04/12/2026
I've noticed something.
When it comes to knife defense training, people are using "sport knife attack feeds" to invalidate defensive techniques, approaches and concepts that may have potential value in real world situations. Why is this a problem?
Well, its not really a really real problem, to be honest. Most people will never actually have to defend themselves against a knife attack. But let me dig into this a little bit.
What do I mean by "sport knife attack feeds"? These are typically short, rapid attacks with incredibly fast retraction speeds with lots of angular changes.
Think of a boxer executing a jab to the face, right cross to the body, left uppercut, then a right hook. Take a moment now to imagine that. Maybe even mimic it in the air.
Now think of a sucker punch with a huge telegraph or a veiled punch to the gut by some belligerent punk. Which of these are you infinitely more likely to face in the street? Right. The second one.
This is what I am talking about. I am seeing the equivalent of sport feeds for knife work and passing it off as real world.
I know what some of you might be thinking. It's better to train for the difficult high level sport attack sequences so that the lower end stuff in the real world will be easier to defend. Well, not exactly.
For me, knife work is brain work. In my seminars, I often tell my students to seek higher level, specialized coaching to REFINE the technical solutions I guide them into discovering. I cannot teach you a throw-by to a back take better than a wrestling coach. I cannot teach you to throw better than a Judo instructor and I certainly cannot craft your right cross better than a boxing coach.
But back to my point...knife work is brain work. Through a series of drills, games, sequences and flows I design training environments that infuse elements of reality; things like extreme time constraints, anticipatory and emotional stress, decision-making under cognitive load, environmental affordances and limitations etc. There isn't enough time in the day, to really lock in on technical refinement for one solution that may emerge during a 2-day, 12 hour seminar...especially given that a single solution cannot work for EVERYONE in the room.
But herein lies the problem I initially stated: sportive knife attack feeds can corrupt the very nature of knife defense training through a disproportionate focus on technical refinement.
Wait. Don't misunderstand me on purpose. Technical refinement IS very important. But a disproportional focus on technical refinement can get you lost in the weeds. For example, how long does it take to develop the perfect jab? One day? Three months? A lifetime?
The sport combat approach to knife defense IS good. I see grappling guys and striking guys and MMA guys getting well into it. And I seek them for inspiration and guidance all the time. But, as I often cite in my seminars, people don't die from knife attacks because of technique failure...they die because of evaluation errors.
But Paulo...don't you train against sport combat knife attacks? Well...yes I do. But I fight in sport combat knife competitions. I purposefully stay in the pocket baiting, feinting, getting angles and deceiving my opponent to launch predictable attacks that I've conditioned them to throw so that I can launch counter-offensive measures to get the advantage from that clash...and then we do it all over again. That's knife fighting. That isn't reality. Certainly, that is not self defense.
While there are real world examples of knife attacks that kind of look like sport knife duelling...for the most part, when someone wants to stab you...they are less concerned about level and angular changes and rapid retractions in order to get a better score at the end of the round...they want to plunge that knife elbow deep inside of you...and while the same technical solutions can be valid in either case...it is in the nature of HOW technical refinement is managed in a short time frame that I ultimately care about because technical refinement is just ONE thing our brains need to be managing under the stress and chaos of reality.
Thanks for reading. I hope that makes sense.
In the coming weeks I will be in Virginia Beach, New York City and New Jersey.
I hope we can train then.
Later in the year I will be making stops in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Kansas City, Montreal, Portugal and Switzerland.
Feel free to message me about details for any of these events or reach out for recommendations of other instructors I trust in your area for both real world knife defense and technical refinement for grappling and striking solutions.
See ya.
Paulo GN Rubio
