Curiously when I talk about weapons training a lot of people, even other martial artists, say to me " Why study weapons , I mean your not going to have a weapon with you if you get attacked on the street are you !" (As if just because we didn't introduce the weapon means there won't be one involved, talk about missing the point!)

My standard answer is " No..........but they might! " and if they do we want to know at least a little about how different weapons work so we can better protect ourselves.

Weapons Studied
In our dojo the weapons training is split into three sections , the first one is Sharp, the second is Blunt and the third is Flexible, These sections will give you a well rounded understanding of classical weapons training while at the same time teaching you different distances of safety. For example, three lengths of sharp weapons, three lengths of blunt weapons, and how flexible things can be used.

Sharp (Wooden)	Blunt	Flexible
· Tanto / Knife	· Hanbo / 3 foot staff	· Kasarifundo / Short Rope
· Shoto / Short sword	· Jo / 4 foot staff	· Hojo jutsu / Rope tying
· Katana / Sword	· Bo / 6 foot staff	· Clothing (T-shirt etc.)

Our training is safe
In the dojo we mostly train with wooden replicas. The training that we do is very safe; the risk of injury is much lower than football or many other activities.

Weapons Defence
The majority of emphasis is placed on KNIFE DEFENCE . We study weapons defence relevant to today's situations as well as traditional martial arts weapons defence. With all of this knowledge students at Guests Martial Arts practice a very complete and extensive self protection system. There are numerous situations covered in our classes that are not even considered in other sport based martial arts"
Here’s an Article from The Melbourne Age Newspaper



LESS CRIME BUT WEAPONS USE ON THE RISE
By Larissa Dubecki
Melbourne Age
An extract from the original article
The State Government will launch a campaign targeting a growing knife culture among Victoria's youth, following a 33 per cent jump in knife attacks over the past year. The use of weapons in assaults jumped 21.7 per cent from 5004 to 6092. Assaults with a bottle or glass were up 48.4 % and assaults with a firearm were up 46 % but the use of syringes in assaults decreased by 20.6 %.

University of Melbourne criminologist Stuart Ross said that “ where a serious assault occurred, it was likely to be with a knife ”.

Knife Defence Tactics ©
I believe this is the most important area of physical training that you can do, although the main focus is Knife Defence we are also concerned about Needles, Bottles and Screwdrivers, basically anything that is able to penetrate or cut the body.

You'd be amazed to find out that around 20% of the students that train here have been in a Real Life Knife Defence situation. I know this because we have been running Knife Defence seminars at our school for years and we always ask students if this has happened to them and if it did then what happened. We then use their experiences as our training drills.

Can you think of a better way to train for real life situations?
Don't get the wrong impression about the people that train here, these are normal everyday people that do normal everyday things, living normal everyday lives, and the scary thing is 90% never reported what happened to the police!

If you're not learning Knife Defence at your martial arts school then you're not really learning self defence in my opinion.

During the seminars there are several main areas we study, some of the basic ones are …..

Body Target Minimizing	The less you show the less they have to cut and the more you can direct the strike to a place where you can control the situation.
Protecting your Perimeter	Keeping a safe distance 360 degree around your body
Lunges and Slashes	Very common attacks that are well worth practicing against
Blade on your Body	Common with threats and muggings
Plus more...

Situational Training
We have found that situation training works best, a “what if they do this to me?” type of learning. Exercises are done in a one on one (at first) right through to a group situation. We are committed to providing you with a solid understanding of true Knife Defence which in turn will increase your chance of survival if ever that unfortunate situation should occur.

Personal experiences
My interest in knife defence result from having been in a real life Knife Defence situation myself as well as several friends, students and family members having also survived similar situations.