Knife Defence: The Cover -Drop -Drive principal

Below is a very quick clip showing how the Juggernaut SD COVER-DROP-DRIVE principal, which forms the basis of our Self Defence system, can work in a knife defence situation.

In this Case Darren and Sam, who are both Juggernaut SD Instructors are doing it in a drill type situation, but the mechanics of the cover drop and drive are clearly visible.

The short clip also highlights the effectiveness of another of our primary principles, being discreet hitting. Notice the shoulder to the attackers ribs on the way through the duckunder. Very effective strike, that is barely noticeable unless you know what you are looking for. But more on that in a future post.

This drill is the advanced version, with Darren going straight into the duckunder. A beginer would learn an extra step to achieve the duckunder until thier base skills had developed sufficiently to make the duckunder second nature. This entails getting an underhook and a forearm to the face. Again something for another clip. I can tell you though that Sam (the Attacker) was really trying to drive that knife into Darrens ribs with a fair bit of force.

Again this stresses that having minimal responses to whatever you are confronted with makes it a lot easier to choose the correct response. As our response to virtually everything is to COVER-DROP-DRIVE, there is little need for thought. The only variation to our standard head punch response is that Darren has used his left arm to block the knife strike, whilst the right hand stays in the cover position untill he has bridged the gap and reached the assailants body.

Using the COVER - DROP - DRIVE as a first resonse, even if Darren had stuffed up in the initial moments, he would likely have still achieved at least having an arm covering his vital organs/ main arteries to some degree. This has been achieved by putting his arms in front of his face/ body, his body is contracted and made a smaller target and he is no longer in the position that the attacker expected him to be.

The end result is one of only 3 end points we have being to either Escape (run) use a shield or put them on the ground for control. In this case Darren has used a takedown and tied up the knife bearing limb.

I will put up a clip of the same response to a slash to the face some time in the future.

By the way, for those people who say you cant use grappling in knife defence and on the street, this clip shows that you can, almost everything that makes up the principles used here are based on wrestling/ grappling.