DON’T BE IN SUCH A RUSH TO DIE! 

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DON’T BE IN SUCH A RUSH TO DIE! 

I have had the good fortune of traveling around the world to teach Knife work to students from all walks of life. In my seminars I often ask the participants to take a moment and think about who they consider to be the most dangerous person in the world with a knife. Inevitably responses come back such as Dan Inosanto, Nene Tortal, or some black bag spec ops type. Then I tell them that I will bet them my pay check that I could kill any of the names on their list with a knife. This is about the point where I hear dissatisfied sighs and start seeing eye balls rolling. This is the point where I get the looks that say "You’re an arrogant son of a bitch”. 

Once I have acquired the disdain of the crowd I then explain to them an important lesson. I explain that killing someone with a knife is not that hard. Not hard if you have no concern for your own safety. I do believe that if I made a one-shot kamikaze run with a knife I could kill virtually any opponent out there. The problem with that is that more times than not I would-be dead-on arrival as well. 

One of my core instructors, Mr. Lopez used to always say…” Don’t be in such a rush to die”. What Lopez meant by this is exactly what I try to get across in my little example, the fact that rushing in on a knife wielding adversary is courting death. I like to share with students what I call a “Light Bulb Phrase”. I call it that because whenever I speak it I can literally see light bulbs going off over student’s heads. This very important phrase is “There is a difference between killing the other guy and not getting killed”. 

Once I communicate this idea I always see a radical change in the students when they spar. Before sharing it with them they looked like rocke'em sock'em robots. Always in measure trading shots, like two guys stuck in a blender. After sharing the idea however I start to see some thought going on. Students start to pick their shots; they focus on maintaining a good defense and are a whole lot more concerned with staying alive. 

Now while I will concede that there are some individuals in high risk professions who may need to keep the goal of “Kill the other guy” by in large most civilians and even law enforcement personnel will be much better served by the “Don’t get killed” mind set. So, use your head, mount a strong defense, use a calculated offense not a kamikaze one, focus on staying alive and most importantly DON’T BE IN SUCH A RUSH TO DIE.

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