Getting in Touch with Our Own Knife Psychology

(*This is a continuation of my last post Fear of Knives: Exploring the Roots.)

There really is no definitive answer as to whether humanity fears knives more than other deadly weapons or why this might be the case. Moreover, the fear (or lack of fear) that is experienced when faced with any weapon will vary quite widely from person to person simply based on their own individual psychology, making it impossible to predict how anyone would react when the moment comes.

In Jim Wagner’s Reality-Based Personal Protection, he asks the following:

"How will you perform at the moment of truth in a conflict situation? What’s going to happen to you emotionally when you’re facing the real possibilities of injury or even death? Will you have the will to survive, or will you be so paralyzed with fear that you will not be able to move at all? The answer is: You won’t know until you can say, 'Been there, done that.'"

What is generally agreed upon, however, is that knives, being a deadly weapon are likely to cause an increase in combat stress. And combat stress, no matter what kind of attack situation one is facing, has the potential to greatly harm one’s ability to mount an effective defense.

When one is scared, adrenaline levels are high, which cause perception, coordination and thinking to be impaired. People can have impaired sensory experiences including tunnel vision, auditory exclusion and time distortion. When one has gone beyond the levels of being scared to being terrified, a person can freeze up, unable to react or even move.

To prepare yourself for combat stress, you have to learn to handle yourself both physically and mentally with equal emphasis. You need to experience the physical and mental effects of combat stress in your training so you can better equip yourself for what you would experience in a real attack. As Professor Sylvain puts it: “Without both, you can only remain combat illiterate, no matter how well you perform your techniques or how fit you may be.”

A further contributor to the effects of combat stress when faced with a knife is the fear of death and mutilation. While it is impractical to practice death so to speak, a person can visualize their death regularly as a way of combating this fear. The Samurai were well aware of this fact, encouraging warriors to “practice death”:

"The way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here, or be there, imagining the most slightly way of dying, and putting one’s mind firmly in death. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done." (From Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai)

While this may considered a bit morbid for the average person who is unlikely to face lethal violence in the entirety of their lives, a soldier or other type of military or law enforcement officer might see the benefits from this type of psychological training. Of course, many strains of philosophy also contend that there is much spiritual benefit to be had from this kind of mental visualization because a complete acceptance of our inevitable deaths allows us to more fully experience life, or so they say.

(**A quick note of thanks to all blog commenters who contributed to my formulation of this aspect of my thesis, particularly ones who contributed without lowering themselves to personal attacks.)

Fear of Knives: Exploring the Roots

(*This article is the more developed and elaborated version of my original post last week, Why We Fear Knives? in which I was exploring one of the questions that was put to me for my Yondan thesis. This article is split into two parts. Please read both and if you have comments, post them in the second article, Getting in Touch with Our Own Knife Psychology.)

The knife is a deadly weapon and people are naturally going to fear an attack with a knife more than one with no weapon involved. There is room to posit theories that humans may psychologically fear knives more than other deadly attacks like guns, bludgeoning weapons or even multiple attackers. Many scientists believe that evolution has produced natural fears in the human psyche which evolved to help protect us from things that would cause us harm (i.e. fear of snakes, spiders, heights, etc). Research shows that mammals in general have developed the perceptive ability to focus on things seen as threatening, such as snakes and spiders, and to respond emotionally with a feeling of fear. (See reference article.)

It’s not a stretch to suggest that humans might have a latent fear of knives which could easily be associated with other natural cutting weapons that go way back in our evolutionary experience, like the teeth and claws of predators that once threatened us. Guns, bludgeoning weapons, even swords, don’t have the long history of being a life threat that small cutting weapons have in our evolutionary background. That being said, Richard McNally, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, stated: "The biggest challenge that we face in considering these theories of evolution is we cannot recover the evolutionary history—there is no fossil record," he said. "People seem to have different thresholds for saying what is a plausible account of evolution."

Even if we don’t subscribe to the evolution theory, we can consider our own experiences. Pretty much everyone has been cut at least once in their lives even if it was just a simple a paper cut. They can actually remember what it feels like to be cut. The memory of that pain could theoretically cause a visceral fear reaction in people when they are threatened with a knife. Most people have never been shot so it does not evoke the same intensity of response when a gun is pointed at them.

What we see and read about in popular media may have an effect on how we perceive knives, whether the perception is accurate or not. When you see people cut with knives on TV or movies, they usually feature a close-up of the victim’s face showing him in extreme pain. When people are shot, on the other hand, the pain isn’t as prominent. Usually the victim just drops to the ground or goes flying back from the impact. To go further with the point of how knives are depicted in movies, the most horrible serial killers in movies are usually depicted as being hackers and slashers. All of this could theoretically contribute to a stronger emotional reaction to a knife.

As children, many people are exposed to toy weapons, most often guns and swords. This familiarization at a young age could theoretically make a person less fearful as an adult. You don’t usually hear about kids playing with toy knives on the other hand so one could surmise that the lack of familiarity in that way leads to a greater level of fear.

Why Do We Fear Knives?

You may think that the answer to this question seems a bit obvious at first, but it isn't really. It's a knife! A lethal weapon. of course we fear them! But the fear that comes when a knife is pointed at you as a weapon is so much more visceral than the fear that comes when a gun is pointed at you. This is a question I'm answering as part of my thesis for my Yondan.

Everyone has been cut at least once in their lives even if it was just a simple a paper cut. The memory of that pain causes a visceral reaction in people when they are threatened with a knife. They can actually remember what it feels like to be cut. Most people have never been shot so it does not evoke the same intensity of response when a gun is pointed at them. The same goes for bludgeoning weapons like a baseball bat.

Moreover, when you see people cut with knives in film, they usually feature a close-up of the victim’s face showing him in extreme pain. When people are shot, on the other hand, the pain isn’t as prominent. Usually the victim just drops to the ground or goes flying back from the impact.

These factors contribute to a stronger emotional reaction to a knife, so when people actually face a knife in reality as a weapon, they are more likely to freeze up and cower behind their arms in response. This is something every instructor should try to address in their teachings to help prepare their students mentally for the psychology that might trip them up even if they do become as technically proficient at knife defense as one can get.

Reacting to Aggression: How to Avoid and De-Escalate Conflict

This blog post has been moved to our new address: http://pacificwavejiujitsu.com/blog/reacting-to-aggression-how-to-avoid-and-de-escalate-conflict

Knife Toys for Children... FAIL!!!

One of my students brought in a toy to show me that he thought was hilarious. I won't go into bothersome detail when you can see a demonstration of it in the video below.



Yes, that's right. It's a funky-coloured plastic knife that makes a squeaking noise as you stab someone with the blade. While this toy is a hilariously campy toy that I wouldn't mind having on my shelf, this toy is all kinds of wrong for young children.

What kind of play time would you expect with this toy? Children would run around stabbing each other or their toys to be rewarded with delightful squeaking sound. What does this teach children about knives? That it's fun to stab people! Imagine a very young child who plays with this toy and hasn't yet learned the difference between toy knives and real knives. What would might happen if they somehow got their hands on a real one?

Yes, yes. I know that parents should be active enough in their children's lives that they wouldn't be introduced to a toy at a very young age, nor would they leave knives just lying around. But honestly, I don't trust everyone to properly parent their children and this is the last toy I would want to see in the hands of a child that is being raised poorly.