ya know ... i would actually prefer to defend something like that than a blade of a few inches thats easily concealable, very hard to see or recognize and can be manipulated very easily by the attacker.
The training is something to be taken as a whole, to break it down or bolt bits on is to miss the point IMHO
Agreed. Do you think its true however that some / quite a few in systema circles mistake these 'training's' as useful stand alone methods?
For example in the seminar i came to years ago with you, we worked some stuff off a knife on the chest where movement combined with a simple lock was aplied. Very basic stuff for the taiji crowd hosting you.
One of your students came over to me n paul, who had been working knife stuff for a little while by this point, and tried to show how the pin or lock worked without success, which is fine, but he then went on to say that if he really whacked it on my wrist would be finished and that would be the end of the fight.
I pointed out that while he was using both hands on my wrist i would have punched him in a good few times in the jaw or temple and that i didn't think it was the point of the drill. To which he replied 'i would rather take punches to the jaw or temple as long as i have the knife hand controlled'.
This astonished me somewhat as he had completely missed the point of the obvious 'training drill' we were doing and was willing to take knock out shots to the head for the purpose of holding onto the knife arm with both hands. Mistaking it for a practical stand alone method. you had even pointed out it was simply a drill in the seminar ... but it didnt seem to have sunk in.
How do you ensure that, with the array of methods used in Systema where a knife is used for movement training etc, it is very clear in the minds of the the trainees that these are not 'reality based' methods in their own right but simply part of the process of acquiring the required skill set?
Many thanks.
Chris
Must be a cracking training atmosphere.
