That Israeli soldier had balls to take on a guy with a knife. I thought it was kinda funny and ironic that he used that situation as an analogy for intelligence.
The intelligent thing to do would have been to hand over the money and NOT risk being sliced open lol.
I disagree with you assessment, the individual could have intelligently reasoned that disarming the man would make him think twice before confronting another individual. If more individuals took that tack robbers would give more though to what used to be an easy crime. No to mention in certain parts of South America the punishment for robbery can be as sever as murder so if you are going to do it you might as well not leave witnesses. There are a lot of variables that go into the decision to fight and making the decision to do so does not necessarily mean that you have made a foolish or less intelligent choice.
Solzhenitsyn discusses this attitude extensively in The Gulag Archipelago, both from the perspective of standing up to government thugs that come in the middle of the night to arrest dissidents and when he notes the irony of how military officers recently pulled from the front lines were cowed by common criminals in jail.
I'm reading The Gulag Archipelago now -- I'm around 530 pages in, so I just read the part about the common criminals beating up and robbing the political prisoners. It undoubtedly helped the thieves a lot that the political prisoners wouldn't stand up for each other, but if for some reason one did stand up to a criminal, his friends would take revenge later. The criminals were effectively united; the political prisoners could not have been more divided.
It's a heavy book, both in weight (1800 pages) and ideas, but everyone should read it.
Its nice to think that people factor benevolent principles into situations like this. However, when people fight back under high stress situations like a robbery, it is probable that the moment is not about defending society; its about survival.
Statistics say if you cooperate, you're less likely to be harmed. If you decide to push a physical confrontation, then you're more likely to be harmed. If you measure the cost/benefit ratio to each action, its a no brainer.
--Its nice to think that people factor benevolent principles into situations like this. However, when people fight back under high stress situations like a robbery, it is probable that the moment is not about defending society; its about survival.
To some it is, to some it is not. I personally have been in a similar situation (assailant had a gun). As well, I have trained since a young age in defensive combat. I can honestly say that when that moment was upon me, the rage that ran through my mind was not for saving myself but the idea that a little old lady had most likely stood in my same position and that the people around me are being victimized. I think most that do decide to stand, stand for a sense of honor that is beyond them or their personal well being, because even to them, logically the money is not worth it, it is the principal of the matter. Given the original post's description of the gentleman as an individual who dislikes violence he sounds to me like he is a man that does not compromise his principles even if it costs him his life, which it looks like it eventually did. Being a man of principals in not unintelligent and that was the summation of my previous post.
Yeah, but the dude had a gun. Maybe you held it together enough to not pee in your pants and still have some perspective about the situation, but I'm guessing there wasn't much question about what you were going to do.
Contrary to popular belief in close quarter combat a knife is far more dangerous than a gun. A gun requires action on the part of the assailant while a knife can be dangerous with only reactionary movement. For example one of the key tenants of close quarter combat is explosive violence, basically when you go you go off. When you do the assailant has a small window of time to chose an action e.g. aim and pull the trigger. With a gun the slightest movement moves you out of trajectory which require a new action on the part of the assailant these calculations are not as fast as reaction time. Conversely with a knife it can be wielded in a reactionary fashion e.g I go to grab it the assailant flinches back and I get slashed. The weapon can be used without the assailant consciously choosing to do so.
Unfortunately the best (read safest) method for dealing with a knife telegraphs your intention and throws explosive violence out the window because the most assured way is to either pick up a longer instrument (bat, tire iron) or to take off an item of clothing to act as the item to trap the arm either of which let the assailant know what the score is.
Knowing this and reading that the gentleman still opted to use the element of surprise, gives some insight as to how confident this individual was with his abilities. The fact that he first used his feet to disarm the knife says that he analyzed the situation and decided that the element of surprise was more valuable than opting for a telegraphed safer method.
> Statistics say if you cooperate, you're less likely to be harmed. If you decide to push a physical confrontation, then you're more likely to be harmed.
Ah yes, "might as well lie back and enjoy it".
