Sayoc Kali Knife Parry Drill

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Continuing with the concepts from the last tutorial on two types of knife defense techniques, the cross-body parry and the same-side parry, we will discuss the cross-body parry, as practiced in Sayoc Kali, a little further and introduce a simple drill to install the proper range, body mechanics, and blade sensitivity in order to best track the blade. In this Sayoc NorCal tutorial we will focus on two types of cross-body parries: The Pendulum Cross-Body Parry and the Corkscrew Cross-Body Parry.

The pendulum cross-body parry, or cross-body ‘tap’ is, in essence, a long-distance knife parry. It allows the Receiver to begin tracking the blade through tactile sensitivity while at the same time keeping their vital targets at a safer distance. When the Feeder attacks with the blade, the Receiver shuffle-steps back to maintain a certain amount of distance between himself and the Feeder. This allows for a certain amount of time for the Receiver to make any adjustments to their parry by effectively putting their body (and therefore their vital targets) outside the range of the attack. For instance, if the Feeder should change their line of attack at any time during this initial, committed engagement, the Receiver, as mentioned, has a little more time to deal with that. The pendulum tap, then, becomes a way to set up an entry for the Receiver to close and attack.

The corkscrew cross-body parry is just the opposite. If the pendulum tap acts as a way to set up an entry, the corkscrew tap is the beginning of that entry. We use the corkscrew tap to close distance with the Feeder and start to control how they have to move their body in order to deal with that parry. Rather than maintaining distance and passing the blade between the Feeder and Receiver, the corkscrew tap intercepts the blade hand and ‘corkscrews’ it down to the Feeder’s hip. By using this corkscrewing motion, the Receiver changes the line of his tapping arm making it more difficult for the Feeder to successfully change the line of their attack. The Receiver takes more control and changes the Feeder’s options for their attack. At the end of this tap, with the Feeder’s knife hand (very) temporarily pinned to their hip, the Receiver will have closed distance, while tracking the blade, and is now in range to launch their own attack.

In the video posted here you can see a simple line drill with which you can burn a lot of reps and start to really install the sensitivity needed to track the blade at different ranges. It works both the right and left sides with two simple attacks: a palm-up slash and palm-down slash. The Receiver gets a lot of training out of this one drill. Not only the tapping sensitivity itself, but also some great footwork – right and left lead tapping, shuffle stepping, and stepping in to close distance. We use this footwork a lot and it translates well to other parts of our training (long blade, stick work, and empty hand).

Try it out and let us know what you think!