Hank Reinhardt's Book of Knives: A Practical and Illustrated Guide to Knife Fighting

by Hank Reinhardt

  Once more, I can best show you what I mean by going back nostalgically to those glorious misspent days of my youth. I’m thinking particularly of one summer night in the park when I and my friends were engaged in our usual occupations of girl-watching and wise-assing. A commotion started suddenly at the entrance to the pavilion and sorta flowed in—like water into a gutter.

  Someone none of us knew had made an entrance and was doing his best to give the impression he was as bad as they come. He walked straight down the path, not moving aside for anyone or anything. He bumped men, women, little kids, and girls. The whole world just had to know how tough he was.

  There was a guy in the park we called “Smokey Stover” after a comic strip character. He was a few years older than my friends and me, and he was mean all the way through. Well, Tall Tough Stranger bumped right into Smokey. Smokey never batted an eye, just slapped the boy with his open hand.

  Tall Tough Stranger jumps back and starts talking the Bad Talk, fumbles in his pocket and, with a very loud click, pops open one of those damn Italian switchblades. Smokey just stood there. He’d already thumbed his knife open and had it dangling at his side.

  It’s a good bet TTS had seen Rebel Without a Cause, because as he advanced in a low crouch, arms real wide, he tossed his knife from hand to hand.

  Rebel without a chance.

  I don’t mean he switched his knife from hand to hand. I mean he tossed it so that it traveled a couple of feet through the air. He was good. He must have spent hours in front of the mirror, practicing the trick. Too bad he didn’t take fifteen minutes thinking about it.

  Smokey leaped forward and he looked like he belonged in a movie himself. It was a beautiful, long, low lunge worthy of Errol Flynn or Stewart Granger. He was tall and skinny with a lot of reach anyway. His knife was aimed right at the eye of TTS. TTS made a beautiful leap straight back.

  The problem was, he was right in the middle of one of those impressively practiced knife tosses of his. When he jumped back to avoid the point of Smokey’s weapon, he left his hanging in midair.

  Smokey kicked the knife away and TTS looked upset at that. It was nothing, however, compared with how upset he was about to look. I guess he had reason.

  Looking back, the whole thing seems damned stupid for the simple reason that it was. First of all, no one went looking for a fight in the park. They happened there all the time, but the object was to avoid them without being stepped on. King Kong walked softly there. So TTS wasn’t real bright to push into things there to begin with.

  Secondly, he didn’t seem to understand that knives are real. They make real cuts and the blood you bleed is real, and the pain is damned real.

  And last, why hadn’t he realized that switching a knife from hand to hand is one thing—but sacrificing control of your weapon is something else altogether.

  He also forgot—or never figured out—the cardinal rule of survival. Always remember: you never know who the other guy is until you fight him. And by that time it might be too late to do anything about it.

  Smokey Stover was the stuff of legends in our little circle. Everyone knew he carried a knife and would rather cut you than eat. I never heard of him being in a fistfight. If you got into a fight with him you had to cut him first, or maybe hit him with a baseball bat. Otherwise you’d get cut.

  PRIMARY TARGETS

  When forced into a position of having to use a knife against a similarly armed opponent, your primary targets should be the knife hand and arm.

  When facing another knife-wielder, go for the knife hand and arm.

  Of the two, the arm is the better target. It is larger, providing more area to cut, and damage there can affect the ability of your opponent to hold his knife. Don’t pass up the hand, but try for the arm.

  Most knife fighters will assume a stance that protects the body, neck, and face by covering them with the arms and moving them slightly out of your range. If you can land a blow to the head, by all means do so, especially if the blood will run into your opponent’s eyes. Scalp wounds bleed copiously, far in excess of the actual damage done, and it’s hard to fight when a heavy stream of your own blood is obstructing your vision.

  Either hand is a good target. With a big knife, you can go so far as to lop off fingers given the opportunity. But a small knife can still cut deeply, especially if you remember to angle the cut. A few such wounds and just about anyone will be ready to call it a day.

  In any one-on-one situation, remember the words of George Silver: “That there be no wards or grips, and to use continual motion.”

  There are no specific parries that can be made in a knife fight because there are no specific cuts or stabs to watch for. Since the knife hand and arm are targets, it follows that they should be moving because a moving target is harder to hit. Bobbing and weaving the whole body might help a little, but above all it is the arms that should be moving when you are in range of your opponent’s knife. When out of range, it doesn’t matter. You can rest, so long as you don’t go to sleep. But once you’re in range of his knife, you have to keep moving.

  The ability to judge distance accurately is critical. When your opponent attacks, you have to be able to tell if his knife will land or fall short a few inches. If he lunges, will his blade reach you? In an actual battle, you’ll find yourself constantly assessing such things.

  Staying out of range.

  The idea is to stay out of range until you are ready to attack, or receive his attack and counter. Counter-cutting can be very deadly. If an attack is made and fails to hit the mark, the attacker has put himself in his opponent’s reach and is vulnerable until he pulls back. If the opponent moves at the right moment, and with a good counter, the fight is over then and there.

