Dear all,
I have read this in a martial art book written by a high ranking black belt. I have to change the words in order to avoid the copy right law, however, the meaning remained unchanged.


Unarmed defense against knife

An unarmed person facing an armed attacker, who carry a knife is in a very danger situation. You can end up serious hurt or death. A highly skilled martial artist can still be hurt by an unskilled knife attacker. The more skillful the knife attacker is, then the chance of you getting hurt increase. You stand very little chance against a skilled knife-fighter regardless of your experience and skill.


I agreed with most of the thing the author has written. Confrontation against an armed attacker is unwise and very dangerous. You can end up death! However, some of the comments above do not make any sense. Assuming that the knife is replaced by an object of equal length and shape, this means that any unskilled person holding that object can touch you. If this is the case, why should I wasting my time and my hard earned cash learning martial artist from you! When any unskilled person can touch me as long as they are holding a two and a half inches object. This also mean that any one who is two feet taller than me can touch me at will, despite the fact he/she has no skill! If this is the case how come some of the unarmed ancient karate masters could defeat the Japanese samurai or warriors, who carried long sharp swords, spears, etc. while many of today's highly rated martial artists cannot even defense themselves against a person holding a two and half inches knife? If they can, then the statement above would not have been published in a book in the first place!
Many of the modern days self proclaimed masters claiming that their modern day training methods are better than the traditional methods. You can find those adverts in most martial arts magazines. If this is the truth, they (unarmed) should have no problem defeating an armed attacker carrying a two feet long sharp sword or spear. However, I have not seen many martial arts instructors who would spar with anyone (without wearing any protective clothing); let alone sparring against an unskilled armed attacker carrying a sharp knife.
Assuming that both traditionalist and modernist are telling the truth that they can defence themselves against armed attackers, then how come there are so many martial students who got hurt by knife? I used to know two martial arts students who got stabbed by knives.
I come to the conclusion that:
1. Martial arts have become so degraded that it is no better than a dance routine
Or
2. the ancient karate masters were liars; they could not defeat the armed Japanese warriors.
3. There are more conmen running martial arts schools than in any other trade.

I will be very grateful if anyone can tell me which statement is truth, because I am getting very confuse reading all those sale man techniques (articles) in different martial arts web sites.

Thank you

Hitman