Actually, the statistics, at least in the US, don't show that cooperation leads to less harm. US statistics show the resistance is associated with somewhat less harm. And, those statistics ignore the "want to take you somewhere else" situation. Cooperating in that circumstance is pretty much a death sentence because those attackers are trying to take you somewhere else to kill you. (No - that's not a common scenario, but it's an especially deadly one.)
There's also a "recovery" benefit to resistance - the victim feels better afterwards.
I'm not saying that resistance is always the best option. I'm saying that it can be a better option than compliance. Circumstances matter.
Remember, a robber is telling you that the unknown contents of your wallet are worth more to him than your life. That tells you how little he values your life.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you've never been held up by someone with a weapon. If anything, if the guy only has a knife, you might have good odds running for it. Fighting someone with a knife is a bad idea statistically even if you're Bruce Lee.
> I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you've never been held up by someone with a weapon.
Wrong - that's why I got interested, and training.
How about you - did your attitude come from experience or ....
> If anything, if the guy only has a knife, you might have good odds running for it.
And you might not. (For example - Eric Raymond can't run worth a damn and there's no place to run in a subway car.) There's no blanket rule. Note that attackers plan too. They pick victims and circumstances with their goals in mind.
If you are a mugger, you need to mug on a regular basis to eat. If a victim resists, it's not worth the risk to stay and fight, even if they don't know what they're doing they could still get in a lucky punch, and screw up your livelihood.
Not that someone stumbling drunk is necessarily going to run through that calculation.
> The intelligent thing to do would have been to hand over the money and NOT risk being sliced open lol.
Not for the Israeli soldier. Consider: he must have been confident in his ability to disarm the guy (based on his assessment that he did not know how to handle the knife). The other option of co-operation gives control to the thief, that's not a good thing if you can avoid it.
We don't know the story behind that robbery, so its probably best not to jump to conclusions. But it wouldn't be a wild guess to think he fought back and didn't make it this time.
I don't know the full story from a direct source, but I heard that thieves saw him withdrawing money from the bank, and they were waiting for him in his hotel room when he arrived. And they killed him in the process of taking the money. Who knows what happened in there? Maybe he fought, maybe not.
There's obviously no way of telling. However, most criminals avoid murder - it's messy, people get all upset. I was in martial arts for a long time, the first thing they tell you is that you don't want to fight. You want to run away unless you have no choice. So, you learn to strike hard and fast at multiple targets. This gives you space and then you run, preferably throwing your wallet or some cash behind you. Nobody typically carries a week or even a month's salary as they wander about. Dead is really dead and the only priority is to get out. That kind of attitude is very different than trying to not be robbed, which is much more likely to get you killed. In the first case you could argue he had to fight this guy because OP was hanging around watching the action. If I'm with some guy with combat training and somebody pulls a knife? I know he can take care of himself, I'll toss whatever valuable in my pockets out there (always wise to keep cash outside your wallet in rough area) then run like the devil was behind me. Even if he's as fast as me, I've got adrenaline and the lead from him grabbing the cash. lol why I am writing so much I do not know...
All the training in the world still doesn't make it a smart decision. You only have to make a mistake once, or be a split second slow, to pay the ultimate price.
Consider the thief's motivator is obviously money. Once he has it, anything else is just extra work for him (assuming mental stability). In that case, then the Israeli soldier has no choice but to engage.
I've learned a little bit of knife work from a very good Philipino knife fighter. He did a demo of what he calls the ultimate knife defense (he claims a 100% success rate in both practice and on the street):
A student held up the knife and demanded his wallet. Guro took his wallet out slowly, and tossed it behind the student at an angle (i.e., didn't scare him by throwing it directly). The student bent to retrieve the wallet; when he looked away, Guro turned and ran out the door screaming "help, police, he's got a knife!"
He actually clarified that you should only yell for the police if you are in a place where help is likely to arrive quickly (as well as several other clarifications). I skipped the caveats and clarifications since they would mess up the pacing of the story.
> You only have to make a mistake once, or be a split second slow, to pay the ultimate price.
The difference in skill is so important though. My best mate is into Aikido - some of the masters he's trained with wouldn't flinch if threatened with a gun. It's no threat to them.
