The Dangers of Overconfidence

By Joel Persinger

A few weeks ago David and I were working with a student who is most interested in the use of and defense against the knife. During the class an interesting thing occurred which the student later related to me.

But before I get too deeply into the tail, let me start out by saying that the best defense in a knife fight is not to get into one in the first place. The second best defense being a gun, the next best thing is to at least bring a knife. Otherwise, if your attacker has a knife and you don’t, it might simply be called murder instead of a “fight”. This is quite possible when we consider the statistics which show that about half of all violent confrontations in the U.S. involve a weapon of some kind.

With this in mind, we have tried to impart to our students the simple fact that defense against an armed attacker is almost always more effectively accomplished if the defender is also armed with, at least a comparable weapon and preferably a superior one. Nevertheless, in spite of being armed it is quite likely that the defender in such a clash will be injured, and there in lies the rub.

It has been my experience, that a little martial skill can go a long way toward making students feel invincible. Teach a person a few techniques and he is instantly Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and the Green Lantern all rolled into one. By the way, handing someone a weapon often has the same effect.

Having seen my fair share of people suffering or dead from knife and bullet wounds I can say without question that no matter how great my martial skill or the number of weapons in my hand, I can still be hurt or killed. Therefore, while it is positive for a martial artist to feel confident in his skills, it can be disastrous when confidence gives way to a feeling of invincibility.

Knowing this, David decided that a practice session was in order. He handed the student and me each a foam practice knife and a pair of racquetball goggles. Eyes protected and properly armed we began a series of knife duals. It should be mentioned here that while knife duals are rare in real life, they can be instructive in practice. The student performed well given his level of training and David and I were able to sharpen his skills a bit along the way. But then, it happened! He lunged at me with a thrust to my abdomen. I tapped it out with my left arm, shifted my weight to avoid the blade and slashed neatly across his eyes and back across his throat. He stood there stunned.

Days later he returned to class with a little less bounce in his step. I asked how he was doing and that’s when he reminded me of the story. It seems that for several days after our practice duals he could not escape the vision of my blade slashing across his eyes. Never mind the fact that my cut to his throat would have practically separated his head from his body. It was the sight of that blade cutting across his goggles that stunned him. That was the moment at which he understood the gravity of a knife fight and why it is a thing to be avoided.