narrower bladed knife can be safely and with much pressure grabbed. Wider blades too, to a point. But more care must be taken.

I stand beside my and Caspers statements of cutting through clothing though. With the sweat pant type matereal you cut through, did you have it tightly over the kielbasa? Like a pair of tights? Or more loose and with lots of movement like people generally wear their clothing? With a matereal stretched tightly over something, it's much much easier to cut through. With looser clothing, the cloth has a tendacy to sort of fold and envelope the edge of a knife...therefor stopping the cut or at least keeping any cut that does occure to just being surface damage. Certainly enoufgh protection to give a guy time to finish the other cutter off <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> Especially if it's a heavier matereal like denim or leather. The t-shirt (hankerchief) and sweat shirt (sweat pant matereal) will still do though, IMO.

"Truthfully, I think John's admonition to "Question Everything" applies here"

Yes! Never stop doing this! I think that's what I like best about this thread and your replies so far. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Jared L. Cass, ARMA Associate, Wisconsin

[leam hall]

"Yes! Never stop doing this! I think that's what I like best about this thread and your replies so far."

Thank you for the compliment; I'm new to most of this and trying to keep things worth reading.

Okay, so we have two questions, "grabbing" and "cutting through cloth" with the edge. On the last, I readily agree that a slice is less useful than a thrust with a knife. I also would easily concur that there is a level of protection in the range of celtic/nekkid to tin-can/armored that prevents knives from cutting at all. It varies a lot but you get enough cover, no problem.

I think that idea of the "contiuum of protection" solves the second question; we seem to agree there. But the first one is still up for discussion. What I need to find are some butchers gloves, those fine chainmail gloves butchers used to use. They should be form fitting enough to equal your grip and safe enough for me to try it out.

[david welch]

Hey, Leam.

Instead of butchers gloves, use mig welding gloves or fencing gloves. after you put them on, put on a pair of latex surgical gloves over them. If you can do a blade grab disarm without cutting the surgical gloves, you can figure that you could have done it bare handed.

We have been able to do it in moderate speed sparring, with full speed disarms, with live blades. This was way more than I needed to do to justify the techniques work, but I wanted to see if it was something I would be willing to use for personal self defence.

Mind you, this was while wearing motorcycle helmets, heavy leather jackets and gloves, with a training partner I trust. I don't recommend anyone do this, and you just take my word for it. From now on, we will be doing it full speed and with training blades. Once you verify it works, there is no reason to use real knives for it. If you have to use live blades, I am not responsible for your actions.

[Stuart McDermid]

Hi David,

That is an exceptional idea.
Well done,
Stu.

[Jaron Bernstein]

Sounds convincing enough for me. Nothing like a bit of actual empirical evidence <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[JeffGentry]

Hello all going to get in here. From all my reading of knive's and edged weapon's some knive's are made more as a stabbing than cutting blade. It is my understanding that a rondel is used mainly in a reverse grip and is more designed to stabb or thrust. So i would imagine it would be fairly safe to hold your blade for a little extra umpf to a thrust if you are using a rondel, which is what they appear to be using in the article. Most of the time you are fairly safe holding a knife blade as long as it is not pulled through your hand.Like in half swording.

[richmooney]

My articles have been retired. Plenty of time has elapsed for masses of enthusiasts to view and download them. If you desire a copy, please email me:) thanks!

[Jack Lynn]

I think that we need to consider that if your fighting a dagger unarmed your pretty desperate. The world is filled with potential weapons. Sticks, utensils, tools, chairs, rocks, all could be used as weapons. In fact I have been taught that, as a general rule, fighting a knife with another knife is a bad idea if you can help it. Anything with some reach or range so you don't have to come up close and personal with a razor edge is preferable.
So the situations in which an unarmed fighter is up against a knife are desperate ones. In such circumstances, a fighter would probably be more inclined to risk getting cut in order to disarm his opponent. That's my take on the situation, anyway.

[Shane Smith]

Good points Jack. My old Asian MA Master always stressed to us that if you are ever involved in a knife fight while unarmed you must;

1.Get control of the weapon
2.Expect to get cut while doing so