There is the famous story of the Aikido founder who claimed to be able to dodge bullets - and did so, once dodging an entire firing squad. One of his students invited a game hunter to come and try hit him: the master accepted the challenge and stood opposite the hunter. Hunter stands there holding rifle, swings it up to shoot and the Master dives to the ground shouting "stop stop".
When they asked him why he'd given up he said:
"that man does not aim"
He'd met his match and bowed out.
The same lesson applies. The smart move may be to hand over the money - but if you assess the smarter move is to disarm him then you should do so.
Also; waiting for an attack or more stress is the worst thing to do. If you have the element of surprise it is a big advantage.
> Consider the thief's motivator is obviously money.
Often this is not the case - especially in South America. If your mugger has a gun your probably dead. A knife? Depends where you are.
> You only have to make a mistake once, or be a split second slow, to pay the ultimate price.
Again: if your confident and the odds stack up just go for it.
Disarming a knife holder is pretty easy and unless they are really good with it then your unlikely to get badly hurt if your on the offensive.
Wow, no, not even close. I mean no disrespect, but I think you need to reassess reality.
There is a lot of bullshit in martial arts claims. Being able to dodge bullets, is obviously one of them. Its not impossible to disarm a guy with a gun or knife, people spend their lives practicing it. But execution is a whole different ball game. You either succeed, or you die.
If it matters, I train in brazilian jiu jitsu and boxing 4-5 days a week. In boxing, you can be highly skilled and duck, slip, and bob and weave punches. But if you become so cocky you decide to drop your hands and rely on your reflexes, you will be caught by even the worst fighters.
Disarming a knife holder is NOT easy. Get a rubber knife, give it to your friend, and tell him to play robber. You'll get stabbed.
A good visual for that exercise is to skip the rubber knife; give your friend a marker. Pretend that's a knife and try to disarm him.
When you're done, count up the marks and see how many times you'd have been cut and where. Even without taking into account the edge of the fictional knife, it's a pretty damning visual.
(Also: with a standard rubber knife, too many of the hits during the exercise won't be noticed or remembered by either party.)
It is. I have been trained in unarmed combat and it is relatively easy with a little training. I personally would be confident of disarming, with minimal or no injury, someone unfamiliar in handling a knife.
The first thing to remember is that if you take and maintain control of their wrist it is very hard for them to attack you - and harder to actually do serious damage. Usually they then focus on trying to regain control of the knife - at which point you either reach over with a spare hand and pressure point them into releasing the knife or you hit the solar plexus or whatever is within easy reach - really hard.
EDIT: personally I would drive the heel of your hand into their jaw. It's an easy hit, hard to dodge (as you have their wrist) and big impact.
> There is a lot of bullshit in martial arts claims. Being able to dodge bullets, is obviously one of them.
Agreed. I think the Hunter story is probably a parable - but Morehei Ueshiba did dodge bullets according to historical accounts [1]. Note that dodging bullets here means he read their body signals and moved out of the path he knew the bullets were going to travel. Still good timing though. Body signal reading is one of the basics of Aikido.
> But if you become so cocky you decide to drop your hands and rely on your reflexes, you will be caught by even the worst fighters.
Ah... boxing. No disrespect intended here but boxers do get so cocky :D And your right that's where it fails.
Martial arts is about discipline. It also trains you not to use reflexes. ever That will get you killed.
This comes back to where I mentioned above that waiting to be attacked is the worst move: because you do then have to rely on reflexes to respond. If your attacking your always ahead of your opponent (unless they are also skilled)
My personal survival training highlighted one thing: the mantra in a situation where your going to have to fight is - Be first, Be sudden, Be brutal.
It is. I have been trained in unarmed combat and it is relatively easy with a little training. I personally would be confident of disarming, with minimal or no injury, someone unfamiliar in handling a knife.
No, it isn't easy. I'm no expert, but I have been taught by a couple of experts. A 95% success rate is good. It's also really crappy odds when the other guy is trying to stab you.
Plus, you don't really know if the other guy is unfamiliar or not.
Someone I know who actually is very good with a knife had the following experience: someone broke into his home and attacked him with a knife. After getting stabbed once, he did successfully disarm his attacker and stabbed him. The attacker pulled out another knife and stabbed him again!
(Eventually the attacker fled after being stabbed a few times as well.)
