You could say I’ve been very lucking in disarming; mostly I’ve had to deal with two distinct groups, the very drunk and those with no intention of using a weapon beyond threatening. However, that said, those descriptions cover the vast majority of people wielding a weapon that most people are ever likely to encounter. Unless you are in a war zone or someone’s main objective is to kill you, the weapon is probably incidental. The drunk is being thoughtlessly aggressive and the weapon merely opportunistic, and likewise the person threatening would be using a fist or just their voice, but the weapon is only to emphasise the point. Does that make them any less dangerous? Not really, but it makes them eaiser to disarm if you know what you are doing. In both cases, the trick is to have a practiced technique and a proactive approach. Understanding the psychology of timing and the nature of automated reactions with a few simple techniques will cover most situations.
During the Masters Course you will learn many more disarming techniques, but there is a limit to how much can be learned in one workshop, so we shall cover those techniques that will work in the vast majority of situations. Its better to know a few well than try to learn many but take in none.
Next workshop September 6th Disarming knives and hand guns.
