a vast majority of people who survive knife attacks have absolutely no training whatsoever now does training improve our odds of survivability yes but it's what kind of training matters that's Paulo Rubio the world famous knife instructor he's traveled the globe to document the greatest experts in combat this is brilliant Jesse this is an ancient methodology today he's invited me to FMJ a tactical facility usually reserved for Special Forces because it's time to learn the truth about knife defense I'm scanning the environment I'm grooming I'm indexing you're giving criminals a lot of good ideas right now go up here this was a real knife and I wanted to kill you what is the truth about knife defense a knife thrust can happen as fast as . 14 seconds when you blink your eyes it takes . 10 to 4 seconds for you to initiate a defensive action takes about half a second and so the mathematics of knife defense is impossible even if you see it coming and you initiate a defense the likelihood of you being successful at it is very low think about this what percentage of the world's population do you think does martial arts less than 1% less than 1% what percent of knife attack survivors do you think have done any kind of martial arts training it's it's not even in the right so a a vast majority of people who survive knife attacks have absolutely no training and whatsoever luck has almost everything to do with it now does training improve our odds of survivability yes it's what kind of training matters let me paint you another picture you watch football you watch the Swedish football team okay okay so when that goalkeeper is standing on that line do you think that that goalkeeper is seeing that ball travel and air processing the spin trajectory and then at the last moment making a dive definitely not definitely not so how are they able to make saves what information so it has to be some kind of prediction right it can't be a reaction right so they look at the body language body language good and of course they're drawing from experience drawing from experience good and luck and a little bit of luck all of those things so it's it's the leadup it's the moments before the kick it's the last point of contact to the ball so that's all knife defense is it's a probability judgment based on the information that you can gather in a split second it's much less about the actual techniques than it is about the things preceding the Techni exactly now the thing is whenever I say something like this you know it can be a little bit offensive because yes technique matters right but so does strength so there's speed and those things I can't control if you're a big strong linebacker and I'm a 62y old old woman it doesn't matter how much detailed technique and instruction that I've received it doesn't matter how good that technique is I'm not going to be able to pull it off against does that make sense so a successful goalkeeper how many times must they save the ball out of 10 penalty shots for them to be considered really good goalkeeper oh I'm not a huge football or soccer fan in in baseball if you have A3 batting average if you hit three times out of 10 you're getting paid a lot of money you're considered successful so in knife defense whenever I see people successfully defend in a demo 100% of the times I begin to think that's an unrealistic expectation should you expect to get cut I hear this all the time right in a night fight you will get cut yeah I've heard that too yeah so I think that's uh a defeatist mentality right and if we study CCTV videos you certainly see that that people get cut but you also see people not getting cut yeah it's like but if I say hey look if you're going to get in a boxing match expect to get punched yeah fine right right that that makes sense probably and I think the the reason people say you will get cut or expect to get cut is that they don't want you to be shocked by it and that the philosophy is to continue fighting what are some of those uh things we could be looking out for if we are about to get attacked 100% so this is important these are called pre-attack indicators and they're more or less Universal all right so one of those things is called indexing so if we're having an argument right here and you see me doing this oh right yeah yeah you're like you're searching like well it's not that you're searching you know where that concealed weapon is right you can get that weapon out very very quickly yeah but why am I touching it why is this why is this a pre-attack indicator why is this a sign Jesse that you're about to get stabbed because there's some kind of comfort in feeling your weapon right so look if you've ever propose to a lovely woman who you wanted to be your wife oh it's anxiety or you had that ring in your pocket all day long what were you doing all day long checking why why touching you want to know that it's there when it's time to pull it out another pre-attack indicator what um it's called scanning environment so what am I doing when I'm scanning the environment making sure you can attack me making sure I can attack you maybe I'm looking for cameras maybe I'm waiting for my friends to arrive maybe as soon as I stab you I'm looking for an exit Point you're giving criminals a lot of good ideas right now well see the thing is these happen subconsciously this is not a thing that you can necessarily control you know what I mean like this you see this what is this yeah grooming oh man I'm already feeling it you're about to attack oh boy and that's another thing I talk about you can Infuse emotional gravity into a training environment right so but it's so weird that I I also feel a kind of threat from you just because you start grooming yourself maybe even the viewers can feel it when they see that yeah that's your intuition that's your intuition that's the DNA you ever walk into a place Jesse and you're like this is a bad many times that's why I've never been in a real fight cuz I always avoid that you trust your intuition what is