[glangdale]

I think this kind of theorizing about how easy it is to defend against someone with a knife is very mischievous. People are way too confident about this ("oh, I'll just defend myself with an improvised weapon or wrap my jacket around my hand"). I would rather have an umbrella than nothing but I suspect step one would be "he grabs my umbrella with his other hand" and step two would be "I get stabbed or slashed".

Unless you get a brilliant shot in with the umbrella ("deadly eye poke!"), you're not going to have much effect, but any stab or slash would can start you bleeding out and/or degrade your ability to defend yourself.

[YZF]

This unbreakable umbrella looks like a formidable weapon. The story goes that the only time the famous swordsman Myamoto Musashi was fought to a draw was by Muso Gonnosuke yielding a short staff (Jo). An umbrella designed to be a weapon would presumably enough mass that trying to grab it while it's flying at you would be a pretty bad idea. While a Jo is longer you're not fighting a long sword here ;)

That doesn't mean the average joe should attempt to fight a knife wielding thug with their random umbrella but I think given training and the appropriate umbrella the knife is at a disadvantage. The big advantage of a knife is that it requires relatively little training to become very effective and certainly extremely difficult to face bare handed ... but a trained staff fighter is going to have a huge advantage against an equally trained opponent with a knife.

[glangdale]

I was entertained by the 'unbreakable' umbrella vid, I'll admit that. Generally with a normal umbrella they seem to have a pretty high air resistance and are not remotely analogous to a staff. The thing that I carry in real life? No. A heavy enough umbrella with a metal spike in the end? Sure.

Even that being said, a trained staff fighter vs. a knife is at a bigger advantage fighting, forewarned, warmed up, in loose fitting clothes, starting at a dignified distance on a unobstructed gym floor against a rubber knife with both parties wearing protective gear (i.e. "a gym fight"). I would be very surprised if most of that advantage doesn't evaporate when the psychology of fighting an actual knife comes into play, or when the knife fighter and stick fighter start at close quarters or in a cluttered space, etc. "Messy reality". The logic most people apply to this seems pretty much exactly analogous to the confident proclamations that karate and TKD dudes used to issue about being able to defend themselves again, well, anyone from a Judo player to a rugby tackle.

I don't doubt that it's possible to choreograph a pretty nice fantasy sequence where the staff beats a knife, but having tried the "put on old clothes and 'fight' someone wielding a deadly magic marker" game, I'm pretty appalled at how easy it is to be messed up by a determined attacker with a magic marker. And that's without the added element of fear (and pain) that you would experience facing a real knife.

I don't really have a horse in the race here - I don't carry a stick, a deadly unbreakable umbrella or a knife, nor do I plan to attack anyone with one. I'm just always a bit skeptical about the idea of 'trained staff fighters' having developed skills in realistic circumstances as opposed to, say, martial arts LARP'ing. [ all that being said, I wouldn't to be the guy that tried to go after a Dog Brother with a knife of any kind... :-) ]

[YZF]

I'm one of those Karate dudes.

A big part of martial arts training is awareness and readiness. If you're already in close quarters with a knife wielding attacker you've already failed and it doesn't matter if you carry a knife, a gun, a stick, or a flamethrower. You have to always be ready and you have to sense the intentions of would be attackers. Easier said then done...

The psychological factors are what you train for.

Those fighting arts come to us from the messy realities of the past. If you were a Samurai in Japan you were always ready to fight for your life against much scarier weapons than a knife. But getting that sort of mentality takes a lot of work, it's more than a hobby...

[glangdale]

> Easier said then done...

Indeed. I have trouble imagining how - or why - cultivating this mentality would be possible or useful. Given one doesn't have access to a pool of "would be" attackers, nor anyone who has had said access, it seems far more likely that one will develop a acute sense of the intentions of "martial arts dudes pretending to be would-be attackers".

At the very least, it was always possible (though shockingly rare in practice) to pad up and see you how things would go against a fully committed rugby tackle - or at least get an approximation. I don't see how the equivalent reality check can be done for weapons; at least not without the luxury of having a pre-gunpowder battlefield to experiment on.

[pavel_lishin]

I know exactly how I would defend myself with an umbrella against someone who has a knife, and definitely wants to stick me with it [†].

If my umbrella is already opened: throw umbrella at them, and run.

If my umbrella is still closed: throw umbrella at them, and run.

[†] If they're just threatening me and asking for my wallet, I give them my wallet and ask if they would also care for an umbrella.

[dpark]

Exactly. The danger of getting hit with an umbrella is mostly that it hurts. The danger of getting cut with a knife is that you bleed to death. The two are wildly mismatched.

The likelihood that even a trained combatant would successfully poke out someone's eye before they got stabbed is pretty low. An untrained one will undoubtedly use the umbrella as a shitty club and get stabbed immediately.

[Zelizz]

I took a self-defense class where we practiced using improvised weapons against a few simulated actual weapons. Against a short knife, a sweater wrapped around the arm was not very useful (but better than nothing). I much preferred a long stick, with which we would maintain distance and strike at the hand, and a chair, which makes a handy, pointy, shield. Against a knife, I'd rather have an umbrella than a sweater, jacket, or nothing.

Important to note, though: The class stressed that your best option was to have enough money on you to satisfy your attacker. A mugger who just made $100 is much less likely to beat you to death for spare change.

[ThomasKurz]

Why bother with a "deadly eye poke"? With a solid umbrella, like this:

https://youtu.be/qxqQkdChgvg

or this:

https://youtu.be/8ypcT9IOkkM

one can just pound an attacker like with a steel pipe.