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THE SACRIFICE FALL

THE SACRIFICE FALL    Pride before the “Fall.”

Pride before the FAIL (or Fall) – meaning “those people who are overconfident or too arrogant are likely to fail” – this quick, popular and easily understood saying is from the Bible’s Book of Proverbs, in a few varied words. But the same message. Now, I am far from a Biblical expert, but its general popularity speaks volumes. Here I would like to rotate the word “fail” to “fall,” – which so many people already do anyway. There are other related phrases to add to this subject, like “you fell prey to,” or “falling prey to,” meaning you have been misguided and “fell” for some such thing that you should not have.

I would like here to produce some ideas and regenerate some martial arts history. The subject? The so-called “sacrifice fall” or another version of the same, “sacrifice throw.” Same-same. 

The word “sacrifice” pops up in many ways in old and new combatives, martial arts and combat sports:

  • You learn that you will sacrifice a lot of your free time to train.
  • You learn that to practice might mean sacrificing your short-term or long-term health.
  • You learn that that when you kick, you temporarily sacrifice your balance.
  • You learn that When you punch, you sacrifice your safer arms-up, shield protection.
  • You learn and train you very often “lose,” a lot, discovering ignorances, sacrificing your ego and pride.
  • You learn that entering into a new art or system, you learn that not only did you sacrifice your time with the last one, you might have wasted a bit of it too.
  • You learn about sacrifice falls. You should be taught about the few pros and many cons of the sacrifice fall. 

Yes, lots of sacrifices in the martial arts and combat sports. And in this category of sacrifices includes the ubiquitous topic of “sacrifice falls” – defined as “purposely giving up, surrendering, your superior standing or knee-high position to end up fighting on the grounds and floors of the world.” I am here to report that once popular warning, is not at all as ubiquitous as it once was. And I would add, numerous popular arts and sports seek the very opposite. Entire systems now live on and for the sacrifice fall. I mean why else call them sacrifice falls for God’s sake! You are sacrificing,

Starting as an adult in the early 1970s in Ed Parker Kenpo Karate, I was taught the old, current and potentials of fighting. A common expression and lessons were about serious warnings on the “sacrifice fall-throw.” It was once very popular to at least warn practitioners about the few pros and mostly cons of sacrifice falls. “Now this technique is a sacrifice fall. You will go down on purpose with your opponent, sacrificing…”  

Much of this early aikido, aiki-jitsu and jujitsu training was down on wooden floors or carpet. Falls were tougher to absorb than on today’s mats. This was educational. To my memory, these instructors never said, “Don’t ever-ever sacrifice fall!” There are indeed oddball times when you should, but they just warned you about the losses. 

Warned you about what exactly? Loss of mobility. Multiple opponents. Hard landings. You know the drill, the usual advice, now so ignored. And like worrying about the varied surfaces of the world include the wood and the carpet, yes, but also cement, asphalt, tile, sand, dirt, water, mud, rocks all found within the vertical challenges of slants, stairs, hills, surrounded by furniture, bars, walls, trees, fences…well…the list is long and in some 26 years of police work in line operations, I have struggled with suspects in many of these horizontal and vertical mixes. (One of my “memorable” arrests was falling and fighting a suicidal guy in the pouring rain, sliding down a long, very slanted hill of mud. We weren’t standing, nor officially horizontal, we were “down.” Is that “ground fighting?)  I once got a bruise on my rear end, fighting down on a parking lot, from the badge inside my wallet, in my back pocket. That’s reality. It does also stand to reason that…I have NEVER fought a suspect…on a mat. the world is not a mat, It’s a tough surface. 

I know this concept-advice is old, but is it gone? It is still rather ignored by thousands, so the drum must be pounded. Recently, I saw a film of one my acquaintances-teachers jump on an opponent in a tackle and they both plummeted onto a very plush, deep (6 inches or more?) gymnastics-style mat. It was blatantly obvious that our hero would have totally shattered his elbow. I said, “damn, and he doesn’t even know that?” He must not have known because he proudly published the film clip. Finally, someone chimed in with the comment, “and you have now totally destroyed your elbow.” Ahhh, just one of the perils of the purposeful, sacrifice fall. The instructor stuttered a half-assed “yeah…we…but…ahhh…” reply. There was no getting around the mistake. He should have just taken the clip down off the web. He should have had the “martial I.Q” to realize that his “cool-breeze” move was a contradiction to the “SELF DEFENSE” verbiage on his storefront window.  

