Having taught these skills to two different agencies and practiced them in multi-agency training sessions, a common response from participants is, "My agency won't allow such aggressive tactics."

This Blue Line article highlights some of the differences employed by various Canadian agencies.

"...how feasible is it to parry a hand armed with a knife aimed directly at your face or throat at full speed, aggression and violence of action, then perform a wrist lock to subdue the attacker? Or how effective would an officer be at trying to deflect a knife thrust aimed at the abdominal region while simultaneously trying to strike the assailant’s face? Remember, we can switch tasks, some more quickly than others, but we do not multitask very well, let alone look at two different objects independently like chameleons."

In the Blue Line photo, if the attacker on the right were armed with a knife in his right hand, blocking doesn't disengage but wrapping your left arm around his right arm then delivering blows to his neck would stop the fight.

This was one of the techniques discussed at the multi-agency training session in which officers said their department disallowed such blows to the neck.

www.blueline.ca

To modernize and revamp the knife defence lesson, here are three general phases I follow when creating combatives training programs for agencies: