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“And… and… I kicked a knife out of someone’s hand.” 😂

When we do it at our place we go full wrestling with training knives, basically BJJ and wrestling with knife attacks. It's basically a form of sparring and you realize how hard it is not getting cut and stabbed, but you also learn what can work and what doesn't, how to possible control the attackers bodies while also keeping your focus on their weapon. It's very difficult, but I feel it's good training. You also understand how much fitness really makes a difference, like with any fighting.

The three things I learned from combative edge classes I took: 1.knife fighting sucks. The training is hard and in the end there may not be no clear winners 2. Wresting is the way especially when it comes to controlling that weapon bearing arm 3. Situational awareness is more important than skill.

I don't know how many compliments you get on your composition and writing, but that was a killer intro. There's not a chance I'm not watching this whole video after that. Fishhooked like a sprat

Amazing courses. Also had the privilege of taking all of these courses over the past year and I would definitely agree with you. I know we have discussed these courses a lot, and they are all great for their own reasons. Regardless, if you are serious about learning self defense and more importantly knife defense, go take these courses. Big reality check. Plenty to learn from these courses as well as the instructors themselves.

That knife kick was straight up what Gabriel Varga taught you. I saw the sparring footage. When you two broke the clinch he was throwing head kicks. You downloaded that and started doing it to knife-wielders. Well done, sir.

I'd give my left gonad to take any of the 3 courses discussed in this video. I know that sounds insane, but I'd rather give it freely than lose it in a knife fight because I had no idea how to defend myself against a knife wielding psycho. Also, I have 3 sons, so I don't really need both of 'em anymore.

I’ve done 1/3 of the courses in the video (basically just KCC), but from footage of both Craig’s and Ryan’s material, I can firmly recommend all of them. Very few programs can be so realistic without being edgy, and these are the best courses for using functional combat sports skills in a weapons based environment. Great video!

That knife kick was pretty sweet. Great video!

Excellent comparison and contrasting of these courses, and awesome assessment from someone actually experiencing these and applying the training under intense pressure.

Great video, and excellent lessons learned! The first time I had a little bit "fun with knives" with a friend in my backyard was an eye-opener. We went the dueling route - we used sheathed knives (the blades were a bit dull, too, so we didn't have to worry about the knife poking through the sheath) and went at 20-30% sparring intensity (no face stabbing). I had almost zero wrestling experience and some striking and knife-swinging practice, and the friend had zero martial art experience. The lessons: 1. After a swing or two, it devolved into wrestling with knives. 2. In just about 15-20 minutes (with some breaks), we were both successfully closing in and clinching up without too much damage. 3. My size and skill advantage mattered little at the cutting range and much more at the clinch. 4. Taking the initiative and violence of action had a bigger influence on the outcome than anything else. A similarly short and playful session or two with my little brother as an attacker (some short rolled up/taped up notebook as a stabbing implement) and me unarmed defending taught me: 1. Shelling up like a boxer helped me survive the first couple of stabs (hit in the forearms) and allowed me to clinch. 2. My lack of wrestling skills became obvious, and it was difficult to control the opponent. 3. The attacker was fixated on the shank and stabbing and left openings for clinching/striking. 4. Slamming him to the ground seemed like a much more effective option than trying to strike and control (we went light with trips and lifts, no actual slamming happened). 5. His lack of proper aggression (out of respect/fear of pissing off his bigger brother) made it easier than sparring with my friend , but I was still getting stabbed a bunch. In just a couple of short casual sparring sessions, with no expert coach and me going off of "Folsom Prison Knife Techniques" and some stories about how knife attacks happen, it became apparent that good wrestling fundamentals (Judo came to mind back then because it was more common where I live) executed with relentless aggressive intent were the key to surviving (or killing the dude you just assaulted, from the attacker's perspective). Since then, I always wondered why most online knife defense guys/gals had never taken 5 minutes to see how an actual assault would really go down and learn from it.

Great video, really appreciate all the work you clearly put into doing this.

