A recent incident in Manchester NH involved a man who started a fight in a bar. The fight moved outside and the man who started the fight pulled a knife. In the ensuing fight he not only stabbed the other guy but his friend and managed to cut off his own finger. You can read it in the Manchester Union Leader here.
Now there is a certain black humor in this incompetent idiot cutting off his own finger, but in another way it is vary scary – knowing that there are these types of idiots out there. I would not like to meet him and I would not want to be like him. Reading this story reminded me why I train for edged weapon self defense. I want to train so that if I run in to this guy, I can get away safely. If I have to use a knife, I will not cut off my own fingers. Before I came to Coach Freedman’s school I knew just enough about knife fighting to get my self in trouble. All those techniques that I learned in Karate and Aikido might have worked if the attacker came at me with an overhead strike or with a straight in stab. One class with Coach Freedman convinced me that I was sadly lacking in knife defense skills. Any one of his students could have sliced and diced me with little effort. After years of training I at least feel that I have a chance.
I love Coach Freedman’s saying that “ There are two types of people that are dangerous with a knife. Those that are trained and those that are not.” That is something I always keep in mind and that is what keeps me training.
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Training for martial arts can be really cool and learning self defense is a part of it. If I were to ask you, would you rather go for self defense using weapon or would you stick to using just the parts of your body? Well, the answer lies on you. I must say that I would rather practice self defense with weapon for future use.
I train for a simple reason… I always wanted to train in martial arts for self defense and finally this year I was given the chance and time to enroll in a class, so far so good. I am learning a lot and I am in the process of building my self confidence in fighting against any great danger. If I get to choice a weapon? I prefer nothing at all.