> someone broke into his home and attacked him with a knife.
Key point: he was under attack. This lowers your odds quite a bit.
Once your friend was wounded (I hope he was ok!) things go massively against him.
The aim is to suddenly and brutally disarm your opponent and then disengage. Leaving him either senseless or unsure what happened (and you out of range of a new attack).
> Plus, you don't really know if the other guy is unfamiliar or not.
I've dealt with this elsewhere - it's mostly about body language and if your trained you can note the signals.
Oops accidentally upvoted you. I know it's not as polite as pointing when you accidentally downvote someone, but your series of posts just seems so unrealistic, dangerous and immature that I didn't want to endorse it.
Like I said, you can train all you want and have the best training in the world. It still doesn't make it a smart decision to try and engage a robber with a knife.
My boxing point was: you pay for your mistakes. The penalty for your mistakes in boxing is a punch. In a knife fight, the penalty is severely amplified. And thats a risk you could totally avoid by NOT pushing the confrontation.
So full circle: just because you're trained and think you can take on a knife wielding robber, doesn't mean you should.
> In a knife fight, the penalty is severely amplified.
Unlilkely. This is another point: doing serious damage with a knife is tough (and by serious I mean life threatening). Even if you screw up and take a hit it is unlikely to be serious (or lose you the fight).
And if your going to take a more serious hit you shouldn't be trying it :)
> just because you're trained and think you can take on a knife wielding robber, doesn't mean you should.
It means you should judge the situation and you have the serious option.
"Gun and knife robberies are equally like to result in serious injury.
The fatality rate in gun robberies is three times that of knife
robberies.
(Cook, J of Criminal Law and Criminology 78:357-76)"
Personally, I am not willing to risk even serious damage from a knife for the sake of whatever valuables I am carrying in a situation where I may be robbed. I cannot imagine being in possesion of more than about $500 worth of stealable, uninsured equipment in any situation where someone with a knife can take me by surprise.
Yes, I've done various martial arts - I've even practiced with sharps - but it really does not make sense to tkae the extra risk. If you know that you will be attacked anyway, this is different.
> I think that your point about taking serious damage from a knife fight is wrong.
It's.... complex.
Part of my point is that if your trained and attacking it's hard for them to do serious injury without being skilled themselves.
small knives will do damage to your abdomen (it's hard to hit there anyway) but aren't likely to be fatal (unless of course you dont get help). A knife wound to the lower back doesn't have to be deep to kill you fast.
Slashes can be worse in some areas than others (e.g. belly slashes are worse than stabs if deep enough).
If your opponent has a carving knife you need to consider options. On on hand it is less wieldy and they are unlikely to be able to stab you. But it's also longer and the chances of getting knicked or catching a slash are higher.
With a short knife your reasonably ok if you can get their wrist.
If they have a machete or anything really long like that your made. :)
Unlikely!? Doing damage with a knife is tough? Yeah, 4 inches of steel in your chest is no problem, lol, walk it off.
Final point: There may be a time in my life where I get robbed with a knife wielder. I'll assess the situation, and I might even take action. But it'll still be the stupidest decision of my life, and I might have to pay for it.
ErrantX, you must be some sort of superman. I hope to God, for your sake, that no one armed maniac ever tries to rob you. Goooood night, take care.
> Unlikely!? Doing damage with a knife is tough? Yeah, 4 inches of steel in your chest is no problem, lol, walk it off.
It would hurt quite a bit yea.
Any knife fighter will also tell you that hitting a skilled opponent there is bloody hard :)
Bearing in mind how an unskilled person will almost certainly hold the knife (pointed straight at you) them hitting you in the chest requires a serious fuck up on your part :) There are 2 defence options (lets assume a right handed attacker):
1. Side step the knife on their off-body side (so they have no way to swing their arm at you without reversing grip - which will take too long). Take their hand in a standard grip (I'll dig out some pictures later) with your right hand and pull the knife/arm "forward" (i.e. into the place you were just standing). Reverse left elbow into their face to stun them, pull left hand forward to pressure point a knife released. This should take 2 or 3 seconds at most. They will either be on their knees behind you (kick the knife away btw) in which case you can push them sideways (not forward - that will put them potentially near the knife) and put them into a lock. If they are still stood you could do all manner of things.
