Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Walter Vorhauer on August 17, 2010 at 11:12pm

Greetings,

Daga/blade sparring is a method of practice that should open all of our eyes in many respects, especially when it comes to disarms. Personally, I find that disarms seem somewhat less effective when you try to plan them altogether. If the disarm presents itself, then great. If not, thats okay because you can still cut or strike at your opponents weapon hand. Disarming a blade is kinda like sticking your hand in a blender. I think that once you are able to either stop the momentum of the strike/blade, then you will have a moment in time where one can isolate the hand with the blade, then the oppurtunity to remove/disarm the blade will be more effective. Otherwise you're just asking to get cut up.
As far as the footwork, distance, timing, and technique,....well I'm sure that all of those play a role in placing yourself in a position of oppurtunity to disarm. I personally think that footwork and timing are the most important. There will be others who say different for a variety of reasons, (and they may be true) but if you can utilize footwork to place yourself in a position to not get cut, then kudos!! And remember that all those bruises on the fingers and hands that get hit represent your blade making contact to the opponents hand, and those are CUTS and STRIKES!! Anytime a person gets cut or struck in the hand and that strike/cut happens to cut tendons, nerves, ligaments, etc then that weapon hand is disabled. Adrenaline won't make a difference if the physical/mechanic aspect of a tendon is severed or cut that allows your opponent to hold his weapon.

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Permalink Reply by James T Kearney on August 18, 2010 at 5:02am

Yes. I agree with what you said, so why do we need hubad hubad.I can't understand why a person should redirect a knife back towards his mid section where one could get a possible serious cut or fatality. Are these drills then useless or are they there for a reason then. Sumbrada is also a drill I have a problem with, counter for counter is okay, we do drills like this, but not from a static position, most of our drills use a lot of footwork to support the defence or attack, flow seems to be taught here a lot. But flow sometime dont happen in daga sparring often times the opportuniy will come out of the blue so I make my own flow, defence and counter on the spur of the moment so to speak. quite often in sparring I find two partners use more slashes than stabs and we have a flurry of slashes to the face and body, but there you have it, sparring is the key. It will show up the weakness in all these knife defences and disarms. It amazes me how peple to to train, they want something
from an instructor and find when they get hit on the knuckles with wooden daga, or stick they are dumbfounded. Many thanks

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Permalink Reply by Zach Jenkins on August 18, 2010 at 3:47pm

I used to have trouble with knife sparring in the beginning and I know I still have lots to learn. The further the distance from the blade the more difficult it is to control but the closer you are to the blade, the chances of a fatal wound are greater. Hubad and Sambrada do help but you must spar as much as possible just like previously mentioned. Bruises and cuts even with wood or aluminum blades are almost unavoidable when sparring without protection. I prefer to spar without protection so that my training partner and I develop the right frame of mind for the fight. Disarms are a matter of opportunity and skill. Practice, Practice, Practice, there's no other way.

Regards,
Zach

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Permalink Reply by James T Kearney on August 18, 2010 at 5:33pm

Yes I agree with your on this practice makes perfect. We practive without protection on the daga and daga Y daga (wooden daga) it's amazing what one can fiind in these matches.Yes opportunity will present itself in disarms, and one must not be thinking all the time about getting a disarm, if it happens it happens. Many thanks

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Permalink Reply by Raul Marquez on August 20, 2010 at 10:41am

We all know that disarms as seen in demos don't work. To disarm an opponent is not as easy as that. Disarm drills are also just that, drills.. drills that teach something about disarms. If we can't make our disarm work during sparring, are we then have to discard all disarm training? We have to BELIEVE that it can be done or else we will be denying ourselves the opportunity to learn whatever that can be learned in the process of trying to disarm an opponent. One good sparring session can always burst whatever bubble your erroneous disarm drills/exercises can/may/will develop. So no worries.