I do not wish to bother you here with list of advantages of being up and mobile, with a solid expertise in kickboxing, facing the mixed weapon world of hand, stick, knife, gun. I do believe everyone knows this on some level, but they do not actualize it, take it to heart and mind. So many arts and sports these days ignore or de-value kick-boxing, and work hard to only achieve a sacrifice fall, only to wrestle on the ground for a submission. Their sport-art training mission is central to sacrifice falling. You must go down with them. There are videos for sale out there proudly titled “The Best Sacrifice Throws.” Yup, for sports and arts, but there is a certain, cancerous, brainwashing, muscle memory about all this. Recipes to fight survival are situational. 

It use to be joke-videos years ago, when we saw submission fighters drop on the ground and shout “Get in my guard!” It was funny! We laughed. Now, this is actually happening in competitions! Why bother with sacrifice falls! Just jump down and get in my guard! What an abstract, rabbit hole.

Old police college researchers tried to compile a list in the 1990s on how we end up on the ground in a fight. It makes some sense. In order they advised:

  • 1: We trip and fall (VERY likely).
  • 2: We are tackled (and usually not by some highly refined sport takedown, but usually by a “wild man” tackle. The sacrifice fall!)
  • 3: We are punched down (via – a: the sucker punch,  b: the haymaker, c: the classic sport punches).
  • 4: We are pulled down (when we try to toss someone, they try not to fall and instinctively reach out and grab something and that means YOU).

Years ago, like in old school ju-jitsu , the priority takedowns were those where you remained standing up or at least knee high. You tried. Even in police work arrests, you tried. These are indeed a little harder to do. It is often easier to sacrifice, to just jump on someone and both hit the mat. I mean ground. As a teacher of self defense, these distinctions are in my course doctrine. Our first line of takedowns and throws involve set-up stunning strikes (it all starts with something like kickboxing) and takedowns where the practitioner remains standing or knee-high.

A defender must fully learn ground n pound, survival, no rules, ground fighting for when one accidentally falls or is taken down by a criminal or enemy soldier sacrificer. All survivalists, all martialists, must learn every joint in the body and which direction that joint turns and bends and which directions those joints can’t-don’t turn and bend. Standing through ground. This general, body-knowledge is required. 

Ends justify the means? In 26 years I have arrested some 900 people and been around for and investigated hundreds more “fight enders”. The martial arts? 51 years and counting. I can predict how these things end. Many students seek the sacrifice fall to seek the tap-out submission, a recipe for sports and arts. Fun for all to know, but when soldiers, civilians and police drop and seek a tap-out submission in a conflict, this is NOT a fight ender. When you let them go, as you eventually must, the fight (or chase) continues. Dumb martial artists claim, “I’ll break their arm then…etc.” Dumb combatives people claim, “I’ll blind them, then…etc.” Then bubba, you’ll probably go to jail, taking an arguably self defense situation into a serious bodily injury felony. By the way, police must be in a limited, somewhat submission position to handcuff. Handcuffing resistors-fighters is hard. They punch, kick and bite. 

Let’s not sacrifice words, in a summary: Have you ever known of, or have forgotten the almost ancient advice-warnings on the idea of sacrifice falls-throws? The tip, the advice still does exist in smart places here and there. Recently the Evolve -MMA.com (a great resource) page warned – “Remember that the sumi gaeshi is a sacrifice throw; an unsuccessful attempt may result in either a pin or a scramble.” The advice-warning still is in existence, but not enough.

Now look – I always run this disclaimer – if you are a happy camper in your beloved hobbies, arts and sports? Judo. BJJ, tennis, golf, etc? Great news! I’m happy if you are happy. All I ask is that you know those are abstract skills relate to reality. Just know precisely what you are doing and where it fits in the real, big picture of hand, stick, knife and gun, war and crime survival. It might not fit much at all (this might mean taking down the self defense sign in your window). Don’t spread the innocent, cancer-brainwashing. Don’t advertise that your mandatory, sacrifice fall, submission, tap-out art is the superior system of the planet. The galaxy. You have then “fallen prey” to short-sighted ignorance. Your martial “I.Q.” is low. Don’t fall prey to the sacrifice fall.