2. If your better and prefer a more violent approach you can step onto their on-side inside their arm. Take the wrist in a lock with your left hand and push outwards (let them bend the arm up if they try too, it gives little extra leverage). Hit them really hard in one of the open spots on their body with your right. Preffered hit is the heel of the hand into the kneck just under the jaw. Disadvantage is a) it might break their neck and b) often they will put their head down. Side of the neck is probably your next best target. Again this should take seconds.
> There may be a time in my life where I get robbed with a knife wielder. I'll assess the situation, and I might even take action. But it'll still be the stupidest decision of my life, and I might have to pay for it.
Are you trained in unarmed defence? Have you practiced disarming knife holders? Are you able to react instantly and violently?
If the answer to any that is less than a Yes then you, clearly, shouldn't be doing this. And I've never said otherwise.
The Israeli in the OP clearly was a Yes for all of those. I am confident I am enough of a yes to take on unskilled combatants like the one sketched out in the OP.
And I have been held at knife point. At that time someone else took action but I was prepared too if needed.
2 or 3 seconds at most? You're describing a kung-fu movie series of moves where you execute this complicated dance and the other dude just goes with it, cause he's a sparring partner.
Sounds like you've been through some training, you can probably take a glancing punch without having it stun you too bad, but you think getting nicked by a knife in the process is gonna leave you good odds of recovering and winning the fight? In real world fights, the first serious hit usually wins, you don't have training at fighting while stabbed, your body will react on it's own and the guy will probably stab you again.
As some people said upthread, even if you think you have 90% odds, it's stupid to fight someone with a knife.
> you don't have training at fighting while stabbed,
I've done a small amount of training against low power tazers (the kins that numb you a bit but don't take you down). A knife would certainly hurt more but adrenaline can keep you moving.
> 2 or 3 seconds at most? You're describing a kung-fu movie series
Afraid not. Go on a couple of serious self defence training classes (the ones for, say, security guards working in war zones). They will teach you pretty much the same things; the manouvere's are designed to give you maximum dominance in the fight.
It's not really a fight; your moving so fast it's over in seconds (hopefully).
The chances of "winning" the physical fight could be insanely high, but it'd still make more sense to first try cooperation, to see if you could avoid the knife fight entirely.
I've been reading your posts on this thread with fascination. Where exactly were you trained, if I might ask? The streets of Compton? No offense intended, it's just that "heavily injured by a baseball bat during training" doesn't sound like national military to me...
Some initial training in the uk with the military. A little in Brazil (that was more for fun) and a week in India. The last was where I got brained with the bat. My fault. It was the last day and I tripped while practicing defence.
I find it somewhat hilarious that you had a clear demonstration that accidents can happen in fights, yet you still advocate escalating to violence before verifying if the violence can be avoided altogether.
I hope his overconfident demeanor isn't giving you ideas about "winning" knife fights. It's very easy to talk tough. Not getting stabbed is a lot harder.
I'm responding just because what you are writing about is dangerous, and your unwarranted confidence is irresponsibly influencing impressionable people.
Dan Inosanto used to run (and maybe still does) knife defense courses for, among others, police officers.
The rule of thumb is that in knife-vs-gun situations, if your gun is holstered, the magic number to not die is 15 FEET. If a knife-wielding attacker is within 15 feet of you, trying to race him by drawing your gun to shoot him is more likely to end with you getting stabbed.
> A knife would certainly hurt more but adrenaline can keep you moving.
...And then you bleed to death.
> I guess my training revolved around the idea that the you should never surrender an advantage if you have it.
Being ALIVE is the real advantage. "Winning" a fight doesn't mean anything when you're going into shock on the way to the hospital.
Even if you beat someone up and escape without a scratch, the guy's buddies might kill you in your hotel room two years later.
I agree - this has got out of hand. And the last thing I would want is to get someone hurt by suggesting they should try it..
However, the kinds of techniques described here can keep you alive in tough countries. Everyone seemed to be expressing the opinion that the guy described in the OP was idiotic or dangerous - Im trying to simply put across information I know that counterpoints that view.