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Permalink Reply by James T Kearney on August 20, 2010 at 3:18pm

Yes I agree one good sparring session can be a real eye opener indeed. I juat want to get some feed back on disarms.I have seen a lot of stuff over the years in this area but escrima is certainly the best in this area. I n sparring we work on movement, footwork and timing and opportunity. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Zach Jenkins on August 20, 2010 at 5:18pm

Well... I disagree. Some disarms are difficult to pull off if you're looking for them. It's like anything else, it's the opportunity that presents itself and how skilled you are. I used to know a guy that used to reject certain techniques because he said they didn't work. They didn't work for him so he felt that the techniques were invalid. One of my teachers said, something like, pulling off techniques is like playing the stock market, you have to know when to buy and when to sell. The bottom line is skill and opportunity, if we reject techniques because they don't work for us when we want them to, we'll have very few options. My two cents anyway.

Zach

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Permalink Reply by James T Kearney on August 21, 2010 at 11:01am

I know what U mean. Practice makes perfect , if your up against a amateur then fine U can be more daring, but during my classes after a few weeks even beginners can move and understand about the knife much quicker then U think, it's over confidence that kills you. I have about ten good disarms and maybe two will work in sparring, if U/we want to be good a knife fighting, we need to spar and eventually even move to live blade with certain rules. What I feel is the problem with most disarms is the mind set we develope often it can be the wrong mind set, this is the problem, so disarms have their good and bad points. I seldom ever reject a technique, it's the way it's taught I reject. This is my two cents worth. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Zach Jenkins on August 21, 2010 at 3:23pm

I agree with your statement about beginners after a few weeks learn quite a bit when training is realistic. I've experienced that myself when I started sparring full contact. It's like sticking your finger in an electrical socket as a kid. Once you do it and get shocked, you never do it again. You learn very quickly... Try a little variety in your training. I practice two arts, Eskrima and Pentjak Silat. Both arts of my arts are weapons based but one is much different than the other as far as the execution of techniques. Drills and sensitivity training also help. Vary the size of your weapon. Some techniques are easier to pull off with smaller weapons and also the other way around. My friend is skilled at defending against a certain blade size but when we were doing a demo, I used one of my long knives and he had some difficulty defending against it so I switched to a shorter blade for the purpose of the demo. I train against every size blade that I can. There are also other systems that do the same like the Sayoc Kali folks. Try going against two blades at once... Variety will help you improve your skills. A lot of people have the philosophy that they should only train with practical weapons because no one walks around with a sword or stick anymore. Also, in some places it's illegal to carry even a simple pocket knife. The law and sometimes our own reasoning put restrictions on our skill development. We're only limited by our own imagination and if we want to improve our knife skills, empty hand skills, or stick and double weapon skills, we need variety in our training.

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Permalink Reply by James T Kearney on August 21, 2010 at 4:15pm

I agree totaly here with this advice.I am always learning.We do daga Y daga, it's great stuff. I get involved with my student in all areas of learning and I do sparring etc also with them. We cover kickboxing, escrima, and taiji mostly, hoping to introduce jujitsu later on.

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Permalink Reply by James T Kearney on August 25, 2010 at 5:38pm

Zach

I must say your point of using longer knife came to me just the other night. I wasn't thinking of this really, but this is the secret to distance and movement, largo range so to speak. I dont think in terms of words just practice corto, largo etc is just a term, it's what's behind the drill and what it means, but this is down to sparring and practice. I must put this into my daga and training more.Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Guro David Hines on August 25, 2010 at 3:51pm

One of my early FMA instructors and a true teacher of teachers, Guro Ted Lucaylucay, emphasized that "All disarms are either accidental or incidental." Within the context of "timing, distance and rythm", effective technique was put to the test in practice thousands of times so that, ultimately, a natural "flow" would occur regardless of the nature of the attack. Given the character of such training, a well-practiced student was always better prepared to take advantage of presented opportunities, but disarms were and are not regarded as a primary objective. If it happens, it happens, but under real-life situations, there are other things to consider, like survival....which brings me to the other aspect of your thread: the bumps and bruises. Consider that this represents flaps of skin hanging off your hands, fingers and knuckles, and exposed or damaged nerves and bone, along with blood flow and pain compromising the effective use of your weapon. Please excuse the graphic description, but we are not talking about a game here, but real survival. I would suggest some real soul-searching as to how long you should or even could continue with the same techniques and strategy given the damage you would have suffered. You have the advantage and opportunity to make the necessary adjustments now under much less critical circumstances. Good luck and good training!

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