  A counter-cut when opponent is within reach

  There are tricks you can employ to confuse your opponent’s ability to judge distance. One is to hold the knife very close to the blade.

  Deception: at first, hold your knife close to the blade, later extending it to confuse your opponent.

  If you can safely do so, make a couple of passes that fall short. (Your opponent will probably assist you here.) Then shift the knife forward until it’s extended as much as possible, and attack. This will add to your reach and his consternation . . .

  There’s an old fencing trick that can be adapted here, as well. Since the lunge is made from the left foot, draw the left foot close to the right. Your opponent will judge your effective distance from your normal position, but when you lunge forward, your reach will be greater than he expects.

  Old fencing trick.

  I once taught a judo and self-defense class at a YMCA that had a fencing team. One of the fencers was interested in knives, so we made some dummy knives to work out with after class. He was good at fencing and had won several matches in the Southeast. He moved beautifully and with frightening speed. When he lunged, he had about a 30 percent chance of landing a good hit. When he failed, however, he would have been crippled or killed.

  For a long time, he stubbornly believed he could get through with a lunge 90 percent of the time. But he hadn’t seen what I had, and didn’t know some of the people I knew. We kept records and he was finally convinced.

  The problem is that the left hand can snap down and block a lunge, leaving you completely open to a counter.

  Left hand snaps down and blocks your lunge, leaving you open to a counter.

  Or else the right hand, holding the knife, can drive the point into your arm, causing you to slice your own forearm as you move forward.

  Fencing lunges are always preceded by some fake or series of attacks designed to bring the opposing sword out of line so that the thrust can reach home. This isn’t possible with a knife, so the thrust and lunge have to be made as a single movement, with speed as the keynote for success. It just doesn’t work all the time.

  To sum all this up, I would advise you against lunging. You’re safer staying with cuts to the arm and leg until you can move i
n and finish your opponent off safely.

  Feints are the order of the day. If you can make an opponent think you’re attacking in one area while your real goal is elsewhere, you can land; and that’s what you want to do. A fake cut at the head, followed by a drop down to the leg for a slice, sounds difficult and time consuming, but you’d be surprised how quick it is and how well it can work.

  One of many possible feints: a fake cut at the head, followed by a drop down to the leg for a slice.

  There’s no way I can list all the possible feints that can be used in knife fighting. To list those I know about would be simply to not list those I haven’t thought of. The most important skill in combat is the ability to think and there is no better way to practice that than to try developing your own feints.

  Parries usually require the left arm, but you need to learn to use both arms in blocking. Not everyone is right handed and the lefty with any experience at all will have the advantage of being used to facing right-handed people. But never forget, if you’re right handed and find yourself facing a left-handed opponent, that if switching hands works for you, it can also work for him. A good trick is to keep the left hand clenched into a fist, as this really adds a positive force to a block and also keeps your fingers out of the way of the knife. It’s rather disconcerting to suddenly lose a finger.

  I’ve not said much about punches, not because I intend to ignore them, but because I don’t want to make a big issue out of throwing one. If you can hook or jab, do so. Just remember he has a knife. A block can get you cut at the same time.

  Back when I was young, in the days before the advent of karate, you could kick a man rather easily. Most people simply did not expect a kick. They were too used to fists to think about feet. Alas, such is not the case anymore. Nowadays people expect kicks.

  High kicks are generally worthless. To start with, it takes a lot of practice to learn how to get one to land properly. Even then they are just too slow. They are also easy to block, and when blocked, leave the kicker in a dangerous position.

  Now, you may disagree with that statement, particularly if you’ve had some martial arts training. I suggest you look at a full contact karate match some time. The rules require contestants to deliver so many kicks per round. What generally happens is that the opponents run out, give the required number of kicks, and then proceed to beat the hell out of each other.

  Low kicks can be useful. You can deliver one quickly and with devastating force. A kick to the knee is especially painful, and if done right, can cripple someone for life. The groin, although easier to protect by shifting the body, is also a fine fight-stopping target.

  A fake attack followed by a kick and then a real attack is a generally reliable strategy. You can modify it to a fake kick and a real attack, or to any combination you like. But remember: a good, low kick, not going any higher than the groin is an effective weapon.

  Throwing things—dust, rocks, change, just anything—at your opponent is a time-honored gimmick and, as gimmicks go, okay. But it’s overrated and very familiar. A good, cool fighter can slide aside, duck, and recover to meet your attack. And if your opponent is wearing glasses, well, what’s the point of throwing dirt in his face?

  Pepper was supposed to be popular at one time and when I roamed the streets, I heard about people carrying it, but I never saw anyone use it. The trouble with gimmicks like that is that everyone had heard about them and it’s hard to surprise someone with something he knows about.