And to back a bit to the bible analogy – “People who are overconfident or too arrogant (about their ground wrestling, who ignore kickboxing and mixed weapons, who ignore crime and war) are likely to fail-fall.” Pride before the fall, the fail. 

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NLP in Martial Arts and Shooting – A Brief History

I was doing a seminar in early 1990s and an attendee approached me during a break and said,
“I see you’ve studied NLP.”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, you use NLP methods. I thought you did.”
In England years later, another guy said the same thing. I said no again. And then a host there said that I “used NLP.”  

Neural Linguistic Programming. What then precisely was NLP “methods?” I was just “doing my thing.” Saying “my thing.” Of course, I had a vague idea of NLP because some pop instructors of the day were using it as the next sales pitch magic, promoting it to sell their courses. “Learn NLP!” Was it a form of hypnosis? Svengali-manipulation?

So, I had to look this up to see what I was doing naturally that was so NLP-ish. After a library visit I deduced that EVERYONE was “using NLP” to some degree. Using your words to influence, to teach and sway (and hopefully improve) was not new. Selecting and understanding wordings and the nuances thereof, reaching and influencing people, did not and does not have to come from NLP.

 The Death of Marcus Wynne (February 2022) Army vet. Air Marshal vet. Creator of courses. Why am I thinking about the faded away NLP? Wynne’s recent death made me re-reflect on those NLP-times, because with his passing his old friends mentioned the things he taught. And for some, they say Wynne somewhat-somehow changed their lives! They recall he taught things mentioned above like “crisis rehearsal,” visualization and the magical – NLP. In fact, Wynne was revered by some folks, as some sort of “Jedi” in those days gone by. 

Jedi? Star Wars? The timing for such lingo was perfect, as the army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) were looking into any and all ways to enhance soldiers “brains” and performance. The book, The Men Who Stare at Goats, which I read years ago was described as – “a non-fiction work by Jon Ronson concerning the U.S. Army’s exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal. The title refers to attempts to kill goats by staring at them and stopping their hearts.” But, known by most folks, this storyline was satirically covered in the movie version with George Clooney. This was an era for insider, mind-expanding stuff. NLP seemed like one of the magic paths, especially with the underway, “goat-army” connection.   

I knew at the time Wynne was teaching here and there. I saw him in some training films, but I just…I just didn’t care as many of us were also “looking around” at science, sports, medical and psychological incorporations for fighting and performance. For others, Wynne seemed to be their introduction to progressive ideas, which was a good thing. Everybody learns stuff from somebody else. Plus, Wynne had an engaging personality (which that in and of itself is NLP-ish). Then his popularity seemed to shrink away into a, not-quite oblivion through time, as will we all. And after all, he survived a serious near-death cancer back then, taking him even further “from the scene,” for a time. I am pretty sure Wynne moved on from NLP. Anyway, his death brought all this up from my memory. You “rookies, young-ins” will find some martial folks and firearm old-timers lamenting his passing and now you know why.

           All goats aside, I highly, highly              recommend this investigative book.

 

The raw, overall solution-methods were “camp-fire old” in many ways. In another whim-follow-up in about 2018, I downloaded several newer concept NLP books via audio (by actual doctors NOT martial arts guys). I listened to them, which extraplolated the evolved additions of the NLP world, somehow dense while shallow, (one of the NLP complaints is that they use vague language – see inside the link below). After lstening, I still remained quite unimpressed.

Common, related NLP topics were told and old:

  • Stress inoculation (not new even then).
  • Crisis rehearsal (not new even then).
  • Visualization (not new even then).
  • Advanced learning methods (not new even then). 
  • Special, catchy language (never new.)

It’s the gun-guy, Dave Spaulding’s old, wise line again, “It’s not new, it’s just new to you” that holds true over and over. And by the way, speaking of guns, there was an NLP influence within certain firearms crowds too, back then. So, why the martial arts and shooter fuss ages ago?

