The Gun Counter

REVERSE GRIP KNIFE FIGHTING

We will discuss the use of the knife in Reverse grip, or what the WW2 folks call the Ice Pick Grip. This involves holding the knife with the blade protruding from the bottom of the fist rather than from the top. The edge can be either edge out or more preferably edge in.

Now there are those who like this grip and others who disdain it. Believe it or not, there are even instructors today who claim to have invented it and lay claim to its ownership.

I have seen the reverse grip pictured in old tapestries in castles in Europe and in old "fight books" from the era. There are vague references to it in the bible as well as I suspect Jael used a reverse grip when she stabbed the king in the ear.

I first saw the reverse grip being used in 1973 when I studied Tanto Jutsu as a weapon system in my Kyokushinkai Karate studies. Later, in 1978 I believe, I saw it again in the hands of Mike Echanis, first in Black Belt magazine and later in his book on knife fighting.

And of course, who can forget the grand daddy of the reverse knife arts, Norman Bates and his "sensei" Alfred Hitchcock!

The reverse grip offers a benefit over other knife grips - POWER. If you give a spike to an untrained man and ask him to stab it into a tree, I will bet a C-Note he uses some sort of a reverse grip.

The reverse grip has advantages for the modern knife man as well. Most of us rely on the pistol as a primary self defense weapon. If we have to use a knife for defense, things have probably gone very wrong. This is no time to be worried about legal issues or civil liability, or any of the other things that consume the majority of "civilian" knife training.

Quite to the contrary, the goal should be to terminate the adversary, or adversaries (more likely) as soon and as fast as possible. As my friend James Keating says, "deanimate him".

So to that end, rather than staying at "largo mano" or long range and sniping at him with snap cuts, you would select to close and crash, and stab them to the ground. For this use, examine the placement of the knife in an edge-inward manner. This allows you to stab just as hard as any other manner, but it also allows you to cut on the pull back. With the edge outward, you can only cut as you push away. This is not as powerful and if you couple this with the tendency of the adversary to pull away from a cut, the contact with your edge may be marginal at best. The same pull back reflex will deepen your cut if the knife is held edge in.

Now some might say, "what if he has a knife too?" Then you have to be careful with your timing, but nevertheless, you do not want to delay at long range and give him the same opportunity. Consider that there are few knife on knife conflicts and that you may be using your knife against a larger, younger and stronger, but unarmed adversary. There may be several of them. He may have an impact weapon. The fight may not be the classic blade on blade event.

No methodbe perfect for every circumstance. If you want to have a valid response to every eventuality you need to make your education complete.

Gabe Suarez
Suarez International USA
Infidel Edgeworks

Drone 7 of lots more wrote:*BANG*

Knife? Huh?

AggieWalt wrote:Heres a question a little off topic. If you can't "clear leather" before an attacker gets into you at 7 meters then what are the possiblities that you could get to a knife in your pocket and open it (assuming that most folks carry folding knives in there pockets), or draw a fixed blade froma sheath. Like a pistol I wouldn't assume it is instantaneous.