It was an incident that shocked a nation.

On the 8th July 2005 20-year-old student Daniel Pollin and his friend Andrew Griffith were attacked in an entirely unprovoked incident.

Griffith was punched and stabbed yet survived. Sadly Daniel died from a stab wound to the heart.

The incident was captured on CCTV and lasted just 40 seconds.

The video is below and be warned it shows the entire incident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBQT08N2bTk

Too often in Martial Arts and self-defence, we treat knife related violence as a sport or almost a hobby.

We get the training knives out and have a laugh and a giggle with our training partners.

However this often defeats the purpose of knife training, we remove ourselves from the possibility of it happening to us because we refuse to ‘make this real’.

So in this article, we will be talking about the reality of knife crime.

 

The Most Accessible Weapon There is

As a police officer, we are always taught to be on the lookout for knives.

Knives are the most accessible weapon in the world today. They are sold in supermarkets and high street shops, they are in every kitchen, and you can order incredibly sharp knives online or go to a specialist cookery shop.

Knives are all around us.

In fact, one of the danger areas for a police officer is in the kitchen, and we were always taught to avoid taking anyone in there because of the available weapons.

Despite this availability, knife defence is not a subject taught in our schools (self-defence is not either). It is as if we treat the issue of knives as something we would instead leave to nursery school to deal with.

‘This is how we cut our food little Sammy.’

And so thousands of our children leave school without the slightest understanding of the implications of using an edged weapon or without the slightest clue as to how to protect themselves against an attack.

In the UK alone there were 37,443 recorded knife offences in 2017, and Knife crime across the country has risen by a staggering 21 percent in the 12 months to September 2017

Of the offences 18,571, were assaults that caused an injury or where there was an intent to cause serious harm.

And if those statistics aren’t enough for you to drop everything and enrol your kids in self-defence training read this:

“Under-18s were penalised for knife possession 1,180 times from April to June, Ministry of Justice statistics show – the highest quarterly tally for that age group since the period July to September 2009.”

The facts are simple; knife crime is rising, and it is not going away.

 

MMA Won’t Help You

MMA/ UFC style fighting is hugely popular right now. You can go to YouTube and see kids fighting each other in MMA style matches in parks.

And in a one on one street fight with no weapons, these MMA tactics can be great.

They don’t work in a situation where a knife is introduced, and that is the issue.

A knife changes the game entirely and demands a whole level of respect because it takes an untrained attacker and makes them life-threatening.

And as we saw with the Daniel Pollen Case all it takes is a split second to be killed.

So yes you might be able to take them to the ground, mount and lock or choke them, but if you take five stab wounds while you are doing it, a victory is going to be short-lived.

 

A System of Self-Defence And Not Sport

When you think about the mechanics of a street encounter with an assailant holding a  weapon you do not think about points, takedowns or knee strikes.

You think about making sure that knife is not plunged into your body.

However, most of us only train sport Martial Arts, this is wrong.

This is where a system like Defence Lab comes in, something that you can use as a stand-alone system or a bolt on to your current system.

It is precisely what I did years ago. I was training in sports Martial Arts and realised there was an issue; I had gaps in my skill when it came to weapons and group attacks.

This is why I sought out DL.

When it comes to Knife Defence and using a knife, few are more skilled than the founder of Defence Lab, Andy Norman.

As such the DL system has been created with the use of weapons in mind.

The whole Defence Lab system is focused on self-defence, and you will discover a whole range of techniques inside our online University.

The University represents the fastest way to grow your skill without going to a physical location. This way you can start to train while still engaging in your weekly Thai Boxing or BJJ sessions.

The aim of this article was simple, to make sure you were under no illusion of the threat of knife violence.

The next question is simple, is your current mental attitude when training weapons the right one?

Are you focused or is it a laugh and a joke?

And finally does your current training deal with knife attacks or are you a sport Martial Art student?

Defence Lab is here for you whenever you are ready, learn online or at a  physical Defence Lab.

 

Start your journey today.