1st Knife Fight Polish Championship (IKMF)

[PiterM]

There was an extremely cool event in Poland last weekend...

1st Knife Fight Polish Championship organized by Tomasz Adamczyk of IKMF (www.krav-maga.com)

Over 300 krav maga students (incl. many active military & LEO), knife defense & knife fight trainings, and of course the championship! In the first stage knife fighters used soft foam knives, but in the final stage the best 6 of them switched to wooden marking blades! You can try it, but you know what? That HURTS! However, it's sooo much more realistic! For example you can use your "knife" to block the opponents hand or knife - try this with foam/rubber knife

Anyway, that was great event. The main prize, next to a nice cup & certificate, was a Chris Reeve & Bill Harsey knife Professional Soldier donated by me. And as a surprise the winner was a girl! She was so fast and accurate, unbelievable! She was like a black panthera, wow. Movements, speed, etc. I was quite shocked to see this. Well deserved win! I was so happy to present the knife to such a great fighter

Now time for some pictures...

[PiterM]

And some more - final fights (hard wooden blades)

[PiterM]

Than we had a show of full contact fight, where guys used heavy-weight marking knives and every possible technique was allowed, no rules - anything goes. Ouch!!! But that also showed us all what a real fight is all about - deadly force!

Than my small speech about knives as such, about Chris Reeve, Bill Harsey and Professional Soldier knife history (I mentionned Professional Soldiers community of course).

And the winner girl, IKMF Chief Instructor Tomasz Adamczyk and me

[JJ_BPK]

Originally Posted by PiterM

And some more - final fights (hard wooden blades)

Piter

I have not seem this type of an event.
Great Pics,, as usual..
Do you have any video?? on YouTube maybe??

[PiterM]

I'm a still-camera man, but I'll ask (there was a movie-camera man there).

BTW, for your info some basic scoring rules:

Every fight was 2 rounds, 1 minute each. When the judge awarded a point the fighters were seperated. And they had to stay within 6x6 yards area during fight.

- cut in hand -> 1 point
- cut or stab in torso or legs (outside part) -> 2 points
- cut or stab in upper legs (inside area) or groin area -> 3 points
- disarming & multiple attack -> 3 points

Additional rules: no attacks to neck & head area (safety reasons), no kicks. Hits and block with both hands allowed.

However, next year we're going to make also additional full-contact fights with head attacks & kicks allowed (just what a hardcore team showed us this year as "show fight").