Uechi-Ryu.com

What length should a knife be in order to shut someone down FAST?

Keating
Generally speaking, this is something that has been bantered about. To shut down a human being who is desperately trying to do you harm, you need a 4-1/2" or 5" knife. If you want a universal kill, for large predators, a 5" knife will not reach the organs the way it should.

The minimum you'll need for large men and animals is a 7" knife, and I recommend the #1 Randall as a good starting point, with a double guard. Even if you don't want to go with the Randal because of the price, Cold Steel makes what's called the R1, and it's like only $100, and it's a wonderful knife and it's basically a replica of the Randall knife.

RF
It's the ice-pick grip, yes?

Keating
It's like an ice pick grip, either the edge would be towards my forearm or the edge would be out away from my forearm.

RF
Where do you prefer the edge to be?

Keating
Back, I prefer the edge back towards me, all my knives ride in a holster open and the edge is to the rear so when I pull the knife, the sharpened edge is in towards my forearm. Many people disagree with this but this comes out of Pekiti-tersia, and without trying to sound bloody, all these knife experts…I guarantee, none of them have cut someone up.

RF
Can you expound on that?

Keating
During a fight, people arms rise up, you want to be able to come straight down and pull them in like a tiger, not knock them away, where they can mount another attack on you. Again, I think too many guys want to go out and do a knife kata and look cool, but they have no clue what it is like to be in a knife fight. A lot of these guys are full of untested opinions and teach their stuff and are going to get their students hurt.

So again in my opinion, as far as self-defense, close quarter, against any situation, the reverse grip is one of the best. But if we're talking about two men with knives squaring off amongst each other, oh hell no, get your knife out of reverse grip, get into regular grip, it is not a knife fighting method.

RF
When squaring off with someone, if you're right handed, do you keep your blade back or forward?

Keating
You keep your blade forward

RF
Just like fencing?

Keating
Almost...the fight must start somewhere, the [knife] fight will always start at long range, there are very few people who wish to rush forward into cold steel, or a burning branch, they don't want to get on fire, so there's very few people who'll charge into the heart of death.

So you will circle each other, you will test the other one, in which case I will keep that point directly in their eyes, Just like in the Spanish Circle, I will keep that point in their eyes and walk the circle.

But that's one of the big ones for us, we're the only school that I'm aware of, out of all the different masters including; Kelly Worden, Hock Hochheim, and all these other men that teach sleight of hand as part of our knife fighting curriculum, and I've written big volumes online about that.

RF
Is that with distractions, using scarves...

Keating
It is, but think of stage magic, like in Las Vegas, but instead of using the principles of distraction, angle, deception that involve good stage magic, we're not doing it to entertain or to make a parrot in a cage disappear, we're doing it to stop someone, and we take the concepts of magic and apply them to the blade.

Once you see what we're doing, many people say, oh, wow why didn't I think of that. It's fairly simple but it's profound in its effects though. That means you can do invisible hitting, people are struck and don't know how they were hit.

They never had a clue when it was coming; they never saw it when it did come. That's even been said about kung fu, if you can strike without them knowing, that's one of the highest skills.

RF
Revisionist history is forced on us nowadays to try to make everyone feel good. People should just accept the facts the way they are.

Keating
Yes, that's what I say, don't change the facts. Right now, I produced my knife, the Chinook; it was named after the native fish of the Pacific Northwest, it was called the buffalo of the Northwest, meaning just like the plains Indians survived by buffalo, these Indians survived by salmon.

So I'm working with many of the tribes to save the salmon, and the Chinook tribe being one of them, and in that sense we're looking at the past, the sacred sites, almost every week I'm involved with some archaeological expedition, here in the pacific northwest, so I'm very fortunate to be able to go out employ my skills, go to these wilderness areas, explore, it's really a great lifestyle, and the opinions I hold, which are very similar to yours, I'll never quit, I'll expound on them, I'll write about them every chance I get because it's important for people to understand the actual viewpoint not the political one.

RF
Getting back to the Chinook, it's a great knife, but it's a little large for some occasions, especially if you work in a large city. If a client would see the large clip, they would immediately know it's a large folder, and in New York City, the capital of liberalism, it would scare a great many people.

RF
I have the model 12 "Bear Bowie" -- 8" blade, 1 5/8" wide of 1/4" stock, I've had it for nearly 20 years, and have used it in the Amazon, and other various places in Asia and the Middle east, and it still is in great shape.

Keating
You know you can't beat Randall for quality, they're just classic, I have the Randall #1 one and a #2, the #2 being a dagger, I like the Bowie/dagger combination and with that you can do just about anything. When you get close quarter (as I mentioned in our past conversation) you need to use that knife like a bullet.

You know the size of a .45 caliber bullet, well imagine that compared to the size of a knife blade. Well in a Randall #1, or even my Chinook, you're using well over a .90 caliber bullet (in size). People talk about when a .45 hits someone, or a 9mm or something like that, that's all well and good, but a knife plunging into that same organ is going to do three times the damage.

So in that way, we're looking at the knife as a means to stop someone (who's trying to kill you) FAST. The only way you can do that is with a thrust. A thrust will seal itself, it's not horribly messy, whereas a slash; there's no controlling the flow of blood, and It doesn't always stop them, it makes a big stinky mess, it's just a bad scene.

I'm not an advocate of going in there and cutting something up. One guy said, "Oh well that's bullshit, you've never been cut, but I've been cut."


But my point is this, these guys who go out and hunt these 300 lb. Pigs with knives, none of them chop or slash the pig, it doesn't do anything. Every one of these guys thrust the pig when he comes close and nails the pig to stop him.

And then uses that knife in the pig as a handle to keep away from the thing and to steer the thing. It's like installing a handle in the animal, that's the only way to stop a wild pig quickly.