Training Knives: What do you use?

We have some rubber knives we use for beginner classes. We have wooden and plastic knives for advanced classes. We have used sidewalk chalk in sparring with knives and in knife defense advanced classes: It shows up the mistakes fairly good.

We Make our own plastic knives and butterfly swords on a CNC. High density poly works, Has weight.

I agree with Dave that most attackers will have a hunting knife, kitchen knife, stiletto type, or military style. just be aware that when you run different materials on your CNC make sure you allow extra heft because the materials are not as strong as steel used in a real knife.

Sounds like a fun project. We had a lot of fun designing our knife self defense program.

let me know how it goes. if you care to. One lesson stood out. We found that when two fairly skilled people go at it with knives both are going to the hospital or die. When one leaves out the knife they usually do better. That is to say when fairly equal in skill the one without the knife in hand prevails. I'm keenly interested if this is others experience.

Well now that depends on the training. For knife use we always used the wooden Tanto or a dulled metal blade at first then "graduated" to a live sharp blade.

For defense most often it was a rubber knife coated with carpenters chalk on the "edge", or occasionally the wooden tanto.

Edit: Ah, I see. Well I prefer the feel of a Tanto, and that is what I carry. However, that is not the most common type you would encounter. Most people wouldn't come at you with a 2" or 3" folder either. Most aggressors would have something along the lines of the typical hunting knife, a stiletto, or a butterfly knife. At least in my experience.

Aluminum Training Knives

There is no doubt that knife disarms are very often done poorly. That video was a good example. That "master" could not have made that work on me. Far as I am concerned, if it won't work on me, it won't work at all. Students should be made aware just how dangerous a knife really is. It is no game, I have been knifed before. Pretty serious stuff, blood everywhere, and hurts like he!!. I was able to defend, and save my butt, but the knife "disarms" I had been taught went right out the window, and I reacted with great violence to being stabbed. I was more confident before I successfully defended against a real attack. That taught me that false confidence is what most of these guys are really selling. Beware any knife disarms, and take a plastic knife (better yet a sharpie) away from somebody who is really trying to "mark" you, and you will see what you can make work and what you can't. Most of you will be in for a surprise. Hint: use an old gi that can get marked up, you will get marked.

We have two types, one double edged like a dagger or stilleto and a single edge like a kitchen knife or a hunting knife. We have both wooden and aluminum, though I remember there was also a dull stainless steel single edge that was a quarter of an inch thick back at my old Aikido dojo, but that was only for seniors' use. Most people don't notice the difference, but when I was still training in Kali, there were some disarms taught to us that required us to either strike or grip the dull back edge of a single edged knife to dislodged it from our opponent's grip, obviously, we couldn't do that with a double edged knife so we had to adjust and need to be constantly aware of what type of weapon we were going against every time we trained with partners.

We use a wood tanto in Aikido. We use a rubber, but otherwise life-like, knife in taekwondo.

I prefer the rubber knife. It is a constant reminder of what it really is (or what it can be). Also, it's a crowd-pleaser for demonstrations. A tanto, on the other hand, seems to sanitize what it could be.

I may be just needing to get used to the tanto, but, I prefer the rubber knife.

I saw these cool training knives. Don't know if you want to try them out. But it's a shock knife, it delivers a constant stream of 7,500 volts. It's to the point where it doesn't feel like an electrical shock, but more of a burn, to simulate being cut by an actual knife. Nothing like a 7,500 volt shock to motivate you to disarm your opponent.

But to answer your question, back in my karate days, we used wooden knives.

edit: Yeah I imagine the price is a deterrent, and I don't imagine your casual martial artist would enjoy being shocked/burned, so it would have to be a knife defense course you offer separately, for your more hardcore members.

In class we have a variety of rubber knives.

I mentioned a couple of day ago in another post that I would love to have some of those shock knives. I think that will teach more and cause everyone to take the training more seriously. It will definitely expose my weaknesses. I think that will make me better in knife defense.

I've been working out in an aikido class recently. Earlier this week the sensei told me to hit his student. I was like I don't want to hit this guy. He said he is a brown belt he better know how to defend himself. He said in this dojo we want the attacks as real as possible in order to prepare each other for what they might face out there. If he get's hit and gets the wind knocked out of him it will be good for him. Then he gave a story of how years ago he was at camp. There was this karate guy visiting and working out with them. The guy asked if he can take a full punch at full speed. He said he didn't know but go ahead. He expected to be able to take the punch. But the guy hit him and knocked the wind out of him. The guy apologized and said you said you could handle it. He was going to not go full speed afterwards. But the aikido sensei said no please go full speed. He learned to get out of the way and never got hit again that day. Later the head of the aikido organization introduced this karate guy. This karate guy was a 8th Dan in shotakan and was supposed to be big stuff back then. Then the aikido sensei didn't feel so bad that he got hit by an 8th Dan. Then he told me again to hit his brown belt so I did. He began to cough. I didn't want to look at him. I let him get himself together and asked if he were okay. I didn't hit him that hard. I just hit him hard enough to let him know I was there. But they weren't used to getting hit. But the rest of the day he moved...lol Hos technique for taking me down got much better too. I was having fun then. I still could have hit him, but I might have hurt him. At least I think I could have hit him. But his reaction time was much better. The average idiot on the street wouldn't stand a chance with him. Other students in the class have mentioned how they like to work out with me because they can see a real strong punch.

I have only used nunchakus.They are the safest but can counter metal knives or single-sticks.But I have seen my friends using wooden knives for training.

wooden tanto

Definitely.