You put out a video last year, I think, and It was a small blade that another fellow may have designed and It showed him block your arms with his left arm and go for the right side of the groin twist and pulled up, and I'll never forget how devastating that would be, THX for posting. 👍

AWESOME VIDEO! You are right! It's really about your personality, fighting style, experience as far as who is the best teacher for you!

Mike you're my go to for realistic self defense concepts love your videos man

"3 butt-scooting grabby-boys" I'm rolling 🤣🤣🤣

Basically all courses are awesome! great vid as usual

Everything you say about knives makes me feel good about what my MA friends and I have been discovering for decades. I started in judo when I was ten and was always looking for self defense applications in everything I could study. Wrestling, karate, Kung Fu, FMA’s, at their core, are all grappling. When you introduce a knife into the fight, it,by necessity starts a grappling match. So my fellow students and I,through the years, always got the knives out in our free time. I’m glad that through all of the hard work that we put in, we developed skills that I see in all of the courses you’ve presented. Some kind of parallel evolution, after all,we’re all essentially the same. Thanks for your great work and be safe

Thanks for this super informative and most helpful video. Your vids always bring practicality and common sense to personal defense.

One of the things that I can't get out of my head about martial arts of any sort is the selection bias. You're sort of training to fight against other martial artists, but most of the time in real life you're not doing that. Then again, I guess that does give us something to do after the first couple weeks.

Mike..ur channel has always been one of my favs.❤

My AG1 came in yesterday, worth it for sure

Thanks for the reviews, super informative.

I replayed that knife kick scene so many times lol its like the chefs kiss finisher to that challenge 🤣

That reveal in the end that you kicked a knife out of someone's hand is a plot twist worthy of M Night Shamalyan

Very Informative video, thank you for sharing!

Great insight, appreciate the shout out and the hard work.🔥🔥🔥

I love what you do. Very needed.

Good stuff man I’ll have to sign up for some of these to have them come out

Bro! Good stuff man and absolutely agree! These 3 groups are where people need to be to improve their knife Defense skills. Solid review!!!!

This was a really great video, your best yet

Great video. Just did the Kcc instructor online program. Hope i also can work with Craig in the future

There's a particular tactic I learned very quickly when doing active resistance sparring with knife defense, which is the hand transition. You lock up on the knife hand and start trying to control it, they just snatch the knife with their other hand and go to town since you're now open. I noticed that the defender was particularly vulnerable to this tactic when wrestling. In my (admittedly limited) experience, no knife defense could be considered feasible or practical if you couldn't overcome this tactic. Did any of these three classes address this?

Excellent video with a plethora of info. We will check it them out and train.

Mike, fantastic video!!

I've taken EWO twice, and taken the regular level and instructors level KCC. I haven't done EOR, but I've attended HR6, and my first EWO was at Charlotte, so I'm familiar with Ryan's team. I agree 100% with your assessment. I'd also highly recommend the KCC instructor program.

Cool video, I wish I could've seen some of the techniques, but I understand why...😊

FMA is legit in this. I attacked a FMA instructor (with 7 years experience) with rubber knife, freestyle and wildly, and he blocked everything. He was so skilled that I couldn't "cut" even his hands which were blocking my knife hand.

I see some of my coaches in your video from KCC and EOR and they take what they learned and teach us.

Si, great content as always!

That kick was badass Mike!!!!

Great stuff!

Slow clap for that smug ending. That was pretty cool.

Thanks for sharing Sir! Would be amazing to train as you do, expanding your knowledge and experience always 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼💪

Thank you for reviewing those knife defense courses.

This is the best video you have done

Nice! My little red rubber knife made it into the first Eli clip!

First you learn, then u teach. Teaching is part of the mastery I've come to learn.

Bet that kick felt good when the knife flew out of the hand during the Australian championship. It’s always good to have room to run when facing knives, but also good to have grappling in the pocket if need be. Both are great

Thumbs up on the kick and everything else actually Thanks for the info

No discussion about knife defense and knife fighting is complete without investigating the deThouars Kuntao Silat Serak. There were 4 brothers. Three of them have passed in recent years. However Willem is still alive, and has a solid group in Colorado, and his youngest brother Victors school, the VDT Academy, is still going strong under his senior student/instructor.

