Customer Reviews

Knife Self-Defense for Combat (Special Forces/Ranger-Udt/Seal Hand-To-Hand Combat/Special Weapons/Special Tactics)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

As a former military hand-to-hand combat instructor I can say that while this book contains horribly ineffective information, it contains things that are commonly taught in the military.

Regardless of what some say, the military teaches hand-to-hand combat to primarily teach aggressiveness, not effectiveness. There are things that the military teaches that are quite asinine. However, the main goal for 99% of the military is to teach aggressiveness.

For example, the US Army Rangers teach Gracie Jujitsu for Christ sake. They go out to the wrestling mats and roll around. Why? To teach you to be aggressive. If you think you can wrestle wearing 70 pounds of gear, carrying a rifle, and after marching 20 miles through rough terrain, then you should be able to qualify for handicapped plates.

Does this book contain information that is commonly taught to the US Special Forces? Yes it does. Does it work effectively when faced by criminal violence? It's not really supposed to.

Following what is taught in this book is a great way to get killed. People who say this book is effective may have dojo training, but have NEVER encountered a real knife attack.

Personally I could overlook Echanis's personal history if the book were OK - but it just isn't.

Ice pick grip decreases your distance by about 2 inches. Someone with a saber grip and 3 or 4 arnis classes will slice open the arteries in your arms in short fashion. Sacrificing your lead hand is great if you want to bleed to death. An arterial cut to the wrist can kill you in 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

My first impression of this book was "If these are Special Forces knife skills, then I seriously hope they never run out of ammo." Too much using your various body parts to block cuts, and no consideration of the your apponent's left hand might be doing while you tango with him. Get something else.

I bought this book without examining it prior to buying it in 1978. I still have it. I still read it sometimes and examine the illustrated techniques demonstrated by Michael Echanis and his assistants in camouflage. It has been a source of disappointment for many years. It has some questionable references to early Korean historical development of martial traditions that are supposed to convince us that the techniques illustrated in this book come from those ancient Korean martial traditions identified in this book as Hwa Rang Do. The more likely truth is most of these poorly demonstrated techniques probably have much more recent Japanese origins. The Koreans learned Judo and Jujitsu from the Japanese when Korea was occupied by Japanese military. Many Koreans were pressed into service of the Japanese prior to the end of World War II. Judo was called Yudo by the Koreans. TaeKwonDo once practiced katas from the Shotokan Karate tradition until the 1970s when the Koreans changed the katas to make the martial arts they learned from the Japanese their own. Once this was done, they could then forget that they learned them from the Japanese, a people most Koreans don't like much.

Michael Echanis writing seems to express disorganized way of thinking. He appears to have trouble getting to the point, getting to the essence of what he wants to say. I think that perhaps it is because his writing seems to reflect more effort into creating a macho impression of himself. As I read his book I get the feeling that this is a young man who trying very hard to project a very macho image of himself and perhaps not as much interested in the martial arts nor in the military itself. Rather, the martial arts and military status are trappings to wear to project his macho image. The first 22 pages really don't have much value to support the title of the book.

The first bit of information of any value relating to unarmed defense against an armed assailant is found on pages 23 through 25. If you boil down the contents of these pages you get 4 basic general principles of dealing with an armed assailant as follows:

1. Get your body out of the line of attack of the weapon.
2. Take control of assailant's arm wielding the weapon or destroy the arm.
3. Disarm the assailant.
4. Disable the assailant to put an end to the fight.

Michael Echanis states that these moves listed above must be done in exact sequential order.

I find nothing wrong with the principles as general guidelines. Actually, I agree with them. Once, these statements had been read, I expected that his demonstrations of techniques used to defend against an armed assailant would conform to the guidelines as stated. A few of his demonstrations do follow the list of guidelines. But, by far most of his demonstrations seem to have forgotten various steps of these moves as general guidelines in dealing with an armed assailant.

Pages 26 through 93 demonstrate grappling and throwing techniques. But, there are no more than 4 demonstrations in which the 3rd step of disarming the assailant is accomplished. In two of these demonstrations in which the assailant is disarmed, it is not clear that it was done so out of intent. I have to ask myself, "Did the assailant just let go of knife without it being part of defender's design to disarm the assailant?"

The last four defense demonstrations in the book show Michael Echanis kicking the knife out of the hand of the assailant. While I was still young, 4 of my friends and I tried using kicks to disarm an assailant by kicking the knife out of the assailant's hand. Each of us took turns as the assailant. The rest of us took turns trying to defend ourselves against the knife with kicks and other techniques. We found that kicks were very unreliable to disarm an assailant. We found that usually a kick just deflects the assailant's knife wielding hand. The assailant usually returns their knife wielding hand to point it at the intended victim immediately after the kick is completed. So, nothing is usually gained by just kicking the knife wielding hand. But, the deflection of the knife wielding hand by kicking it can be followed immediately by another move, which has, to one to secure the weapon hand or a move to immediately disable the assailant.

Most techniques in this book do come from the Judo, Jujitsu, and Aikido traditions although poorly demonstrated. If you have practiced these styles, you will recognize some such poorly executed techniques as osotogari, shiho nage, kotegaeshi, etc. etc. Some of the principles of the techniques that give them effectiveness are being ignored or are unknown to Michael Echanis which appears evident upon examining the illustrations. Sure, you can get some of the techniques to work on an assailant by forcing the technique by using strength without knowing the principles and fine points of the technique that are supposed to accompany the technique. But, this is one of the ways by which the experienced martial artist recognizes the amateur. If you watch those who have mastered these arts, sometimes their faces have a calm, expressionless look. They don't tighten and distort their face muscles due to physical exertion the way Michael Echanis does in some of the illustrations in this book. If you have practiced these styles, you are struck by the ease and effectiveness of application when you have done it correctly by harmonizing with an opponent's moves and letting the principles of the technique do the work for you.