It is. I have been trained in unarmed combat and it is relatively easy with a little training. I personally would be confident of disarming, with minimal or no injury, someone unfamiliar in handling a knife.
I'm afraid you don't understand the difference between a partner in training who is offering resistance, and a person who is actually trying to hurt you.
A lot of arts make it look a lot easier than it really is but it is also not as impossible as others in this thread seems to believe.
The main trick is accepting the fact that you are going to get hurt. Get past that then you can focus on minimizing that hurt by taking the other guy out as fast as possible.
[aside]
It can be a lot of fun to play with this with a buddy. Go to staples and get a 12-pack of coloured sharpies. Your buddy gets a sharpie and you get nothing. Spar with your buddy with him/her seriously trying to mark you (none of that "telegraphed motion" crap most people use in regular practice). You win the round if you make your buddy drop the "knife" or he ends up on the ground with you still standing. Your buddy wins if she marks you in any one of [your core, neck, back of your knee, hamstring, inside of arm] or marks you more than twice anyplace else. Use a different colour each round so it's easier to keep track.
After you use all the colours, switch roles.
[/aside]
Note that the OP had a highly trained unarmed vs an incompetent knife. That's way easier.
Most people aren't saying it's impossible. I'm not.
In practice, I can actually do fairly well against unskilled people. I can disarm/stab them maybe 50-60% of the time, unarmed vs knife. The highly skilled people can win 90-95% of the time against newbies, 80% of the time against me.
I've never indicated making that assumption though. Ive discussed your response to a robber who you judge to be unskilled.
As I mentioned in the first post I indicated this is usually obvious (if they are skilled/unskilled) and if you are trained you will recognize this.
The easiest pointer is how they hold the knife - if they havge it out in front of them (pointed at you) they are probably unskilled. Skilled handlers will hold the knife at their side a few inches from their body pointed away from you at a 30 degree angle.
Unskilled handlers will also glance at the knife a lot (you can use this - time your attack to their glancing).
If the robber is skilled then, clearly, you need to make a different assessment
(and I guess then it comes down to "is he planning to attack me")
You're repeatedly making the claim that you can differentiate, with near 100.00% accuracy, between street fighters who can and can not fight effectively (or get lucky in this one fight).
That strikes me as bad math.
(and I guess then it comes down to "is he planning to attack me")
On this we agree. If there is clearly going to be an attack, then figuring out an optimal fight strategy is wise. But if there is an option not to have an attack, that seems even better.... even if you're confident that you have a 100.00% accurate ability to differentiate between superior/lucky and inferior/unlucky opponents.
Im not sure how I give that impression.. I've deliberately tried not too.
You gave it by saying things like:
If your well trained and you are happy that your assailant is unskilled then it makes sense to take action :)
Anyway, I think the biggest difference in our standpoints is that I've been robbed at knifepoint.
In the moment, all I could really think was that I wanted to be around for my wife and kids far more than I gave a shit about anything else, so I decided, in the moment, that I'd engage only if it seemed like a physical attack was inevitable. I tossed the wallet, and avoided the attack.
I was, and still am, happy with the result. And I will continue to disagree with those (such as yourself) who advocate fighting simply when you think you'll win, drawing the line instead at fighting when there are no other viable options.
Which isn't trying to imply 100% accuracy of prediction. It's saying if your happy that your assessment is that he's unskilled is accurate then do it. If your not, then I guess it depends on the person what you want to do.
I see you mentioned elsewhere you were learning boxing and karate when you were mugged. Im not aware that any of those disciplines give you suitable training in disarming a knife wielder. So you made the right choice IMO.
Waiting till your forced to fight is, IMO, the worst move. If your able to disarm the guy all your doing is sacrificing a part of your advantage. (if your not able to disarm him then, yeh, clearly co-operation then trying your best if attacked is the best policy).
That mugger had all the signs of being a drug addict trying to get the money for his next fix. Here in São Paulo, professional criminals specialize in items with a better payoff, like laptops and motorcycles, and they rarely, if ever, act alone. Sometimes, only one approaches the victim, while his backup stands a few meters away.
