Using A Knife For Self-Defense: The Reverse Grip
by on Apr.24, 2009, under uncategorized
Although I would definitely advise against carrying a knife around with you just in case you need it to defend yourself there are nevertheless times when you are in a very dangerous situation and need a weapon to defend yourself, and often at these times a knife is the best choice.
If you do pick up a blade then there are two things which need to be at the forefront of your mind. Firstly you should remember that once a weapon is brought into a situation you are in danger from it as well as anyone else. Many, many people end up getting seriously hurt by their own weapon. Secondly, once you decide to arm yourself you are taking on a greater responsibility for what happens. If you a scared and lash out with a knife and end up killing someone who was perhaps just pushing you around a bit and hadn’t tried to seriously hurt you then you could easily find yourself in prison for manslaughter.
My best tip for combating both of these problems is to use a reverse grip. This basically means that instead of holding it with the blade poining upwards or outwards, you hold it so that the blade runs down the outside of your forearm, pointing towards your elbow. This makes it very difficult for anyone to grab hold of either the knife itself or your wrist, which obviously makes it much harder for them to wrestle the knife off you and use it against you. With this reverse grip it is also easier for you to use the handle of the knife to strike with what is almost an ordinary punch. This is more damaging and painful than an ordinary punch and may well be enough to show an attacker that you mean business and stop them in their tracks, but stops short of causing a potentially lethal injury.
For more advanced techniques check out my earlier post on special forces knife training
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Welcome to the Street Self Defense Blog!
Catering for both trained martial artists and novices we aim to provide short, easy to learn lessons in how to defend yourself in a street fighting situation. Drawing on a wide variety of martial arts styles and traditions all of the fighting techniques described in this blog are specifically geared towards street self defense situations, and cover as many different real life scenarios as possible.
June 1st, 2009 on 3:10 pm
Sound advice. People often forget that their weapon can be used against them especially is they don’t know what they are doing.
Mike
Tactical Knife Outfitter
May 12th, 2010 on 11:33 pm
reverse grip is great. its important to train in both grips. but also if you have the knife and your attack doesn’t having the knife in the rear hand is usually the best situation, using your lead hand to keep them from grabbing your weapon hand, you can punch with it, grab with it, and block with it while your weapon hand is doing its own thing trying to find its way to his belly and neck.