Shootin’ and Fightin.’ Being in and around the martial arts, military-policing and guns since the early 1970s, I have seen many fads come and go. Oh, they might last a while, but still are a fad. We are in the middle of a few right now. The influence of how NLP had some voodoo magic in the 1970s, 80s and even the 90s martial artists, shooters and other folks is an interesting business study. First off, martial artists, shooters, police, military being human, we can fall for any sales pitch. Business people use faddish sales pitches to increase sales. NLP can be by itself, its own manipulative sales pitch, about a sales pitch, about a sales pitch, about… (the cycle continues).

And now back to NLP itself… for quick examples…

  • A monopoly on crisis rehearsal? New? No. I mean just look at old football practice and old shoot-room training. Are they not crisis rehearsal? Sometimes you are already doing what you have been told is new, and have not made the connection.
  • A monopoly on Visualization? New? No. In Ed Parker’s Kenpo Karate classes in 1972, there were discussions on the power of visualization training. Sort of rehearsing in your mind katas, techniques and fights in a quiet room or moment. For me, a believer in the tenant of “reduce the abstract,” when feasible, I will never grasp significantly replacing this closed-eye, sit-down with physical action. There is much science today that proves such visualization-meditation has only fractional results in comparison to reality, or smart steps toward reality. My point is not the success ratio, but rather that the practice of visualization already existed in martial arts. Take shadow boxing. It can be be quite shallow without visualizing an opponent. Helps but the shadowm won’t break your nose. I am sure readers here will and could list this martial, mental rehearsal practice going…back…ages.
  • A monopoly on advanced learning? New? No. There’s always more learning. In the “mind-game” you have to keep up with the ever-changing  improvements. I have a friend in Australia who is a double-doctorate in psychology, a working counselor and college professor. He told me that a psychology doctorate must be completed within two years because that’s how fast the world of neural-plasticity changes! NLP was off the radar. (Psychological therapies are VERY complex, the training complex, and require a customized, deep-dive into clients with careful scripts.)

Trained psychologists and motivational speakers were teaching these generic principles of speech, motivation and improvement, here, there and everywhere. I mean, Zig Zigler or any business guru said more or less the same things. The Power of Positive Thinking was a 1952 self-help book by Norman Vincent Peale. Age-old common speech classes produce verbal influence methods. Books and speakers have preached the copying of successful people’s habits, their messages and ideas were-are very much language influencers. They all use and preach the nuance of language to communicate, focus, sway and improve. President Lyndon Johnson would write speeches, then hand the crude outline to his speechwriters and say, “Here, put the music to it.”  The music to it. To really work, you need the soundtrack.

  

Any-who, here are some fast facts about the old and new NLP:

  • Linguistics is the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language.
  • NLP was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who believed it was possible to identify the patterns of thoughts and behaviors of successful individuals and to teach them to others.
  • NLP originated when Richard Bandler, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was listening to and selecting portions of taped therapy sessions of the late Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls as a project for Robert Spitzer. Bandler said that he recognized particular word and sentence structures which facilitated the acceptance of Perls’ therapeutic suggestions. Bandler then approached John Grinder, then a linguistics lecturer. Bandler and Grinder say that they studied Perls’ utterances on tape and observed a second therapist, Virginia Satir, to produce what they termed the meta model, a model for gathering information and challenging a client’s language and underlying thinking.
  • NLP tries to detect and modify unconscious biases or limitations of an individual’s map of the world.
  • NLP is not hypnotherapy. Instead, it operates through the conscious use of language to bring about changes in someone’s thoughts and behavior. (Some naysayers call it “covert” hypnosis.)

Camp-fire old? Many experts (and little-ol’ me) believe that your world – as in your personal predilections, and our world as in history, governments and religions, are totally built on, and re-enforced by, fiction and non-fiction stories. Mine was. Is. Story-telling from the campfires to the upcoming “Metaverse” has shaped and is shaping the world. And these stories are made up of single script lines…single sentences. Phrases even. Verbally, spoken, these sentences are bolstered by intonations, gestures and facial expressions. Lyrics without music. Poems with or without rhymes. How somewhat engaging they all are, somewhat hypnotic…how…NLP-ish sounding, but not NLP.? 

Oh, the everlasting, simple wonder of manipulative words! Monks chant. Writers write. Poets poet. Singers sing. Preachers pound the podium. Speakers-talkers sway and influence. Oh, the pulse, the orchestration of words to create positive (or sadly, negative) emotional, intellectual bonding and states of mind. 

