>1. I see that there are quite a bit of knife on knife match ups. I really >applaud the exploration of this arena. How does a typical fight play out >as far as "scoring" goes? It can be fairly esoteric to spar with a training >blade unless some element of realism is added (I.E. chalk/ink, etc.) or >is it more of an acknowledgement of success from the individual >competitors?
Yes, this is a tough issue. I think you have to spar often enough to find yourself a place between knife boxing (using Marc's term) and knife waving (what I call persistent circling, "waiting" for an opening while looking cool with flowing knife patterns). The former seems quite silly, but in the heat of the sparring, this happens all of the time. The latter is just as silly because you don't spend a lot of time developing the reflexes
for delivering your shots.
I think that sparring is a training tool for fighting, so one should experiment and push to learn what a body can do. If you do it often enough, you should know which of your cuts rocked your opponent, and which of his cuts rocked you.
The prevalence of knife boxing
also leads me to believe that a real situation will be the same because,
for some reason, a knife just doesn't completely register as a weapon.
Such is not the case for a stick of respectable length. Dogs, schooled or not, seem to have a similar reaction. Perhaps this explains why knife
encounters are so dangerous, besides the fact that knife wounds can be
nasty.
As for chalk/ink, I dunno. An ink mark will register, but such marking rewards edge over tip touches and trains for those shots that ink the best. I think that using an aluminum blade with thin garden gloves is more useful. After taking a few shots on the hand, you'll be avoiding such hits, which would probably lop off a few fingers with a real knife.
Later,
Dog Gints
