Knife fighting

Defending against knife attacks is a big part of what is taught in Haganah. But it’s just that, defending. You don’t learn how to attack with a knife. Offensive knife skills are taught in a separate class called Tactical Knife Fighting (this  video shows Haganah founder Mike Lee Kanarek deomonstrating some moves). I participated in my first knife fighting class  on Saturday (Feb. 5).

Since there were a few new students in the class, we started with the basics. These basics involved a lot of unlearning. Holding the knife properly was the first thing we learned. You’re not chopping onions. That means do not put your index finger along the back of the knife. The knife should be held in a fist with the blade lined up with the second, or middle knuckles. If you’re right-handed, you hold the knife in your right hand and, different from a fighting stance in boxing, you’re knife fighting stance has your right foot forward.

To practice slashing and stabbing, we faced the wall of mirrors and were told to imagine a box from our hips to our head. The angles of attack exist within that box. You can slash on diagonals from corner to corner, vertically from the top center to the bottom center or vice versa and horizontally across the middle of the box.  After practicing slashes and stabs, we incorporated footwork and movement while slashing and stabbing. I found the footwork a little awkward because it’s the opposite of everything I’ve learned in boxing and kickboxing. I was nervous for this and I guess it was obvious because Mr. Stuart kept telling me to relax my body. I think I was moving like a 2x4, stiff and straight.

When practicing footwork and the slashing and stabbing we used aluminum knives with no edge. When we switched to sparring in the last part of the class, we used flexible rubber knives.
As if having to spar during my first knife class wasn’t stressful enough, the sparring was made even more difficult by having to drop and then recover our knives on command while in the middle of the fight. Then, to make it even harder, we were instructed to drop our knives and pick up our opponent’s knife and continue fighting.  This created mad scrambles on the mat.

The hits with the rubber knives don’t hurt too bad, except on the knuckles or cheek. What did hurt, though, was when I went shin to shin with my partner as we dove after each other’s knives. That impact left us both temporarily stunned and grasping our legs.  

While the stabs suffered during sparring don’t leave marks, the slash attacks do. When I was showering after class, I studied the slash marks, like rug burns, that populated my right arm above the elbow and went over what I learned that day and thought how much fun the class was.