NLP had a martial arts and shooter fad. NLP is not in the martial arts, shooting world vernacular. The universal training topics were there before NLP and remain after. Today, you have to be careful about NLP though. I don’t think it comes up much in modern discourse. Despite being around for nearly half a century, NLP is currently not recognized in mainstream psychology. I know some folks working on their Masters and PHDs in pschology, enjoy talking with them, and NLP is nowhere to be found. It seems like today’s NLP business wants to make “life coaches” out of just about anybody, high school grads or not.  And I noticed that the old “NLP” initials are easily confused today some some modern computer, language programming.

So, from the 1990s, and through the finished books in 2018. I remain unimpressed. I am a skeptical, hard-sell by nature anyway. Good or bad, I did suspect early on that learning this NLP stuff from actual veteran, certified psychologists would be smarter than from some martial arts guys or gals who may or may not have even graduated high school? But as we see, veteran, certified psychologists won’t touch the stuff.

After this article was published a professional NLP-er coach stood up for NLP (and why wouldn’t he? It was his income). He was very nice and non-confrontational, but I must say I’ve never read a more jargon-filled, collection of complicated clap-trap, goobly-gook. I told him that this techno-talk, meant to sell and impress, was largely responsible for the decline in NLP. No reply. 

Thanks to the internet, today’s citizen, shooter, police, military, martial studies are diverse and wide-open to new worlds of modern science, sports training, medicine and psychology. Look around. Be conscious of fads and overt and covert sales pitches. Our martial genre always talks about being a “hard target?” Also be a “hard-sell,” skeptic.

And I now hereby conclude my manipulative words for today. I guess I do know NLP after all!

For more…

Six ways you can tell someone is using NLP on YOU

The Men Who Stare at Goats Movie Trailer

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@forcenecessary.com

For more essays like this here, click here 

 

 

 

 

#nlp #marcuswynn  #combatives #martialarts #martialartstraining #kravmaga #preparedcitizen #counterbladetactics #PoliceDefensiveTactics #defensivetactics #selfprotectiontraining #selfdefensetraining

 

 

 

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Ten Fighting “Stances,” Positions

In 1986, I became fascinated by the Bruce Lee’s essay on “the stance of no stance,” idea. Whether hand, stick, knife or gun, I opted for the loose “ready stance,” and the “balance and power in motion” concept, a motion-picture-idea rather than a still-photo-idea.

Thanks to Bruce Lee, the Inosanto Family (and Ed Parker) when teaching since the late 1980s, I organized and demonstrated the Ten Probable Position-Problems to prepare people for the full spectrum of mixed weapon fighting possibilities. I was a cop then and we had to fight on the ground periodically, so even before the BJJ madness-fad, many of us trained in a diverse Police Judo, later re-named Police Defensive Tactics (both very incomplete). And, I was deeply involved with the Inosanto Family and they were deeply involved in “shooto” – “shoot wrestling.”

One might say there are three generics in “street fighting-survival” challenges. 1) standing, 2) kneeling-seated, 3) floor-ground. But inside each there are differing heights and needs, making up the ten. For me a system-art that spends too much time in one of the categories is forgetting the importance of the others. In any fight you may well transition through some of these ten. Investigate them through the Ws and H Questions, the who, what, where, when, how and why questions to best explore combatives. One such “Where” question is…”Where are you?”  Standing? Kneeling? Seated? Floored-grounded? 

