The grip has been associated with Inosanto-ites, but Dan never used it full time! He would instead, on occasion, slip in and out of it during demos. People watching just emulated it and...there you have the subtle, spreading cancer. I know that Dan would say the exact same things I am about to say here. It is a small chance, small, odd thing.
But there are a few Filipino systems, unheard of and unpopular where the head guy does use this prissy, ineffectual grip almost full time! Rare, because it isn't used by practical people who fight at reality speeds.
In Germany, some Pekiti people said their elders said, "what Hock doesn't understand is, that we hold the knife this thumbs-up way, and then when we stab,we then brace the knife with the thumb."
So, we fight like mad standing and on the ground with a thumb up until the moment we stab?
What I do understand is that impacts to arm and body in knife fights,or mixed weapon fights get chaotic and frequent ("football with a knife") and a four finger, no thumb, no ball of thumb so-called "Filiipino-Grip" leads to impact disarms.
In a world where some hard-core combat vets tell you to get a lanyard around your wrist connected to your knife handle as a good, tactical idea, because of easy knife losses in a fight...not using your thumb as some kind of "platform-grip" for knife fighting is just a knumbskull idea. It defies intelligence to see where people do not understand this!
In a world where experts tell you to get a knife with the greatest, roughest texture on the handle to help in ANY way to mantain a grip through contact, why lift your thumb and ball of your thumb?
Try to gut a deer, tan a hide, carve a christmas turkey or even whittle on wood without the use of your thumb on a knife.
If, lets say for example, there are 150 thing you can do with a knife in combat. There is really but one reason to stick your thumb in the air and that is for the hope of hooking a wirst or forearm with your knife hand. This is very dangerous because a simply "elbw-strike-like" movement will disarm that four-finger grip. But people show this.
Is this it? The sum total reason why people taut the infamous thumb-up grip?
1 reason out of 150? One real (yet flimsy) application? It needs its own grip category? And it needs to be debated?
I can tell you while knife sparring unarmed people or armed people, standing or down on the ground, and facing good, reality velocities while doing so, I will never, ever, NEVER stick a prissy thumb in the air and loss some 40% of the hand grip on my knife.
Jeez! WHAT in the hell is there not to understand about this?
Hock
P.S. Regardless of this single point, this is not the first time I have heard really bad reports about the Martialist and ...is that Phil Elmore?
