It's Just a Flesh Wound - Damian Ross, The Self Defense Company

How difficult is it to stab someone? More to the point, how difficult is it to injure or kill someone with an edged weapon. In the grand scheme of things I would much rather be the one holding the weapon and I'm not real excited about the prospect of being cut or stabbed. I do know that getting cut is not nearly as deadly as your self defense has lead you to believe.

Who wants to get cut? The idea of a knife digging into my side is not a pleasant one. It's no wonder that most knife defenses involve controlling the knife. But how "dangerous" is the knife. Is it as dangerous as we have been lead to believe?

As a youth I remember putting on the goggles and attacking my training partner with a felt magic marker and playing tag in the dojo, declaring my opponent dead with every black mark on his white shirt. Later we graduated to chalked knives and finally, the coup de gras, the shock knife.

In all honesty, these are good tools to work with if used properly. But the trap we fall into is we put too much focus on getting touched by the knife. The result is a game of tag that resembles something out of West Side Story (I realize this reference is getting old, so you're going to have to youtube it).

Playing tag instills bad habits. I mean, horrible habits that will get you killed. The first of which is stalking your knife wielding attacker or waiting for him to attack. Dancing around looking for an opening will only work to your assailants advantage. When ever possible you must take the advantage of attacking first.

Wait, we have to pause for the obvious comments: Yes, escape, pepper spray, other weapons (improvised or otherwise) and firearms are excellent (and first) options. Now back to our regularly scheduled post.

There are a few questions that need to be asked before we continue.
1. Do slashes cause more damage than stabs?
2. How easy is it to be stabbed. Meaning, how much force do we have to use and how many times can we be stabbed before we are incapacitated or killed?
3. How does getting touched with the knife in practice translate into getting touched with a real knife?
4. How many times can I get cut or stabbed?
5. What will I be able to do when we are faced with the reality of a knife attack?

For illustration purposes I offer the video below.


Let's answer our questions.

1. Stabs cause more damage than slashes. Generally our main arteries are tucked away inside our legs, arms and up towards the front of our neck. Being inside puts them in a defensible places as opposed to on the outside our arms, legs and our backs.

. While the renal arteries are located on the back you need a penetrating stab to sever them. In fact, the majority of the arteries require a stab or a deep slash to cut. The point is superficial slashes are far less dangerous than deep gouging slashes.

2. You can tell from the video that in order to penetrate your target with a stab you will need a decent amount of force. To do that you need to have a good grip on the weapon, your feet planted and a forceful thrust or slash.

3. Getting touched with a training knife doesn't mean you will get cut with a live knife. It takes more force to break skin with a knife than it does to make a mark with ink and chalk or get shocked with the shock blade. Make no mistake, these are great training tools, you just need to train through the cut, go harder and disregard the damage.

4. It depends where you get cut or stabbed. If a major artery is cut you can bleed out in minutes. But in order for your attacker to do that they will have to penetrate deep enough. In order to do penetrate, they need to cut with significant force.

5. What will you really be able to do when you are fighting for your life? Combat studies show that under stress seasoned warriors can only perform one or two gross motor functions with a single purpose in mind. (LtCol Grossmans'"On Combat" and "On Killing"). For example, soldiers under attack can only point and fire their weapon (over 80% of the time, some soldiers don't fire a shot at all). The soldier has repeated this action hundreds of times. The more advanced the soldiers training, the more rounds he's fired. The amount of rounds Special Ops guys fire can number well into the millions over the course of a career.

The point is, your actions must be simple and with single purpose. The only way to make sure those actions will bear fruit is by practicing the same motor skill set over and over again and then applying that same skill set to any situation. Think about firing a weapon. The environment and target may change, but the act of firing your weapon remains constant.

What you need to do with your training is to create the same "firearm" model. One skill set that you can adapt to any target and any environment. Trying to deliver a different solution for each individual situation in impossible. Trying to perform those different and complex moves under stress is ridiculous.

The popular thinking here is that the more deadly the weapon, the more complicated the response. Typical self defense programs will show simple reactions to empty hand assaults and then complex techniques for weapon attacks. This line of thinking is counter to what your engineered to do. When faced with a weapon you will be more stressed and more scared, the result is that you will think less clearly and your motor movements will become even MORE fundamental. To think that you can train this out of your DNA is egotistical, irresponsible and reckless. To think that everyday people who work regular jobs and never encounter violence on a regular basis are made to believe they can do this is a crime.

