I am playing devils advocate here a little as i am all for weapon awareness to be honest. But i think the idea of training ONLY for defence against an armed attacker is interesting.
However, your question makes the assumption that empty handed IMA are going to be concerned with taking the force of a punch or round kick "head on", so to speak. While that is sometimes unavoidably necessary, that's certainly not going to be the preferred intended tactic.
Certainly that wasn't my intention. I simply asked if there was a difference in terms of how the force is presented, therefor how you deal with that force. or can the same principles used against a knife attack be used against a hard empty hand or blunt attack ... say from a Muay Thai guy or a boxer? I knife only has to touch on the way past or back to have a serious effect.
We still advocate not meeting force with force, even though we build up some very strong structure. Realistically, yes....it's still nice to have that structure when you are absolutely forced to take incoming force directly, but the real sweetness is in being able to use it to issue your own power offensively.
Agreed ... Like i say i am playing devils advocate somewhat here cause i think its an interesting idea.
However, much of the knife work i have been exposed too has been to 'check' the knife arm. Not to let is continue on a path where it can change angle and cut you, or cut you on its current line, etc. That Check is often essentially about stopping the limb or line in some way, or at least redirecting it while keeping it away from the body. Where as with a punch you can even let it move close to your body (even onto your body!) and use it or subtley re-direct it, with a knife you cant afford to do this. If a punch just grazes your neck .. no problem .. if a knife does .. big problem.
So with this in mind how does the use of line in your knife work differ from your H2H stuff. Does the consideration drastically change?
Personally i have faced knives in real encounters a maybe 3 times in a large amount of encounters, both in professional work and on 'the street'. One incidence i would be dead if i had tried to take the punch (which turned out to be a stab). So i really do recognize the consideration. What i do think however is that there are certain attributes in knife work that are unique to knife work and that are not present in H2H work.
Thanks for the responce Chris.
Cheers