Extreme Knife Defence Seminar

Krav Maga Midlands

Marcin Reszka, E2

Stratford upon Avon High School

Saturday 13th February 2016

by Lance Manley

Knife fighting and dealing with an armed aggressor.

Krav Maga Midlands' latest seminar was a shade different to what we'd done before, especially in the Armed Attackers workshop, 3 years ago to the day in the same venue. Unlike other seminars, this one would teach students how to fight WITH knives, not just how to disarm those who attack while holding them. The information stated that "Our aim is to maximize the chance of an effective defence against an armed, aggressive and determined attacker. By learning how to use a bladed weapon and use it while sparring it will give you a better understanding of more skilled knife attacks and teach you how to respond to them effectively. It is guaranteed to improve reflexes and footwork, something that will pay off in general fighting skills".

The instructor for this was Marcin Reszka, an Expert level 2 Krav Maga Global instructor from London's Krav Maga Tactics club in Kingston on Thames. What was interesting about this event though was the amount of instructors who had signed up to participate, including Krav Maga Midlands' Chief Instructor Bartosz (E2), along with KMM instructors Al Natrins (G2) and Russell (G5). Also there was Edmund Sobczak from Fit2Fight Back and Stuart Gould of Elite Midlands.

I spoke to Marcin just before things kicked off.

"The idea of what we're doing is to teach people how to use common objects in self defence. The focus will be on edged weapons. The training will also pay off in general awareness. People will learn how to deal with a more skilled attacker. We will be here for three hours. We've been doing this since 2012 when I gained extra knowledge on using the knives as well as defending. The difference between this and a usual armed attacker seminar is that here you are being taught how to use the knife as an extension of the hand. It's not taken from a totally different system, it's based on Krav Maga."

After an introduction from Bartosz, Marcin got the students got into things with one of the warm up exercises being one person with a stick trying to touch the other on the feet with it. Marcin stated that the unarmed person was not allowed to hit back but to "make him nervous, he might want to."

Everyone was sweating well by this point and the technical side of things was brought to the fore. Marcin showed various holds for a knife when attacking and pointed out that slashes are tricky when it comes to control of an assailant. Retaliation when using your own knife was demonstrated with movements to attack the clenched knife hand of the other person. Marcin stated that "you won't kill him, just disfigure his hand".

As the guys got into this it was clear that a focus of mind and accuracy of hand and footwork were paramount. Russell and Al Natrins were partnered in a group of three with Edmund. Watching them practice reminded me of the gladiatorial drills from TV show Spartacus: Blood on the Sand.

In between showing techniques, Marcin pointed out on several occasions that the purpose of retaliating with another blade (or any weapon to hand) was to disable the opponent, NOT to kill or severely injure them. One move he pointed out was knocking the knife hand away with your knife hand, then slashing the back of their fist and then the leg.

True to the principles of Krav Maga, Marcin also showed the practitioners how to utilise everyday object to protect themselves and disable an opponent and focussing on redirection of attack. Marcin emphasised the importance of accuracy and control, pointing out that to be aggressive on certain targets is more important than trying to stab. He also said that things shouldn't be "overcomplicated" and that trying, for example, to trap the hand of a someone attempting to slash you will probably result in getting cut.

When the guys moved into the sparring at the end of the seminar, it was made clear that ALL disciplines could be used for knife defence, not only Krav Maga. Watching the various pairs going at it, it appeared everyone was having a great time, albeit showing obvious signs that they'd had a good workout.

Afterwards I spoke to Solihull KMM student Golshen Bano who said: 

"Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Love it! So much more on the techniques that you pick up in class and training with people who are not your grade and sparring with P3 and 4s".

I then asked Russell what he thought.

"I really enjoyed it. Something that has the root of Krav in it but also something that's new for everyone. A lot of it was new for the students but the instructors had a lot of new stuff in there too. It was interesting to see it from a slightly different angle."

Very informative and instructive seminar and it was a first seeing 3 KMM instructor training together. 

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Lance Manley is a member of Krav Maga Midlands and author of the book

WALK IN PIECES: DIARY OF A KRAV MAGA PRACTITIONER

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Night Parks 5: The Robbery

17th July 2015

RSC Park, Stratford upon Avon, UK

by Lance Manley

KMM's chief instructor Bartosz (Expert 2) runs the Night Parks seminar once a year in mid to late summer. This was my 3rd one, with the previous editions focussing on protecting third parties and how to deal with spontaneous violence and the threat of harm.

This time the focus was on robbery, with guns and knives taking centre stage and much less emphasis on protecting other people. We were going straight for the jugular, with some brutal techniques and takedowns.

I got there about 6.30pm. After a while the rest of the guys turned up, including Patrick from Total Krav Maga in Thames Valley who had also joined us for Warzone 2 last year. Bartosz was running this event with G5 instructor Russell, who I work with on Mondays at the kiddy Krav class JSKM. After a quick warm up and some funny looks off passers by, we moved into techniques involving being threatened with knives.