There are some other things wrong with this book. But, I am not going to list them. My general conclusion about the book is that it is not worth the time and money. If you already have it and don't like it, perhaps you can use it as one of those tests we had to take as children when a teacher shows you pictures and asks, "What is wrong with this picture?" or in the case of this book, "What is wrong in the sequence of photos?" for each demonstration. If you have the book and like it, good for you. I hope that you will never have to use what you learned from it.

The following are other sources containing self-defense solutions against weapons:

DVD:

How To Defend Yourself - Knife Attack

Nihon Jujitsu by Norm Belsterling Volume 5

Knife Defense Fundamentals by Sang H. Kim

Advanced Knife Defense by Sang H. Kim

Book:

Krav Maga: How to Defend Yourself Against Armed Assault

Karate Knife & Weapon Disarms by Guy Trimble III

Comprehensive Applications of Shaolin Chin Na: The Practical Defense of Chinese Seizing Arts for All Styles (Qin Na : the Practical Defense of Chinese Seizing Arts for All Martial Arts Styles)

To see more listings of other books and videos on unarmed defense against kife attacks, scroll upto customer tags on this page and click on the hyperlink tagged "defense against knife attack."

To see listings on books and videos on knife fighting click on the customer tag hyperlink tagged "knife fighting."

This book is good as an explanation of traditional hwa rang do techniques against knife attack. The techniques emphasize spinning, locking, and throwing type methods, which is fine as far as it goes, in a situation where the attacker commits himself to one main attack.

However, a skilled adversary with a knife will be more likely to "stalk" you and wait for an opening. In that case you need to have finely honed blocking, parrying, trapping, and similar defensive skills, and this takes very fast reflexes.

Especially more advanced martial artists need to practice this sort of attack and defense situation, where the opponent tries multiple attacks and feints while you defend. Sometimes the best defense against a knife is just a low side-thrust kick to the knee after the attacker has thrust and is starting to withdraw, but again, this requires exceptional countering abilities.

Basically, no matter how skilled you are, you are forced into a defensive stance of waiting for an opening defending bare-handed agaist a knife. This means you need to have lightning quick reflexes and the ability to instantly follow up a succssful block, parry, trap, or dodge with an effective punch, strike or kick or combination. Once you have developed this sort of ability, at that point if you want to incorporate techniques such as these, that's okay.

An absolute waste of time. They are fantasy techniques at best. At the worst, they will certainly spell "THE END" for anybody foolish enough to believe that this stuff will work.

I will never waste my money again on any of his books.

As any serious student of martial arts will tell you, the difference between an effective technique and a useless one may be as little as 1/2" in the placement of your hand for a hold or lock. While this book shows many worthwhile techniques, the illustrations are totally useless when it comes to hand placement and, often, choice of hand. Close ups are sorely nonexistant. Unfortunately, the text explainations do NOTHING to help. The experienced martial artist MAY be able to figure these nuances out, but why buy a book to begin with if you end up having to figure the hand placements out for yourself? A novice or even an intermediate student will simply throw this book into the garbage after getting frustrated. There is nothing more unconscionable and disingenuous than a book that purports to want to teach you something and then proceeds to provide pictures and explanations that cannot be understood or comprehended. Talk about "approach-avoidance syndrome"!! AVOID this book BEFORE you get enticed into APPROACHING it's purchase.

Mr. Echanis's untimely death & a publisher's clever advertising ploy elevated him into a folk hero. Regrettably his books, while nicely bound, are filled with techniques that would be difficult in a dojo & fatal on the street. His knowledge of hapkido & aikido are not translated into "combat" tactics & are at best highly questionable. His books have recently been touted as "too deadly to be revealed until know"; a true statement if one considers the reader's health & safety to be what's in danger. Mr. Ellner's recommendations for other texts would be far better ways to spend one's money. While many hapkido instructors in America shy away from teaching serious street self-defense moves, there are some, along with (non MMA, NHB) combat-oriented jujutsu teachers, who would provide decent instruction - provided you research the matter well. If one has to study from a book, make sure it's a good one.

This book is good as an explanation of traditional hwa rang do techniques against knife attack. The techniques emphasize spinning, locking, and throwing type methods, which is fine as far as it goes, in a situation where the attacker commits himself to one main attack.

However, a skilled adversary with a knife will be more likely to "stalk" you and wait for an opening. In that case you need to have finely honed blocking, parrying, trapping, and similar defensive skills, and this takes very fast reflexes.

Especially more advanced martial artists need to practice this sort of attack and defense situation, where the opponent tries multiple attacks and feints while you defend. Sometimes the best defense against a knife is just a low side-thrust kick to the knee after the attacker has thrust and is starting to withdraw, but again, this requires exceptional countering abilities.

Basically, no matter how skilled you are, you are forced into a defensive stance of waiting for an opening defending bare-handed agaist a knife. This means you need to have lightning quick reflexes and the ability to instantly follow up a succssful block, parry, trap, or dodge with an effective punch, strike or kick or combination. Once you have developed this sort of ability, at that point if you want to incorporate techniques such as these, that's okay.

I do agree with MCURIE, I find the value of this book pretty limited, although I do understand it had not been thought for beginners. At a half of the presented knife attacks the opponent uses ice-pick grip! Not a single eye-poking defence! A lot of wrist grip and leverage techniques, which are effective if you are really much more skilled than the attacker and on the other hand many defences against dumbos who aproach you from behind and press the knive against your back like guns in the old detective movies used to be put, without even holding your collar! (Seems that a "hands up" command is lacking.)