Due to numerous requests, we just held our first Defensive Knife Fighting Class over this past Thanksgiving holiday weekend at the Camarillo Shokotan and it was a great success. A broad number of topics were covered, including knife selection, weapon retention, one-handed manipulations, and transitions. We are holding another class on December 18th, 2011 for those of you who are interested.
You may find more information here: http://www.tacfire.com/classes/defensive-knife-fighting.
Come out and learn how to use and defend against a knife.
Train to win.
Larry Nichols has recommended one always carry a folding knife. So I have but didn’t have any knowledge of how to use it in a defensive tactical situation, that is until Dave asked us students if we were interested in a class. Are you kidding!?
The class was the usual high-quality you would expect from TacFire with instructors Chad Peplinski, Jeff Learned and Dave Manning. I didn’t know there was so much to know about defensive folding knives: grips, blade shape, length and metals.
I learned I should get a shorter knife for a proper one-handed draw ( more is not better in this case!) and that intimidation is the wrong way to look at a defensive situation – your openent should not know you have a knife until it’s too late!
Thanks TacFire!
I would recommend this class to all who take the art of Self Defense seriously as well as the beginner. I was impressed by the following:
THE INSTRUCTION: The instruction was intelligently designed and presented in a thorough and safe fashion….especially the hands on exercises. Each of the exercises built upon the previous exercise and leveraged oft used and very familiar movements that most all of the students have leveraged at some point in their lives. This immensely benefitted the pacing of the class as each student did not have to learn totally new and foreign movements from one exercise to the next. A great way to start to build a foundation as all the students were positively engaged.
THE INSTRUCTORS: (Chad Peplinsky and Jeff Learned) really took the time to answer each question I asked them….and I asked alot of questions. I especially appreciated the way they demostrated each exercise, then further broke down the individual body movements involved. Each of the instructors were deliberate and thorough in their demonstrations and used very effective communication to explain the Defensive Knife theory behind each movement.
As an added benefit, the Instructors would perform more advanced Defensive and Offensive Knife techniques, while incorporating the movements they just previously taught us. This gave the students a taste for how much of an Art Form Defensive Knife Fighting can be when two Experienced Knife handlers spar. I will be incorporating more Defensive Knife Training sessions in my quest to improve and advance my skills.
THE FACILITY: The facility was very clean, well organized and the temperature just right for training. A great place to hold the class.