  • Problem 1a: Unready Standing unprepared – the “stupid bus top.” This is a concept I learned from Ed Parker Kenpo karate in 1973. You are standing normally (like waiting for a bus). You are probably zoned out and unprepared.
  • Problem 1b: Ready Standing Ambush – the “prepared bus stop.” You are prepared but don’t look so to an opponent. (Think sucker punch approach, concept.)
  • Problem 2:  Ready Standing – “Weapon” Forward or as in a right side lead. (Weapon as in hand, stick, knife, gun.)
  • Problem 3: Ready Standing – “Weapon” Neutral or as in hands-torso showing no lead. (Weapon as in hand, stick, knife, gun.)
  • Problem 4: Ready Standing – “Weapon” Forward or as in a left side lead. (Weapon as in hand, stick, knife, gun.)
  • Problem 5: Knee Height (or seated,) versus Standing.
  • Problem 6: Knee Height (or seated,) versus Knee-high or Seated.
  • Problem 7: Knee Height versus Someone Below You. This is the top-side of a floor-ground fight. (Might be two knees down, right knee up or left knee up.)
  • Problem 8: Floored-grounded On Back. This means fighting standing, kneeling and grounded enemies. Full spectrum, head to toe (think north-south-east-west).
  • Problem 9: Floored-grounded on Right Side. Usually this means fighting enemies that are knee-high or grounded too. Full spectrum, head to toe (think north-south-east-west).
  • Problem 10: Floored-grounded on Left Side. Usually this means fighting enemies that are knee-high or grounded too. Full spectrum, head to toe (think north-south-east-west).

 

YOU WILL BE FIGHTING “HERE”… In many a fight, certainly an ambush, you might never get a chance to strike up a defined “stance.” Still, this study reminds everyone that fighting includes all these up-and-down height categories and they should not be ignored or forgotten.

EVERYTHING you learn, must be experimented through these 10 position (stance) problems. Every strike, kick, lock, etc…can you do it there? Can it work here? There? Up and down? Yes or no? This is the goal of the seamless survival fighter. You fight where you fight, where you are.  A true fighter-survivor, so-called “combatives” person, fights standing, kneeling-seated and on the floor-ground, in and out of buildings, in rural, suburban and urban areas. Dissect, identify and discard sports and artsy cancers. A combatives fighting system is about doctrine-doctrine-doctrine, the training skeleton which recognizes chaos, crime and war and best prepares people to respond.

I ask again, “Where are you?”

More on Shooto, click here

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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary,com

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The Equal Opportunity Stabber, Saber or Reverse Grip?

The Equal Opportunity Stabber. Saber or Reverse Grip?

I am an “equal opportunity stabber.” Sound weird? Hear me out. I’ve heard the knife whisper. Have you? About the secret “best grip tip.” You know the one, “If you see a guy hold a knife like this (reverse grip) watch out! He really knows what he is doing.” 

Now for the novice reading this, real quick, the saber grip is the most popular nickname for holding the knife like a sword with the blade sticking out the top of the hand. The reverse of that, the reverse grip has the knife blade sticking out the bottom of the hand. Both are quite natural grabs. New or experienced, young, old, whatever, the knife is a great equalizer and both can deliver bloody devastation.

Ahhh, but “the reverse grip is best,” so whisper the tipsters who know nothing, learned from yet another tipster who knew nothing. I have heard that “insider reverse grip tip” numerous times through the years. One example-

“I was at a seminar once where an “expert” told us that if we see a man using a knife in that grip to “Run! That man is a professional!” – Carl Flume    (So you don’t run if the robber has a saber grip?)

I have nothing against the reverse grip. I teach it too. But, how many times have you heard or been told, or taught the reverse grip is the only grip to use? Because there were and are some popular courses out there preaching this idea. Mindless followers will whisper and argue that:

  • “Well, the reverse grip is the Filipino way.”
  • “The reverse grip is the Pekiti Tirsia way.”
  • “Ex-super-copper Pete Smith says the reverse grip is the best.”
  • The Marine whisperer claim.

People! People….people. FMA does BOTH grips. Pekiti Tirsia also teaches tons of saber grip material. And Pete Smith? He is just, flat-out, wrong-headed about this. He is not as smart as you think. He’s not as smart as he thinks. The whisperer? Let’s explore that now.

Knife Confusion. I am often both depressed and fascinated by the paths, choices and ideas of various knife courses. Some obsess about dueling. Some appear to me like death cults, others have what seems to be oddball, incomplete conclusions. Most never cover legal issues and just cut and stab away. No knife ground fighting. No knife versus unarmed or mixed weapons. Some way over-emphasize Filipino Sumbrada patterns. Some have only three or four stabs with zero concerns about the before during and after, the old “just sticking the “pointy end” in. How about those little rounded-handle knives that can turn easily in your hand? I could go on. Another, probably big dichotomy is this grip thing and the various obsessions with the one, bestus’, mandatory, knife grip.

In the 1980s, I was at a Dan Inosanto seminar and Dan said. “there is no one perfect knife grip, just the best one for the moment.”  Wow! That little phrase stuck with me forever as a baseline. With my Force Necessary: Knife course, I insist that a practitioner learn and experience BOTH the saber and reverse grips standing through ground, right and left handed. Then after much COMPLETE study, they choose what their favorite grip is, based on the “who, what, where, when and how and why” of situations and their lives. I never tell them to automatically favor any one grip. Make it an EDUCATED choice (and not follow a whisper tip). 

How Favoritism Gets Started? Here’s one example. The first time I received any training with a knife was in a Parker Kenpo class in about 1972 when that day they received a package of Kenpo knives and dull trainers from Gil Hibben. The knife was designed to be held in a reverse grip and used in a kickboxing format. There, me as a yellow belt rookie, we were allowed to fool around with the newly arrived tools. This initiation, this design I think caused decades of Kenpo-ists to hold their knives in a reverse grip as though Moses, not Gil Hibbens, had handed them knives from the mountaintop.

Did Ed Parker demand the knife and all subsequent training be in a reverse grip? I don’t know. It is widely reported that in 1968 Gil designed the Kenpo Knife (sometimes called the Ed Parker Fighting Knife) for his black belt thesis on knife fighting using Kenpo tactics. These tactics are conducive to karate-kickboxing. Maybe some historian reading this will know and tell us. But the reverse grip stuck.

In the late 1990s I was teaching in a multi-instructor camp and a old Parker Kenpo black belt was there with his imported group. I was covering saber grip material and he would horde his people over into a corner after each demo and show them the “proper, reverse grip way” to fix what I was doing saber style. Which by the way his was more complicated and somewhat awkward than the simple saber applications I was covering.  

Finally he just had to approach me and said, “you know, the reverse grip is the superior grip.” I said, “No it isn’t.” He glared at me. I added, “You can do just as much or even more with a saber grip, often simpler, with more reach.”

Well, he stormed off – his 7th dan “master” self, all upset that someone younger in blue jeans and a polo shirt told him flat-out, no. (Oh, did I mention that he also makes and sells reverse-grip-only knives?) My next session by the way, I covered some reverse grip material, as I am…as I said…an equal opportunity stabber.

People pick grips for odd reasons too. I read from a guy writing about his grip choice. He said he once saw someone with a training knife, saber grip, stab a mitt and the guy’s hand slipped up on the blade. This made him pick the reverse grip. Really? That? Because if you don’t have a good guard, saber or reverse your hand can slip onto the blade.  As a detective who has investigated knife crime for decades, I can tell you such slippage happens with BOTH saber AND reverse grips without a guard. I have solved attempted murders and murders when the attacker’s hand slipped up on the blade and he himself bled on the weapon, the victim and, or surroundings. We “ran” the blood, and in today’s world, the DNA of today works greater wonders. 

Let’s talk Marine whispering. Once I was told this reverse-grip-only tip by a civilian who had never been in the Marines, but heard this tip from the ubiquitous “Marine friend.” The irony was at the time, 1990s, I was in a Triangle, VA. hotel restaurant next to the Marine base Quantico, where I was teaching Marines in their Hand to Hand combatives, “Train the trainers” school, teaching “knife,” among other topics. Some of it was saber grip knife, some reverse grip. They didn’t care what grip we did. They were fully open to both.  (Quick note: old school military holds that “hand-to-hand” training does not fully mean unarmed, it refers to close-up fighting, with or without weapons.)

And saber grips survived. Take it from the Sandboxx article by Marine Travis Pike in 2021, “…your blade is always pointing at the bad guy…”

While in the Middle East or “Southwest Asia” as they like to call it, while in several PXs (military stores), I saw walls of all kinds of fixed blade or folder knives for sale. It seems everyone smartly has all kinds of issued or purchased knives, carried all over their bodies and who knows how they hold them. Fortunately about 99.9% of the time they are used for chores. A rare, rare few get any knife training. Some a small bit.

Some military units around the world like to watch-spy and imitate each other, and sometimes this jump innocently does replicate faults. In the mid-to-late 2010s and 2020s, some worldly units started copying other units by spending copious amounts of money buying vests, sheaths for knife carry in or near the center of the chest, along with a knife that has a ring atop it to run one’s pointy finger through and draw. The double-edged knife and sheath come in different sizes. This set-up forces troops into a reverse grip, whether they like it or not. The center staging does allow for right or left handed access. (If the knife hung upside down with a solid sheath and minus the ring, one could draw right or left handed to a saber grip. Just saying. But too late now! $$$$)

The Inside-Edge Only, Miasma. And on this subject, I will go you one more crazy level with a reverse grip oddity that’s worse. There is a small, knife sub-culture out there that wants you to fight reverse grip, with a single edge knife, and with the one sharp side, “inside,” as in facing back into your body. Not edge-out to the outside world where the enemy is attacking you. The edge is aimed back at you, Dull side, flat edge out facing the enemy. This is its own unique thinking disorder. The world you are fighting is OUT there, not in your armpit. This is essentially a one-trick pony.

The reverse grip, edge-OUT offers a slashing possibility, an ADVANTAGE that might diminish or end the opponent alone. And a double-edged, or 1/4 or 1/2  or 3/4s or full sharp edge on the outer side is ALWAYS going to be a doctrine advantage. Maximize your survival with the most versatile knife. Reverse grip, edge-in? This is like only putting 2 rounds in a six gun.

 

Reverse grip tip in accidents. When the Samurai commit suicide – seppuku – they do it with a reverse grip. There’s a reason for this. It’s easier. The tip is already aimed inward  at you. (Incidentally, the helper that will kill him if he fails? Holds a saber grip.) This “easy-tip-inward” is one more point no one seems to consider when raving about reverse grips. The tip is often aimed back at you. About once every 4 weeks on the nightly reruns of the “Cops” TV show you can see a reverse grip knifer get tackled by cops. When they turn the suspect over? He or she was – “self-stabbed” in the grapple. One of our main lesson plans with the reverse grip is self-awareness of these maneuvering and grappling realities.

I cover dropping to the ground and we see people stab their thighs, and when tackled or shoved against the wall, we see the same “Cops” incident of the accidental self-stabbing. Tell people to practice falling-rolling while holding a reverse grip knife and watch the accidents. If people are running and holding a reverse grip knife, and they trip and fall? Watch out! There are more reverse grip “selfie” accidents than saber grip ones. Just be aware of this.

“Years ago I was grappling with my training partner and had a wooden training knife in the reverse grip. Long story short, we went to the ground and I fell on the training knife and caught the tip in the ribs. That definitely made my eyes water. Since then I’m very iffy whether I’d ever use that grip with a live blade in a real situation. I still train both grips but I much prefer the saber grip due to the added reach, maneuverability, and the sharp end isn’t pointing back at me most of the time.” – Neil Ferguson, USA

A Summary. I think by now we might have dispelled the caustic “Reverse Grip Marine Whisperer.” Still, there are many pros and cons for each grip. I HAVE MUCH TO SAY FOR THE REVERSE GRIP. I teach it also and I believe better and more comprehensive and thoughtful than most others…or I wouldn’t bother. I just don’t like the blind acceptance, the secret whisper about which grip is the best and which is to be mandated and or ignored. And It bothers me that people thoughtlessly accept courses about these main things. Question everything. Get educated with both. Then pick a knife and a grip you need in situations. I even hate to tell you my favorites because I don’t want to influence yours. 

The knife is a very forgiving weapon, in that you can do a whole lot of screwed-up, stupid shit with a knife and it will work. This is not an excuse to stay stupid. You have to think beyond that to create a comprehensive program and promote real knowledge.

I can’t shake the fact that people essentially eat with a saber grip and most may well reflexively grab and use any knife in this manner. Look, I really don’t care what grip you use as long as it is an EDUCATED, informed choice, and not some mindless, mandate from some thinking disorder and, or brainwashed person, or from that ignorant knife whisperer who knows somebody, who knew somebody else, who…

Having written my extensive and popular knife book, which took years, studying crime, war and forensic medicine, working cases and the streets, I am an equal opportunity stabber. And I will only leave you with what Dan Inosanto said decades ago, – “there is no one perfect knife grip, just the best one for the moment.”

*****

Hock’s email is Hock@hockscqc.com

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