It is said that knife attacks out numbered in sheer numbers all other weapon attacks combined. Virtually every single Martial Art that is street combat orientated has some knife defence techniques. The sad truth however is most of them are worthless. The defences are usually made up of a few varieties.

1. Hit the arm out of the way and than attack the opponent or
2. Redirect the arm and than catch it in some fancy lock to strip the knife.

Some arts like the Filipino styles look very nice as they flow back and forth and the attacker’s weapon is being redirected here and there. That is as long as the opponents knows the drill and is co-operating completely. All knife defences have a chance of working against a foolish and robotic type attacker, the kind I have never seen in a real situation. Knives usually come into play in close quarters and the opponent is slashing back and forth and stabbing randomly and erratically. In the 80’s when I was teaching Seminars with my teacher, at the time Pendekar Suryadi Jafri he would pick the smallest person at the seminar, usually a girl. Then he would ask if everyone knew knife defences. Everyone would say Yes, Yes we do. Than he would get the student he picked a Magic Marker and asked than to go and write there name on the face and body of each person as fast as possible while the other person performed their knife defences. I never saw one person who was never marked from head to foot and was left standing in utter embarrassment. So what is the answer?

Let’s go back and look at the development of Cimande for a moment. Embah Kahir the founder of Cimande started with his first art Sera. Sera operated on the concept of misdirection, and than striking, and is a Monkey based art. Sera is a beautiful art in its original form, but was found ineffective against knives. Next Embah Kahir invented Pamacan, a tiger style that combined nerve centre strike grabs and the taking of the opponent to the ground. Again, not very good against multiple armed attackers. In the finals refinements of Cimande the art of pinpoint precision striking was developed to a very high degree. Even in the Juru’s of Cimande there are three that deal with knife defences and three that deal with knife attacks. The concept is simple but brilliant! Keep your limbs in closed to your body to protect your vital organs and through the practices of the Jurus learn how the first strike to your opponents limbs set him up for a second, third and forth strike to the hand holding the knife. These strikes are done in a lighting fast manner and the termed “Kilap – Lighting strikes” is given in some schools. This is the key! Your limbs must be moving in and out extremely fast to intercept the cuts much as an anti ballistic missile seeks its target. No attack is ever, ever done to any other portion of the attacker’s anatomy unless his knife is gone from his grasp. Once contact is made the arm is stuck to with the principle of adhesion, until the knife is gone. This means if at the first strike he starts to recoil the hand rather than stepping back, you move forward keeping the blows raining down on his limbs with viscous rapidity. One way this type of hitting is developed is by playing the drums, like a Congo drum, the short fast loose type strikes to the drum, build the concept within the practioner of accurate fast short strikes which we also call “Poison Hand Hitting” It is call this because to the uninitiated it can appear as though the defender must have poison on the hands in order to take out the adversary so quickly with almost nothing seen. Now what if you are fighting with the knife also? Well that’s where the other three juru’s come into play that teach knife offences. Also the role of the empty hand is now replaces with the same quick fast snap cuts and slashes of the knife. A snap cut is a technique in which the edge of the blade is snapped with an action of the wrist quickly forward so the edge is driven to the bone at once severing tendons and ligaments on the way. A student, who wished to learn these techniques, should seek out a Qualified Pukulan Cimande Pusaka Instructor. Both forward and reverse grips are utilizes. A person who is confident and assumes the Cimande on guard knife position is less likely to even be attack than most other ready positions. A few years back I was attacked by a man with two knives, assuming the position he only made one weak attempt to close with me and when he saw what he was getting he wound up leaving. I said to him you got two knives and what are you afraid of? He made the right decision as at that point with him having two blades I was planning on the worst for him. I can honestly say this is the only defence I have seen that when faces with a real situation, I felt totally confident with. Through the years I have had matches with individuals using wooden and rubber knives. Some were so called experts, Navy Seals etc… The wooden knives break bones with these techniques and the rubber ones cut very easy. Nothing is guaranteed to work every time but this is the best insurance policy I know of when faced with a knife Wielding assailant.

Pendekar Sanders will be teaching the Cimande Knife Training at his Dublin Seminar on May 29th – 30th.