By coincidence, on the same day of the seminar, new laws came into force in the UK that make it a much more serious offence to be caught illegally carrying a bladed weapon in public. Those caught for a second time by the police now face a mandatory 6 months minimum term in prison. Knife crime, and in particular robberies and sexual assaults have risen by 10% in the last 4 years in the United Kingdom.

Bartosz made it very clear that the best thing to do in any situation is to comply with a robber who simply wants your money, especially if they are right up against you. He acted out several scenarios with Russell where he handed over some money but dropped it on the floor to distract the assailant, enabling enough of a distraction so he could run away. He emphasised that splitting is THE most important thing to do because if you linger, then the robber may want more. Him and Russ then amusingly acted out Russell wanting more and more until he eventually led Bartosz away saying "Let's go and find your car."

We then partnered off and moved through various positions to approach a victim with verbal threats being used. We were shown how to both deflect and disarm as well as compliance followed by scarpering out of the danger zone.

After a good workout with the training knives, we then moved on to guns. These are bright yellow for the simple reason that it makes it glaringly obvious they're not real. Russell recounted a story of the police armed response unit being called to deal with his friend who was playing with a BB gun in the garden.

The techniques for gun disarms are something we'd done before but a new addition to the repertoire was grabbing a gun from someone who's gesturing with it near your body in unpredictable patterns. Something I learned a LONG time ago is that you always keep your finger way clear of the trigger guard, even on a bendy, banana coloured replica pistol, unless you want to be howling all the way to A&E in the back of an ambulance, cradling a broken index finger.

As the sun began to go down we finally moved on to what Bartosz always calls "the fun bit" but we call the Tunnel of Love. Next to the river in the park is a pathway with bushes and tress either side. Perfect for a multiple attackers scenario...especially in the dark. Unlike last year we didn't go through with a partner to "protect" but instead had to navigate the walkway on our own. A Go-Pro camera had been purchased since the last seminar and also a chest harness so the first guy through was wearing that. The last two seminars, we'd been given specific tasks by Bartosz but he told us to improvise and alternate between sticks, knives, guns and simply being innocent people who either wanted a chat or to ask the time. He made it clear that anyone not in grabbing range of a gun who refused to obey a gunman's instructions would get push ups as a penance. This emphasised the importance of safety rather than heroics that may fail and get you killed.

I was second one up and even though I've done both this type of thing before plus Wayne Hubball's Fast Reality, it always gets the blood flowing and the fear factor high. A camera flash went off while I was trying to negotiate my way past Graham Matthews and Mark Broadhurst and the next thing I knew Mark 'stabbed' me to death. Moving on I had people wanting a hug, trying to persuade me to have a threesome with them and another woman, and a guy who simply took a flying kick at me. Finally making it through, I had the usual amnesia over 80% of the journey but was told I'd handled it all well.

As people went through it was interesting to watch the different personalities and methods. One guy lashed out at everyone who approached him, even when four of us simply asked him the time. Bartosz was following him through shouting "They're not attacking you!" but got no response. This proved just how wired it is possible to get in this type of situation and the "blinkers" will come on, causing tunnel vision to threats.

When Anatoli Krassavine, a former Olympic wrestler came through, Russell stood as River Bank Monitor to the side just in case anyone got thrown, rag doll fashion into the cold waters of the Avon.

When Ewa Krav was in the tunnel I held my arms out as if to give her a hug but then cuffed the side of her face with my hand. She instantly responded with a dig to my left eye, which sent my contact lens to the bank and had me backing off. Goz was her usual feisty self, not giving ground and screaming her head off at anyone who got in her face.

Finally we all got through and lined up on the grass for feedback. One very valid point raised was that there were a lot of passers by who could hear what we were doing, who did not know WHY we were doing it but had made NO attempt to either intervene or call the police. This proved that you need to be self reliant in situations like this in real life, and not assume that help will be there.

After a few words from each of us about how we felt we then did the final kida and moved to the Dirty Duck pub for a well earned pint.

As usual, top notch training and the added treat of the Tunnel of Love at the end to test everyone's muscle memory, resilience and "courage under fire".

Thoroughly enjoyable.

Egone

By Lance Manley, P4

Krav Maga Midlands

I am currently reading a very informative book entitled The Little Black Book of Violence by Lawrence Kane and Kris Wilder. It has the subtitle "What Every Young Man Needs to Know About Fighting."

This book was lent to me by a fellow practitioner at Krav Maga Midlands.

While perusing it last night, something struck a chord that is fundamental to the principles of Krav, but is sometimes oh so very easy to overlook in favour of the "sexy" bits of what we do.