  Of course, what goes for rocks and pepper goes for the trick of flicking a cigarette in a man’s face. But there is a little-known gimmick that can be added to that one: wetting the end of the cigarette before you flick it. If the wet end hits, it has a tendency to stick for a moment, which can hurt and be distracting.

  If you want to throw something, look for a brick. Better yet, look for half a brick. Grab it, get in close, and smash.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  So far, we’ve discussed fights where the knives are of relatively equal length. But what can you do when you have only your three-and-a-half-inch blade and your opponent pulls one that’s eight to twelve inches long?

  To put it bluntly, you have a real problem in that case.

  Against a longer knife, you can’t really go for hand cuts. It’s just too easy for him to cut you before you even reach his hand or arm. This is just as true for attacks to the body. By the time your blade has reached his chest (assuming you’re both pretty much the same height), his blade has already gone into you five to nine inches.

  One of my cardinal rules in knife fighting is to avoid getting cut, and I advise you to do the same. But if you find yourself unable to escape a situation like this, there are some things you can try. I wish I could tell you they work all the time, but they don’t. If you do well the maneuver I’m about to describe, you probably have a 40 percent chance of success. If you do it very well, you can even your chances.

  First, let me elaborate a little on hand cuts. When you’re fighting with a knife the same size as your opponent’s, you can attack at the hand from a high position, cutting downward then dropping the wrist and flicking the knife around so that you actually cut from the inside.

  Attack at the hand from a high position, cutting downward, then dropping the wrist and flicking the knife around to cut from the inside.

  But when your opponent has a longer knife, he can always stay out of your range while working on your hands. As I said, you have a problem.

  When you have the shorter knife, reverse your stance to protect your knife hand, then move in close and attack quickly, aiming to incapacitate.

  Virtually the only way to deal with the situation is to reverse your stance, with your left foot forward. The rule is to protect your knife hand. You may have to take some cuts on the left arm, but the fighting arm has to be protected.

  As your opponent attacks, attempt to fend him off with the left hand and counter-cut with your knife. This is a high risk maneuver, but if it works, you can make your move. Nothing tricky, nothing special, no big secret. You just leap forward, trying to close with him as quickly as you can. If you can land on one of his feet, so much the better. Not to break his instep, but to throw him off balance and prevent retreat. As you close, cut and stab in a frenzy of motion. You have only a fraction of a second before he will bring his knife into play. During that time, you have to hit something vital or incapacitating—throat, eyes, solar plexus, groin—and the attacks must be vicious. Twist and rip for all you’re worth. If you fail, you will never have a second chance.

  Should the situation be reversed and your opponent have the shorter knife, remember the above. He has to close with you in order to make his weapon effective. Don’t allow yourself to be worked into a corner where you can’t retreat. Move away, move in to attack, then move back out again. Take full advantage of your longer reach.

  Should he manage to close in, however, you have to retaliate in kind, stabbing and cutting in a frenzy of motion at least the equal of his.

  FIGHTING TWO AT ONCE

  If fighting a man with a longer knife is bad, fighting two men is even worse. If they know what they’re doing, they’ll cut you to ribbons. The only hope you have is the fact that very few people work well as a team.

  Back in the mid-1970s, when I lived in Birmingham, Alabama, a good friend of mine found himself in this position when two guys tried to roll him. He’s a relatively mild sort, but he had the benefit of a misspent youth and was pretty streetwise. What happened is a rather classic approach and not a bad way to handle it.

  The two men approached and one walked directly in front of him while the other walked to the side, eyes straight ahead.

  As soon as the second was behind my friend, the first snarled a few curses, put his hand in his pocket and demanded money. My friend, being a very reasonable man, reacted in a reasonable way. He spun, lashed out with a low kick that caught the guy in back of him square in the crotch, continued the spin and popped the other guy on the
nose with his fist. He then moved back, thumbed open his knife and started forward. His bad knee gave way, so he stumbled, which gave the two time to hobble away, clutching various parts of their wounded anatomy. Had the leg not given way, I’m sure he would have been in some serious trouble for cutting up some people, but then again, maybe not. I don’t think he really cared.

  The point is, he reacted in a totally unexpected way. He attacked. He did it quickly, viciously, and with dedication to wreaking harm on his attackers. He then backed off, armed himself, and was about to renew the battle.

  When faced with two men with knives, this is by far your best defense. Attack one, then turn the fake into a real attack on the other. Whether the attack succeeds or not, you should be able to split the two apart and that should give you time to run. If the attack works and you can disable one, then it’s the old one-on-one. Otherwise, just run. Two men are just too many for one guy to face.

  FIGHTING WHEN UNARMED

  Equally frightening is to be attacked by one man who has a knife when you’re unarmed.

  A lot of books on self-defense describe neat disarming moves, and if you believe them, you must think it’s the easiest thing in the world to subdue a man with a knife. Ha.

  Of course, it’s possible to disarm a knife wielder. If he’s not familiar with knives or if he’s afraid of it, it’s quite possible. If, on the other and more likely hand, he knows what he’s doing, you have almost no chance at all.