One of the things we often forget to think about is how far we’re willing to go with self-defense. Tonight, we taught some techniques to defend yourself against someone that’s on top of you and holding a knife.

The discussions at the beginning and end were probably more important than the techniques.

At first, we reminded students to comply if the attacker is asking for something that can be replaced.

And at the end, we asked, assuming you’re able to break an arm and take away the knife, what’s the next move?

Do you try to escape?

Do you use the knife against the attacker?

How much thought have you given to this part of the altercation?

It might be a good time to read or re-read Tim Larkin’s When Violence is the Answer.