Edged Weapons with Steve Tarani AAR Update w/ pictures

[templar223]

Boone County, IN Sheriff Ken Campbell sponsored Steve Tarani to teach his Edged Weapons Defense course at the Boone County Sheriff's Department headquarters Mar 20-21.

 

Boone County is immediately northwest of Indianapolis and boasts the highest per capita income of any county in Indiana. This is the second class I've taken at the BCSD and I'm nothing but impressed with both the quality of the people there (they know their stuff, are highly trained and have high morale), the attitudes of law enforcement towards civilians (join us for training, it helps make training for LEOs successful as civvies fill vacant seats) and guns (good guys with guns are a good thing) and the facilities (new, nice and state of the art) of this particular department.

 

Sheriff Campbell has arrangements with hotels in Lebanon for discounted, government rates for those staying while attending his classes. I prefer to stay in Indy at one of the Drury Inns because (a) cold, continental breakfasts suck, ( the nightlife is better in Indy, and © it's just as cheap or cheaper. Ordinarily I'd stay in the Drury Inn on the NW side (Michigan Ave), but not having a (RoomSaver) coupon, I opted to stay at the brand new Drury Inn on the NE side. Flat panel TVs in the rooms, complimentary drinks (adult and otherwise) and snacks, polished marble floors, etc. make this location el primo. Unfortunately it's about 11 miles further than the older Drury (which still has CRTs and is beginning to show its birthdays), making it a modest 24ish mile drive, all Interstate, to the BCSD.

 

I arrived and followed the "bread crumbs" signs once let into the department to the classroom in the basement. Steve Tarami was there, along with 24 students when we started. Tuition was $250 for the weekend, and thus far, I consider that a bargain considering what we're being taught and who's teaching it.

 

Probably 60-65% of attendees were LEOs, the remainder computer or office jocks like me, a surgeon, maybe a lawyer stuck in there, a pharmacist, and a few other businessmen and EMT-types.

 

Tarani introduced himself as working for Uncle Sam, specifically DOD and he says he enjoys teaching classes approved by his higher ups to LEO, mil and civilians now and then. He's got over 31 years studying and teaching martial arts and teaches lots of firearms classes to high-speed, low-drag types when he's not working "in the field" himself. He was a little vague as to what he did but I don't doubt he's legit. His skills and speed were phenomenal. As in "if you blink, you've just missed it." What do I mean you missed it? Well, if you're his demonstration "partner" playing the aggressor, I mean you blink and then think "what the heck just happened to my knife that was just in my hand and how did it get stuck in my back?"

 

We spent about an hour in the classroom introducing ourselves, describing what we wanted out of the class and Tarani talking about the basics of defensive knife.

 

We covered "Scale of Injury" - make sure your injuries are less than the bad guy's. Soft vs. hard targets (flesh vs. bone) and lethal vs. generally less-lethal targets. He covered KISS (keep it simple), gross motor skills and pain compliance (or lack thereof in some individuals under the influence or anger or intoxicants). He stressed mechanical compliance (cutting control mechanisms and/or eliminating hydraulics).

 

If you want the long form of what we covered, buy Steve Tarani's book, "Masters of the Blade".

 

From there, we adjourned to the basement training area next to the Boone Co. 911 dispatch center. (I asked the sheriff how much that "free" 30' banner from Motorola in the basement welcoming those who see it to the Boone County 800-Mhz dispatching center. He laughed. "Just 7.2 million dollars.")

 

We began with stretches and warmups then proceeded to some basic techniques of protecting your vital areas, one- and two-step "get off the x" type moves, and then we got the training knives and proceeded to do some basic "push away and get out" type drills, partnering off after each demonstration to run the drill with a new classmate each time, taking turns playing aggressor and good guy.

 

These weren't completely harmless as we picked up the pace, and especially the cops liked to go at about 75%-90% full speed at times and if you missed your block, you took a hard piece of plastic across your forearms, face or head. At one point I thought I might be sporting a black eye, but thankfully not. In another drill, I drew and came at a Carmel, IN cop with my trainer in my weak hand and he zigged when he should have zagged and caught it upside his cheek and nose. "I should have known without thinking what to do to counter that. I'm glad you did that." No hard feelings in the training school of hard knocks.

 

http://www.gsldefensetraining.com/photos/Tarani01s.jpg

In any encounter with an aggressor with a blade, you can always reserve your right to "take it like a man" and not react. Or you can draw your gun and end up with the same result.

http://www.gsldefensetraining.com/photos/Tarani02s.jpg

Here, Tarani demonstrates one technique for dealing with an aggressor making a mid-line thrust.

http://www.gsldefensetraining.com/photos/Tarani03s.jpg

Now pay attention as he does it again in "super" slow motion.

