Training With a Modern Blade

***Plasma*** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 9:59am

So I am classically trained. However, when I started my own club I started doing away with all of tradition, training no gi and using drilling instead of the two-man kata. I always preferred the liveness of drilling over the perfection of kata. Anyway I finally got rid of the last bit of traditional training. I replaced the training of the Tanto

with a modern self defense blade (which is legal to carry)

.

Now, not so surprisedly I found a lot of the classical blade work translates well to the smaller blade length and the gaps are easily filled with Judo/Jujutsu Clinching and Standing Grappling. Now the way I see it the Japanese Knife techniques are simply modified Short Sword techniques after the Short Sword wasn't legal to carry. Now that the Tanto length is illegal to carry in many locations, this is the next step.

As for drilling and sparring it is difficult to find this type of trainer (for a good price), however I did find a great web business in VA called TAK [http://www.takknife.com/] Which was able to make a group of these.

Very fast and professional and good training knives for the money. I would recommend them (ok enough of the commercial).

Any of the Knifers here start training with the modern blade designs?

I decided to post this in the Armory instead of JMA as it not classical JMA but more RBSD based on JMA.

**sochin101** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 11:20am

Plaz, do you see any merit in training knife techniques with a partner, or would you get equal benefit attacking a training dummy of some sort?

When I've trained knife in the past, the other person was just for focus and would invariably get in the way, or get poked hard with a wooden tanto. They didn't seem to add anything to the drill.

Granted, I was/am a weapons noob and maybe I was missing some intricacy...

What are your thoughts?

***Plasma*** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 11:40am

Originally Posted by sochin101

Plaz, do you see any merit in training knife techniques with a partner, or would you get equal benefit attacking a training dummy of some sort?

When I've trained knife in the past, the other person was just for focus and would invariably get in the way, or get poked hard with a wooden tanto. They didn't seem to add anything to the drill.

Granted, I was/am a weapons noob and maybe I was missing some intricacy...

What are your thoughts?

Weapons are no different than unarmed training. You need a partner for feedback. If you are just using your partner as a dummy to fake stab you are doing it wrong.

For example: Enter in off a strike cross grabbing the arm and pulling it across and in like a arm drag and now you use the opening to come in high with the blade in the other hand.

OR simply counter striking an incoming arm with the blade. All this NEEDS a partner to drill with.

**ojgsxr6** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 11:52am

do you have any video of good alive knife training, I'm looking for some training that deals with disarms or more likely something like the STAB program.

***Plasma*** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 11:58am

We have been talking about putting some videos on youtube for a bit, but honestly I hate pictures and videos of myself. I tolerate them for throwdowns, but usually shy away from them for normal training.

**sochin101** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 2:26pm

Originally Posted by Plasma

Weapons are no different than unarmed training. You need a partner for feedback. If you are just using your partner as a dummy to fake stab you are doing it wrong.

For example: Enter in off a strike cross grabbing the arm and pulling it across and in like a arm drag and now you use the opening to come in high with the blade in the other hand.

OR simply counter striking an incoming arm with the blade. All this NEEDS a partner to drill with.

Thanks for the answer. Makes sense now I'm looking at it from that perspective, as opposed to purely a striking perspective.

**Odacon** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 4:45pm

Have you tried sparring using a Marker?

***Plasma*** · Posted On: 6/27/2009 5:09pm

Originally Posted by Odacon

Have you tried sparring using a Marker?

I don't believe in the marker sparring. Mainly dude to the fact that there no way to tell the difference between solid hit and a "tag." The same problem with the shock knives. You shouldn't need a mark to tell you, you have to hit, you should be using a strong enough training blade to feel it.

Once we did try the powdered chalk. Wipe sweat of the training blade and rub powdered chalk on it so it will stick. Then spar, it added really nothing to the experience. You don't need a mark to let you know you can slashed on the forearm or stabbed in the ribs. If you don't know, it wasn't a good strike.

**Sempai** · Posted On: 6/28/2009 12:13am

If you can I'd recommend getting an old bayonet dummy or something similar too. All the kata and drills in the world don't make a difference if you can't cut something without getting stuck.

**selfcritical** · Posted On: 6/28/2009 2:17am

Originally Posted by ojgsxr6

do you have any video of good alive knife training, I'm looking for some training that deals with disarms or more likely something like the STAB program.

Die Less Often is the best i've seen, although I like the way that STAB breaks down the reference positions.