A preface by Rory Miller (a police sergeant in the US when the book was published) states that he believe most people reading the book will simply cherry pick the parts they like. He goes on to say, "I don't think you can see past your own ego. I think that you will risk your own life and piss away good information to protect your daydreams."

Something that has occurred to me a lot lately is how violence is best stopped by anything other than violence.

I used to be a UK police officer and the experience was soul destroying in its stupidity, lack of basic common sense and political correctness over officer safety. We weren't trained to fight, only to subdue through holding and baton strikes absolutely COULD NOT be aimed at the head, regardless of what the Bad Guy might be coming at you with at the time. We spent 6 weeks on Race & Diversity training, but a measly 4 hours on use of baton and 1 hour on how to fire pepper spray (the only weapons 95% of UK cops carry on patrol).

Krav Maga to me is what the English police should be about. It teaches you to avoid conflict. That "F**K OFF! STAY AWAY!" shouted at the top of your lungs is the best method to try first, if you have the distance and time. Krav talks about avoidance, de-escalation and getting the hell out of there if it can be achieved. It says violence is a secondary alternative that is played only when less confrontational options won't work.

But as we know, Krav also teaches us to be as brutal as possible, as quickly as possible with the minimum of effort and THEN get the hell out of there.

It's how the English police should be. Common sense and a lack of ego but able to be baddasses if the occasion demands it.

Problem is for me that it's very easy to get enticed by the funky side of Krav. We've all seen sparring sessions at our clubs where two good fighters go hammer and tongs on each other with grace and power. I personally imagine being whoever is the victor.

Then there's the everyday interactions we see where we wonder exactly what we would have done had someone called us a "c**t" in traffic or pushed in front of us in a queue. I personally imagine them being humiliated, maybe even working in an Educational Block like Krav Vader, to make certain they keep their distance.

Problem is that my daydreams quite often cloud my judgment.

I don't like sparring cold bloodedly, although I'm not bad at it when I actually have a go. I can assess threat reasonably well and I'm not a coward. But all my badass fantasies, as I move further into Krav Maga and up the grades (currently P4). I got a busted finger 6 weeks ago in training for trying to block a stomp kick with my fingertips (I was tired, error in judgment...that I'm still paying for). Having seen movies where people simply pop dislocated joints back into place I never envisaged in a thousand years, having to be on restricted duties at work for 9 weeks, repeated visits to the fracture clinic and a special splint being made at Warwick hospital.

The least useful appendage on my entire body has affected my ability to train and means my cardio is so out of practice that I get out of breath running up the stairs.

Ego can be a killer. I've had it for most of my life and always imagined it to be a friend, mistaking it for confidence. Ego isn't confidence. Confidence is feeling that you are able to deal with what is in front of you. Ego is feeling that you can not only do it but do it perfectly and then have loads of women want to shag you because you're such an awesome badass.

It has taken 30 minutes of Yoga a day for over 2 months before I've become supple enough to kick higher than the belly button level of an opponent. My lack of flexibility was something I worked around until I became a teaching assistant at a Kiddy Krav class, and was having rings run round me by 6 year old girls (not to mention wincing as my back strained every time I bent down to pick something up during the class). I now have flexibility again, like I did in my 20s. But it's through adherence to a regime of stretching instructed by someone who knows more than me on the subject.

I see rude or threatening people in public a lot and 10 years ago I'd have jumped in to tell them to leave Mrs A or Mr B alone and be on their way. On some weird level I used to take all obnoxious behaviour as being somehow directed at me, if I was around when it happened. I think my logic was, "You know I'm here and are still doing this in front of me. Therefore you must think I'm a pansy who won't try and stop you."

Krav (plus a few other things) has helped me to mould and tailor my ego so I no longer feel that I'm a superhero. When I'm drunk, all bets are off, but over this past year particularly I've got involved in things that have made me realise my own limitations and not to be ashamed of them but work with them.

Nick Maison and Jose Silva's Air Safety seminar was a sobering experience and as close to a hijack on a plane as I ever want to get. Forget being a hero, you are lucky if you can even see straight as the "terrorists" shove you around, order you not to look at them and do their best to disorientate you. Nick even said before we started, "If any of you feel like taking on any of the hijackers then feel free...but we WILL give you a kicking and then throw you off the plane"

Having met both Eyal Yanilov and Zeev Cohen they are both softly spoken and humble men who appear without ego BUT are badasses. After the second day of P Weekend in December I was in reception at Harlow Leisure Zone when they both left for the evening. They did not stand out at all, did not swagger and would have blended into any crowd.

Ego can be dangerous. It ties me into adolescent fantasies about vanquishing the evil hordes and being the bully hunter I always wanted to be. It's only be accepting the drab reality of my own limitations that I can now build upon that and walk through life in a way that means I will assess situations logically and with my mind, not my ego.

Egone.