It is. I have been trained in unarmed combat and it is relatively easy with a little training. I personally would be confident of disarming, with minimal or no injury, someone unfamiliar in handling a knife.
The 'minimal' is where your analysis goes completely out of the window. Wounds hurt; being hurt throws you off. Even a relatively undeep scratch with a knife can disable your hand. You can be trained all you want: you are not trained in fighting with a knife wound: when hurting and bleeding. This is why martial arts teachers all over the world tell their students: the best defense from a weapon is to run. If the change of getting hurt is 1%, it is too large. Hand over the money and run.
Actually, I've always held that the best defense against anything is to get your own weapon and attack like crazy. There's always one around: coffee mug, large rock, laptop, broom.
Muggers, etc. rely on people doing what they're told. The "victim" immediately going on the offensive is the last thing they want. Sure, attacking your attacker has to be a calculated move, but if you think you're going to be killed or injured anyway, you have nothing to lose, so go for it and don't stop until he's a bleeding pulp on the ground.
In my other posts I talk about an important mantra: Be first, Be sudden, Be brutal. You should be able to take down the assailant before any wound would take affect.
If you cant do that then your not properly trained and you shouldn't be trying it :)
I cant speak for martial arts directly because my training is military/civilian response based.
My best mate is into Aikido - some of the masters he's trained with wouldn't flinch if threatened with a gun. It's no threat to them.
That's a ridiculous statement. If someone has a gun pointed at you and is outside of kicking, punching or grabbing range, you are always a split second away from death. All gun disarms have one thing in common: you have to be close enough to touch the man with the gun. In the moment it takes to move into a range, they can pull the trigger.
Depends on the gun and the range and what cover is available. Certainly they are unlikely to be hit with the first shot unless the shooter is skilled (this is always the key bit).
If you can close fast enough after their first shot the only real risk is the closest few yards.
Aikido masters sometimes demonstrate this with paint guns - I've seen people make maybe 20 feet (sometimes they are hit, usually nowhere fatal) and take down their opponent.
Have you ever tried to hit an Aikido master? It's an amazing experience because it is pretty much impossible for anyone below their skill levels. They train to watch body signals and are already avoiding your punch before you actually move.
Same applies to the gun (within reasonable limits). They can see where you are pointing it, where you intend to fire and have easily 1-2 seconds (if not more) on you when you start to pull the trigger. 1-2 seconds sounds like nothing but couple it with the time to pull the trigger and for the weapon to fire you easily have time to move out of the path.
You completely missed the point. The soldier was using the knife as an analogy for intelligence, not his dodging/punching. The robber had the knife, which gave him a false sense of superiority, but he didn't know how to use the knife, so he ended up losing the fight.
It probably depends on the culture. IIRC in the US you only have a 20% chance of being seriously injured if you cooperate with a robber. I wouldn't be surprised if the odds were different in other countries.
Criminology by Larry J. Siegel disagrees, asserting that while it decreases your chance of being robbed, it increases your chances of being injured or killed.
edit: Zimring and Zuehl's study shows that robberies with "active noncooperation" (refusal to hand over money, attempt to flee, resistence with force) had a death rate fourteen higher than those where the victims cooperated, and that victims who simply denied having money (but did not otherwise resist) had a death rate twice as high as those who cooperate.
However, in the same paragraph it cites Gary Kleck on the use of guns, and it says that potential victims should be encouraged to fight back, and that resistance with a gun is significantly better than the other forms of resistance (and a conclusion that it is better to fight than to flee).
It's a surprising conclusion for me (I'm mostly anti-guns, though I'd prefer some other option like, say, tasers, to be available for self-defense)
Kleck's advice is for rape victims, not robbery victims.
The first citations I can find in google scholar indicate that the odds of being killed during/after rape is roughly two orders of magnitude higher than the odds of being killed during/after a "cooperative" robbery, thus the differing calculus.
I found the opposite on his abstract (though Googling around says that his claims are often disputed):
"This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27,595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and non forceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action."
good point :) However it makes a slight assumption that you still have 95% chance of winning if you hand over the wallet and are then attacked.