After lunch, we broke out the "live blade" folding knives and drilled for what seemed like a couple of hours (we left our watches in the classroom and there were no clocks down there). First on how to open and close safely. Then on how to open and "present" the knife against an aggressor. Then to draw, then draw and open and present. A few blades when skittering across the floor, just as can happen in real life.

 

After lots of draws and presentations (and, by extension, closes - the "danger" time), we only got one bleeder, ironically a professional cook that got himself good. Tarani then went around the room three times and timed each person from "go" command to completed presentation (and encouraged the other 23 to practice each time). By the 100th time for everyone, draw and present times had fallen from around 1.8 to 2 seconds to from .9x seconds to 1.4ish, with most around 1.2. That's right, amateurs can go from hands above the belt to drawing, opening and applying a folder in less time than most people can draw their pistola, much less get two good shots off.

 

You say, "ah, I'll shoot the sucker". Well, you might shoot Mr. Knife, but you'll still have his blade stuck in you, possibly to probably in a manner that may well result in your expiration. Basically, we learned that when you're within 6' of a bad guy with a knife, you must deal with that knife threat before you even consider presenting your own weapon system, be it knife, club or projectile. And by "dealing" with it, I mean going hands on in some fashion, be it parrying (tap and get out of the danger zone) or closing in to disarm, wrest control of the blade or take care of business to make sure a renewed attack doesn't come.

 

Moving "in" drills took the balance of day one with techniques for countering the major thrusts and plunging attacks discussed, along with what do do if both you and the bad guy have control of one hand each. Tarani offered four "dances" for you to disarm Mr. Bad Guy and either push him off or filet or tenderize him with his own knife, sometimes even letting him hold the blade while helping him perforate his own body. He told us to pick our favorite but honestly, I liked all four. One wasn't particularly suitable for short folks, while others worked especially well for them. They were all fast and worked very well for me.

 

Tomorrow, he's promised us most of the day will be spend on curved blades. Not exactly sure what to expect, but I'm guessing a new curved blade will be in my future.

 

Oh yeah, I LOVE my blade.

 

http://www.impactguns.com/store/media/lw/lw_14900.jpg

 

(only mine doesn't have the serrations).

 

John

[templar223]

Day Two. Curved blades.

 

I've got to say I approached Day Two thinking, "we're going to spend a whole day on curved knives? What's so great about those?" I was very skeptical and cynical.

 

It was just my ignorance talking.

 

We spent the day discussing "curved utility blades". Otherwise known in the arts as karambits.

 

What the heck is a karambit?

 

Think one word: Velociraptor.

 

Specifically, the claw thereof.

 

 

 

Oh, you want pictures.

 

http://www.karambit.com/picture_library/Parts-of-a-Karambit.jpg

 

The fixed blade, twin-edged version.

 

 

http://www.karambit.com/picture_library/kcon-acd.jpg

 

The trainer. Still an impressive weapon by itself.

 

 

http://www.teraasekeskus.com/images/extra/511Karambit.jpg

 

The "sissified" single-edge version in a folder. Still very formidable.

 

 

 

Less than two hours into Sunday, I was sold.

 

Curved utility blades are effective, versatile and extremely effective at trimming roses.

 

The curved nature of the blade makes it extremely effective at slicing through flesh, especially as it's razor sharp and not likely to be dulled from routine use. One of the students was a professional chef and he told of his experiences slicing beef at a slaughterhouse with his karambit.

 

They are versatile in that they can be used in scores, if not hundreds of different combinations. For instance, palm up, down or vertical. Front, back or side. Attacking inside, outside or centerline. High medium or low. And on and on. They also can be used to pin a bad guy's wrist, torque an edged blade out of someone's hand or block strikes.

 

And because you've got a finger through the retention ring, it can't be twisted out of your hand nearly as easily as a knife (not to mention you're going to get badly cut if you grab it). They are very difficult to defend against, unless you have an opportunity to mechanically disable the delivery mechanism on a bad guy or can outrun your attacker.

 

Tarani showed us a new 5.11 fixed blade unit that fits alongside an AR receiver for places where people like to get very close inside your personal space. With the flick of a hand, you can distract a bad person and encourage them to get out of the way so you can present your rifle and use it while still holding the blade.

 

Basically, we spent the entire day learning how to block, slash and hook with the sharp edge(s) of the karambit. And we spent a fair amount of time learning how to use it to disarm a knife-wielding adversary. We learned "nice" ways involving a minimal loss of blood and tissue if the opportunity presents itself. Failing that, we learned less polite ways to disarm bad people mechanically, which usually involves major tissue and / or blood loss.

 

In short, this edged weapon class instilled still more respect in me for what a blade can do in the hands of someone intent on hurting people.

 

John

[Glock21]

Great report, John - thank you!!!!

[Silver Guardian]

When is the next one and where do I sign up?

[templar223]

When is the next one and where do I sign up?

 

Check the Boone County Sheriff's Department website under training classes. That's where I found it.

 

John

[RichardM]

Great report!