No one can say for sure exactly what's going to happen when you're under the gun, but experience tells us that you will do what the emphasis of your training has told you to do. If you spend more time manipulating and trying to control the weapon arm then that's what you'll do. Add to that your loss of finite motor skills and who knows if you'll react at all!

The obvious choice between trying to control the weapon and the the man holding the weapon is to knock the man holding the weapon out as fast as possible.

Let me put you in the attacker's shoes. What would you do if someone smacked you in the face and grabbed your arm holding the weapon? You would probably retract your weapon arm and fight back by hitting him in the head as hard as you could.

Now what's the typical martial arts' response? Hit him again! OK, great, all I'm saying is: let's forgo the BS and just keep hitting him. Never give him a chance to react, don't give him a second to breathe. Attack and keep attacking.

This is what we know:

We know that in order to do maximum damage with the knife he needs to have his feet planted, grip it and stab you over and over again.

We know that you will only be able act with one simple purpose under stress.

We know that you will only to be able to perform gross motor skills under stress.

Be warned: most experts will tell you will get cut defending against a knife but then they teach you a technique that trains you to do everything to not get cut! It's counter intuitive. Train to get cut. Like SDC Instructor Dennis Daroczy said before he and his Seal Team went on a mission "Today is a good day to die".
Facing a weapon is a nasty proposition and anything I do from this point forward is an improvement because I'm standing in a "dead man's shoes".

It's hard to resist the urge to focus on the weapon, after all, it's what's stressing you out. You must train to shift your focus from the weapon to the guy trying to stab you. To take care of him it will take everything you have. Anything less than your 100% effort to disable the man is that much of an opportunity you are giving him to do you in.

Let's put it this way, how well will you be able to stab someone if that someone was, let's say, hitting you in the face repeatedly? Knocking you unconscious or driving you backwards until you tripped and fell over the curb? Not too well I'd imagine.

In the Self Defense Training System you train to create openings and attack the man. You create an opening by asking a question, when he starts to speak you hit him as hard and as fast as you can, as often as you can while you take ground and drive him over what ever objects are in the way. You train to use your environment and try to get him to trip up. You use objects like table and chairs. The last thing you want to do is face a man with a knife with your bare hands.

Getting cut by an errant stab is 180 degrees different than getting stabbed by someone who is attacking you. Training just to attack will enable you to fight through being cut. In the majority of knife attacks, victims didn't even realized they were stabbed until after the assault.

These are the facts:
1. The vast majority of knife attacks don't end in fatality.
2. People have received multiple stab wounds, still fought and survived
3. People who survived either ran away or attacked their attacker.
4. Getting touched or even sliced with a knife is not nearly a fatality.
5. In order to cause damage with a knife you need to grip it and thrust it into the
target with power.
6. You will be only able to perform simple, gross motor movements under stress.
Complicated joint moments and footwork are impossible.
7. The faster you disable the man, the better your chances to survive.
8. In the future, don't forget to bring a gun to the knife fight.

You can waste your time practicing things that will never ever work or you can spend your time doing things you know will work. Listen, if you can't hit someone hard enough to knock them silly, how on earth are you going to have the physical ability to twist their joints and control them?

Train Honestly,


Damian Ross, CEO The Self Defense Company


Damian Ross is CEO of the Self Defense Company and developer of The Self Defense Training System, the most lethal and effective self defense system in the world, The Guardian Defensive Tactics Police Combatives Program, 60 minute Self Defense and the Family Safe Program. Mr. Ross also founded the Self Defense Instructor Program that helps people develop their self defense careers from the ground up. Mr. Ross is originally from Ridgewood, NJ where he was a High School Hall of Fame Athlete in football and wrestling as well as a varsity wrestling coach. He then went on to Lehigh University where he was a varsity wrestler and football player. Mr. Ross has 3 black belts, 4th Degree in Tekkenryu Jujutsu, 2nd Degree in Judo, 2nd Degree in Tae Kwon Do. In addition to his martial arts experience, Mr; Ross spent 8 years in the professional security and personal protection business. He is internationally recognized as one of the foremost authorities in reality based self defense.