This is probably not the case as the attacker gains a reasonable advantage by being first (maybe only 2 or 3% in this case)
I also assumed the 50% was referring to the percentage chance of being actually harmed rather than having to fight. In which case your stats do break down.
while I dont know what I would do in this situation, I know I wouldnt ever call someone who handed money over to someone who threatened them with a knife a "coward"
There's more here than the calculus of survival. Consider your right to life and liberty. To surrender that is to become a victim. Some would honestly rather risk it than enter into that class. Its a personal choice. Americans used to be famous for their backbone. This thread leaves me wondering.
Police are for cleaning up crime scenes after the fact and trying to catch the people responsible. There's almost nothing they can do before a crime is committed. Even if a crime is in progress, they're more interested in protecting their own skin than in protecting yours. (Ever notice that a dead cop is a tragedy and a dead civilian is just another day at work?) I've known people who were attacked around the corner from a police van and the police did nothing, if they even bothered to notice at all.
I was robbed at knifepoint many years ago. I gave up my wallet willingly.
I did so because I cared far more about being present for my wife and children than I cared about the fact that some assholes would enjoy the contents of my wallet.
At the time I was practicing both boxing and karate on a daily basis, so I probably had decent odds in a fight... but why bother? I can get another wallet and some more cash. I can't get my daughter a new dad.
If this makes you think I have no backbone... well I suppose we simply have different principles.
I don't know how well this works, but this is how I was told to deal with robbery.
If you have anything substantial to lose, carry two wallets, one in an unconventional place. Put about $100 (with a few ones, so it seems like a real wallet) and some expired or fake credit cards in one as a dummy wallet.
Most robbers just want to get some quick cash, usually for drugs. So they get what they want and slink away, and you only lose $100. If you're traveling in dangerous parts of the world, the police are usually corrupt and you expect such random losses in the form of shakedowns/bribes.
In my family it's common to carry a wallet, and then a hanging pouch with your valuables (serious money and stuff you don't need everyday, though I don't keep my passport there) when traveling.
So even if you're robbed, you have something left (not as good as your advice, but it sounds like it works).
Yeah, the intelligent thing is to surrender and give more power and money to the robber.
If people with weapons assault you in Somalia, give them millions of dollars and make it stronger, so they can kill more and assault more people.
If someone kidnaps someone of your family, give all the money you earned all your life to them, so they can buy more weapons, and kidnap more people, and make society better.
Your ego will boost as you acknowledge that you are not able to fight against other men under any circumstances, that you could always surrender and let them sodomize you if necessary.
Yeah, the intelligent thing is to surrender and give more power and money to the robber.
How are you giving power to a robber?
If people with weapons assault you in Somalia, give them millions of dollars and make it stronger, so they can kill more and assault more people.
If people with weapons assault you, your dead. I'm not sure why you're trying to link this situation to the political one in Somalia, they're quite different.
If someone kidnaps someone of your family, give all the money you earned all your life to them, so they can buy more weapons, and kidnap more people, and make society better.
Tough talk, lets see what you'd do if your family got kidnapped for ransom.
By rewarding them with confidence and money, two of the most powerful factors in behavioral conditioning.
"I'm not sure why you're trying to link this situation to the political one in Somalia, they're quite different."
They are the same. Coastal Somalia's de facto government is barbarian raiders, funded entirely by people who choose to pay millions for appeasement but not one penny for defense. Hopefully the problem can be solved by arming the merchant fleets with modern weapons (now being tried), otherwise the standard solution will be needed: plow the coastal towns under as fertilizer.
Well organized, well armed Somali pirates hijacking commercial vessels does not equal a guy with a knife robbing you.
Did you know the pirates actually have a code of ethics (ironic as that may sound)? Why have they never raped or killed any of their hostages? Because all they want is money. Pay up, and the hostages get let go. Thats how their operation works.
Don't even try to compare that to a back alley robbery.
I remember when I used to think like you. Then I got robbed. I am really glad that such silly thoughts about pride and principle did not enter my head as a gun was being held to it... if they had, it seems likely I would not be here to type this today.
It's easy to stand on your soapbox in an online forum. Let's see how you fare in the moment of truth. I hope for your sake you act smart and live to see another day.
The intelligent thing to do would have been to hand over the money and NOT risk being sliced open lol.