Hi Robert,
I suppose it all depends what you mean by knife fighting, after all, it can cover a very wide variety of sins - And then there is also the question of what you mean by knives which comprise everything from a diminutive "tactical" folder to a Gaucho's facon with a 20" long blade.
Knives have been used throughout the ages, especially by men at arms, as:
a) Weapons of ambush (assassination);
b) backups to weapons of longer reach such as staffs, swords and guns; and
c) general weapons of last resort.
A detailed discussion of the above is beyond the scope of this thread and are well covered by extant literature, especially military manuals. In general, these applications are more about tactical considerations than knife specific skills.
However, in discussions such as this, most people associate knife fighting with dueling. In fact, the lores of the navaja and facon are inextricably linked with dueling, as attested to by the attention paid to the Manual del Baratero and the views that I have expressed on this thread and others in the past have to be understood in this context.
We must not lose sight of the fact that knives offer no advantage of reach and lack "stopping power". This means that a successful hit does not guarantee immunity from an equally damaging counterattack - As a result, knife dueling, if in earnest and it seldom is, tends to be a very uncertain undertaking in which both combatants are likely to end up seriously injured. There are any number of reported incidents that bears witness to this.
Also, in a technical sense, because of its short blade (compared to a sword) there is only so much that can be done with a knife. For example, the English renaissance swordsman, George Silver, wrote at length about techniques for the sword, but could give precious little instruction on the dagger, when used alone. Similarly, I have seen Asian masters of various martial arts demonstrate their usage of knives and their techniques came down to some very simple moves, but executed with extremely finely honed sense for timing and distance. One such master expressed the view to me that there wasn't all that much to it, except for understanding a knife and being able to move with speed and finesse.
So to sum up, neither the Spaniards of old nor others of European origins, have left us anything in writing that we could construe to be a system over and above what anybody with some thought could devise and the Far Eastern Asians have adopted the knife as an adjunct to complex unarmed or sword arts - However, when used alone, as say when dueling, I have not seen anything resembling a system from even those quarters. In South East Asia there are a number of blade arts, but on closer scrutiny it can be quickly discerned that these are derivatives of more comprehensive combative systems and outside of carefully choreographed demonstrations do not amount to all that much. What I have seen though, is a large number of tricks that can be devastating to the unwary, but only the unwary, and these must be seen in the same light as the "botta segrete" (secret thrust) of the old fencing masters, that is, very simple and easily countered basic moves, but set up with an unusual preliminary sequence and relying disproportionately on the surprise factor for success. Richard Burton, for one, was of the opinion that they were useless (with swords).
Cheers
Chris
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