We used training knives in the gym today, I learned how to escape the off arm's grasp and only get stabbed a few times before running away. How the hell can people actually successfully do anything else?

in my experience focusing on the knife hand and controlling it and then them as a whole served me better than focusing on attacking the person. Striking them as soon as control has been attained...yes for sure.

For me the problem always was the skill level difference needet to be succefull in a knife defence. When the knife guy has just a little experince in knifefighting you need to be so much better to have a chance, it's a lifteime of training vs a weekend of training and bad intensions.

At our school, we did a knife seminar where we used red markers. Three minute sparring matches, both people with red markers. The least marked competitor stayed “alive” and sparred the next fresh opponent until they “died.” No one left unmarked. Every student left with lethal marks. We all learned the lesson. Make lethal strikes first, then move out of range. And whenever possible, carry a badder weapon at range. The other lesson we learned is to carry a knife on each side, so a trapped arm doesn’t make you helpless while being stabbed. Everyone who attended the course now understands the advantages of two knives, a walking stick, and a gun.

Good stuff!

great video

I love you Mike!

I agree with your final conclusion, because it is principle based and that is what all my training is based on, the knife is not the problem the brain of the attacker is the problem. I never focus on any kind of defense, you cannot win on defense, my focus is on decommissioning the attacker as fast and as violently as possible, you have a much better chance of surviving a cut than the attacker has of surviving a crushed wind pipe.

Excellent video, thank you for sharing these reviews and analyses How well did the t-shirts hold up to being grabbed? We grapple with street clothes sometimes at my gym, and I've only seen one shirt (a dress shirt) tear apart. T-shirts seem to get stretched out more than they come apart in your hands.

I did like that Ramsey Dewey successfully used a Hapkido lock I've learned for knife defense in the USDC pretty cool

Ironic that it was you and not Sensei Seth who did the kicking the knife out of the hand. Amazing stuff.

That kick at the end was sick

One thing that most people overlook is that you are most likely going to get cut and through the adrenaline you have to focus and get mean and nasty without any hesitancy because if you don't then you are dead. ** A good friend of mine fought off a suprise attack and was stabbed 9 times before he disarmed his attacker and had punctured his lungs and almost bleed out before he could get to the hospital. Even in the Marines we needed more knife fighting skills because its usually tought as a last defense. God bless you and thank you for your info.

Did they immediately stop the Self Defense Championship and give you the trophy after the knife kick? They really should have. You should hang a big screen in your gym's lobby that just shows that on a loop and when someone comes in inquiring about training just point to it and say "cash, check, or credit?" Seriously though, this was a very thoughtful contrasting of the courses. My knife defense experience has come from a kali, wing chun, military combatives base (I think it most resembles EOR of the three) , but I have pressure tested and it seems to go fairly well. I would really enjoy any of these courses I think. I may try to get down to Fit to Fight next time I'm in NC.

Mike, it would be cool if you made a video discussing SOCP, Special Operations Combatives Program, as they have a good bit of weapon defense tactics. You're not far from some special people.

This is the video I have been waiting for someone to make for the longest time So the big question, what are the biggest take aways? Grab the knife arm first? Clinch up and use clinch attacks? Just start throwing punches? What key things should a person spend the most reps on if we were going to tack something onto the end of regular training?

Hey Mike, what is your opinion on knife proof clothing 🤔

two best thing i learnt in deal with knives is 1)it not the knife that kills you it the person with the knife and the best way to survive an account it try and take out the guy with the blade and the second one 2) better to do what they want unless they give you reason to believe they will stab you any way or you can't live with what they want you to do.

Nice finish

"butt-scooting grabbybois" never has a more perfect descriptor been rendered

I literally laughed out loud, when you put Sensei Seth on blast. Now, everyone at the dialysis center keeps giving me confused looks 🤣

Would be cool to see you work with or try ISR-Matrix or Kelly McCann!

Your job looks kind of fun.

That's pretty cool those little packets and stuff what do they taste like though it looks like spinach green I'm just curious

Bro that knife kick was dope af😂😂😂

Kimura can be awesome tool for this type of self defence. Elli probably has that covered.

