The Way of Least Resistance

Some of you might recall from my essay " My unlikely relationship with the jian " the story of how my father bought me a hunting knife when I was 7 years old - and how I lost it.  In fact, it wasn't "lost" so much as stolen.  Now, after almost exactly 41 years, I have it back.  Almost.  Anyway, here's the story: You might remember that my father and I entered a rather smoky little specialist blade shop somewhere in downtown Belgrade in December 1972 where he bought me a lovely bone-handled hunting knife.  It seemed like a large Bowie in my child-sized hands.  And it was love at first sight. I took that knife home with me to Papua New Guinea.  Back then we were living in the tiny hamlet of Kavieng on the northern and western tip of New Ireland, just 100 km south of the equator.  It was a hot, sticky, remote and totally undeveloped corner of the world where remnants of World War II were still "fresh" - at least in a decomposing, oxidising yet...

You come across two people fighting at a train station.  They are wrestling on the ground.  One guy is on top of the other. Suddenly the guy who is on top pulls a knife... [Warning - disturbing footage following.] The video below was posted on Facebook with the following comment: I just saved dude life,i have blood all over me,i almost got stabbed in the neck,i missed my stop,came back to save somebody life,oooooomy god im shaking Clearly the bystander then stopped his own video recording of the incident and went to the aid of the victim. It seems the victim survived.  This separate footage taken from the train was also posted on Facebook, accompanied by the following comment: Fools fighting at ashby trainstation...#901 rice street...smh Would you have intervened sooner?  If so, how? I'll leave you to comment, but please keep your comments restrained - not to mention respectful towards the bystander who, whichever way you look at it, put him...

Following my article " Dealing with knife attacks ", I want to make an admission: I once thought that it was a good idea to kick knives out of people's hands.  Now I didn't actually teach this: I don't think I have ever held a class where we practised this as a "technique". But I did use this scenario in a couple of demonstrations many years ago.  Why?  I suppose that at the time I thought it created a bit of atmosphere.  Bring out a knife and the audience perks up. I also suppose I had in the back of my mind that it might  work tolerably well:  I'd seen it demonstrated so many times over decades of training that it was just "part of the furniture": kicking a knife-holding hand seemed quite plausible.  Of course, you'd never do it with a bare foot - but then again, when are we bare foot?  On the beach?  Generally we wear shoes in daily life.  And I suppose a part of me thought: "Yeah -  thick rubber and leather are going ...