intuition intuition is subconscious pattern recognition so you're not logically saying oh I see him and it's just a gut feeling so you trust your intuition so back to these pre-attack indicators right so I'm scanning the environment I'm grooming I'm indexing and then one last thing there are many okay okay we're talking and then I do this I blade my body oh like this m first we're talking yeah you're open and then I'm like bro oh you're loading up that boom most people are what left-handed or right-handed right-handed most so the power is on the right side yeah yeah so look we are we are adding bits of information to make a good probability judgment okay so now we're having an argument I'm indexing what could be a concealed weapon I'm grooming I'm scanning the environment I blade I know something's about to go down right now something's about to go down so should I try to get away or should I I strike you before you strike me that's the million-dollar question right and I I there is no right answer because you have to make the probability judgment you have to be the goalkeeper yeah right yeah right right right so it's based on the totality of circumstance and look you're a karate guy yeah right you you have a good solid base yeah can you execute a good sidekick from this position yeah yes I could you do it when there's ice on the ground ice I would probably go lower right but another thing we can't control are the infinite variables of weather ground surface condition your emotional state maybe you just had an argument with somebody and and and you're just not thinking straight maybe you didn't sleep well last night or didn't have my coffee and you didn't have your coffee so look at all of these factors infinite variables if this is if I'm not exhibiting any of these signs and I just stab you the math is way behind but now that you've recognized pre-attack indicators you also know trajectories step back for a second if I swing this way what's coming next probably the probably this right so that's where training can kind of have a place but in in real life you have to be able to make good solid decisions under stress and you have to be able to constantly be assessing the situation to give yourself the most amount of information to be able to make a good probability judgment but even then you could be wrong sure just like that soccer player right and jump the wrong direction yeah yeah yeah unfortunately you only get to be wrong once when it comes to to be wrong ones can I try something with you real quick okay so I'm just going to have you stand here I'm going to give you instructions okay I'm going to stab you with a lowline Thrust one of the most common attacks and I just want you to initiate um some kind of a defensive action I'm not going to go fast it's just going to be this way okay why did you choose that cuz this is what I've been trained to do okay great we're do it again just one more time I'm not going to do anything different same lowline attack okay all right yeah okay wonderful great job I passed it t did you feel that there was a difference between the first and the second yes the first was more static more like a training environment mhm the second felt more real what does that mean felt more real I this is not a realistic attack no it was still slow but you added more of the kind of uh body language I would expect from a real fight yeah and you know what else uhhuh up here this was a real knife and I wanted to kill you and you felt that yes and you responded to that our minds our bodies our spirit if you will are incredible machines that are so fine-tuned to dealing andent identifying danger if we can just be aware of those things and sometimes it requires a Moment Like This to go I can manifacture it we're still in a training environment also we have to we have to give each other hugs and high fives afterwards so you know why this is important to laugh in in the training environment you know why that's really important tell me because parts of our brains can't differentiate between a real event and one that's powerfully imagined yeah so there was a moment there where I was like I really wanted to kill yeah the karate nerd Jesse enham right and so we have to overwrite that we have to overwrite that sense by the way wrestlers Jiu-Jitsu people um and anything with a solid striking background like uh boxing Muay Thai uh karate all of those are amazing for self-defense yeah you could probably sidekick me and I wouldn't even get my knife out but it's based on your recognition Prime decision making it's based on the things that happen beforehand that you're able to deploy your tools so what happens after that initial uh threat assessment and let's say somebody does attack us woo what should we do which do you think is better an instinctive response or a trained response probably a combination of both that's that's the right that's kind of the right answer oh yeah the next question would be how do you know that your trained response has become instinctive when you don't have to think about it okay and what protocols do you have to ensure that training training right practice right but trying to recreate real moments right so I I have a you want to do a quick drill yeah with me okay I'm going to get you to reverse blink wait what yeah what's reverse blinking so can you blink for 0.
1 seconds okay you see that yeah you blink okay I'm blinking oh you're so good you're doing you're doing this you're a master okay but what we're going to do okay is you're going to close your eyes and you're going to be don't do it yet I'm demonstrating for you you're going to be in complete darkness and when I say go you're going to open you're going to reverse blink your eye for 0. 10 second boom oh okay and you're going to gather information in that quick interesting all right so what I'm going to do for now is I'm just going to hold up fingers numbers numbers you just tell me what you see okay so close my eyes and remember when I say go and only go you open it for 0.