Your super video leaves me with a question (maybe a quote from you in an earlier video?). The best defense in a knife/grappling/boxing fight is to avoid it in the first place. So, have the firearm in your hand first, before the fight begins?

Butt-scootin' Grabby Boys is my new favorite term for BJJ guys.

0:01 I'ma stop you right there Mike. Usain Bolt's running academy is the best program.

Have you ever done a video mentioning 52 blocks?? Very interested in this communities take on it

I think in a real knife attack you’re going to have to somehow remember to briefly ignore the knife and defeat the leveraging arm first and foremost. Once the leveraging arm is locked in you are dead. I think that correlates to what you said about how you seemed to prevail whenever you ‘forgot’ about the knife and just counterattacked as opposed to purely defending.

That kick was sweet... Nice.. 👌

To bad you didnt go try itay gils knife defense now that would have been super interesting he has a really good system for this. Thank you

Mike you’re a Ninja !!!😂😂😂

do video about brain trauma in combat sports and how to minimize the risk pls

I have listened to a few stories about people only having knives against bear. And they were used as piercing weapons more than a slashing weapon. Great tip on clothing. I wonder how I would do in lv 3 ballistics jacket wrestling someone. I have wondered if bear could rip through it.

Rules of knife fighting. 1. Don't get into knife fights! 2. Seriously don't you will die! 3. Learn how to do emergency trauma first aid! Seriously where is that stuff in "self defense"? You can be great at fighting but not knowing how to stop bleeding, perform a Heimlich, administer an epinephrin auto injector, administer Narcan, do CPR, and locate and operate an AED leaves you defenseless. A video about basic first aid gear and where to put an AED in a place like a gym (like yours) would be really good and open up some useful discussion about having AEDs around in public places, especially athletic facilities.

As someone who's had a knife put to my throat I appreciate this analysis

Seth is proud for the knife kick.

every training could be good. but here in the provinces of the Philippines where most people are farmers, they learn to cut, chop with their bolo while working in the farms and cutting grasses and woods. The practitioners of bolo or knife fighting will strike banana trunks to practice stabbing and hacking.

In a parking lot the best defence is aerosol siren, try to get a vehicle between you and your attacker, if the attacker holds his knife in front of himself he is also afraid and you should be able to back away screaming for help, if the attacker holds his knife behide him he most likely knows how to use it and isn't afraid, RUN screaming and remember he is afraid of moving vehicles!

Yeaaah, sensei Seth for the wiiinn! Kick that knife boooyyy!!!

Curious how they determine the winner at the self-defense championships in a knife attack bout, since obviously you can't simulate the effect landed stabs would have in reality. So when you don't fixate on the weapon and say gain control of the opponent and submit them or disarm them etc, but also got stabbed multiple times is there some scoring method or analysis process they uses to figure out if you would have "won" or if you would have been dead 60 seconds ago from massive blood loss?

Add Ed' OME to the end for a 4th class . It's really deep into using the knife

"its all about training thousands of reps" this, is by far the most important thing in any martial art. i trained in combative aikido. meaning, aikido vs resisting opponents. for 3 years. it taught me a few very important things. 1. awareness. MMA doesnt teach you to look out for weapons, blind sports, or potential bad scenarios and how to get out of them. 2. REPETITION. six hours a day for six months was spent not being allowed to traditionally strike. but i was defending against them. this was mainly foot work, positioning, feinting, biding time, and developing endurance. 3. your not pulling off any of those moves in most situations, nore should you even try. but learning to take advantage of those opportunity when they arise was the big lesson. 4. the knife defense. everything mentioned above are all things you would learn from these classes also. yeah, aikido in most cases is bullshit. but if you do some research, read some books. study diagrams. but if you take the time to practice all the other stuff it teaches its a very solid martial art.

Best Defense is be better with your own knife lol

The only time you know you can do this is experiencing it yourself through real violence. It depends on the environment , how fast or slow your opponent is . I have been attacked by someone with a knife in the streets , you don't have time to think only on how to survive . yes i did get cut and yes it hurts like hell the day after . I'm from south africa where real violence is an everday thing.

I was thinking of taking a class with Craig Douglas in the future.