Can someone explain the pikal grip?

[greencobra]

I hear it mentioned but have no clue as to what it is.

[Gerard Breuker]

It is a reverse grip with egde in used for close quarter knife fighting.

For a better understandig of this grip and its use check out www.shivworks.com.

[greencobra]

For a better understandig of this grip and its use check out www.shivworks.com.
OK, I'm not the sharpest person on the forum but can you get more specific on where on that site will I find the info I asked about? :)

[Gerard Breuker]

Oops. I am sorry. I did not check this website for some time. It had an article about Pikal/Pakal on it in plain view.

I hope this link does better.
http://www.shivworks.com/PSP/An%20Expression%20of%20Pikal.pdf

[greencobra]

Thanks Gerard. The link worked and was exactly what I was looking for.

[Michael Cook]

:spyder: according to Michael Janich pakal classicaly means reverse grip edge in or out. Pakal meaning edge in reverse grip is a m.a. pop culture term not a linguistic one. :spyder:

[DAYWALKER]

Aloha GC!

Regardless of the terminology, the Pikal grip is a most useful one in CQSD...man, talk about "exit wounds"! :eek:

BTW, the Persian excels at with this grip in the forward position. ;)

God bless and take care :cool:

[Joe Talmadge]

:spyder: according to Michael Janich pakal classicaly means reverse grip edge in or out. Pakal meaning edge in reverse grip is a m.a. pop culture term not a linguistic one. :spyder:

If Mike says it, he's probably right. But he's probably fighting the same kinda rear-guard language-use action that William Safire was 25 year ago :) Pakal is synonymous with reverse-grip edge-in on the internet, and if you see the term mentioned on the internet, that's what is almost always meant.

Greencobra,

That link to shivworks will tell you a lot of what you want to know. Here are some highlights (I'll use the term "pakal" to always mean reverse grip edge in):

- Pakal strongly favors thrusts, as it's not easy to do a classic slash in this grip. As such, usage of pakal in my mind tends to be sort of an opposite point of view of MBC (very popular on this forum, for obvious reasons), which tends to emphasize slashes.

- The fact that the edge is on the inside means that once the thrust sinks home, as the knife is pulled back, the edge can cut everything on the way back out.

- Most pakal users tend to heavily target the face and neck with strong thrusts, some target the bad guy's hands as well if he's in largo.

- Southnarc's particular use of pakal is for his view of self-defense. Highly optimized for closer range (where he believes real-life criminal assaults begin), with the good guy and bad guy not necessarily proportionally armed (again, he believes in real life it's rare that both guys are armed with a knife). If his thrust is blocked, he hooks the blocking limb, then shears (fillets) and clears that limb out of the way. Once the attack line is cleared, he goes back to thrusting. You can see the dilemna for the defender: either he gets stabbed in the neck, or he blocks the stab, in which case is arm his sheared and then he gets stabbed in the neck anyway.


In general, all of this stuff really needs to be seen and felt first-hand with a competent player for you to see how effective (or not) it really is.

Joe

[Jimd]

- Southnarc's particular use of pakal is for his view of self-defense. Highly optimized for closer range (where he believes real-life criminal assaults begin), with the good guy and bad guy not necessarily proportionally armed (again, he believes in real life it's rare that both guys are armed with a knife). If his thrust is blocked, he hooks the blocking limb, then shears (fillets) and clears that limb out of the way. Once the attack line is cleared, he goes back to thrusting. You can see the dilemna for the defender: either he gets stabbed in the neck, or he blocks the stab, in which case is arm is sheared and then gets stabbed in the neck anyway.
Joe

I've usually trained with the icepick grip, edge out. However, the above description would seem extremely sensible in its mechanics.

Having seen quite a few knife fights/attacks in my time, I can testify that a good many of the attackers utilize an icepick grip, and with good reason. It's superb for close-in attacks, and offers tremendous power.

Stab wounds are generally more effective for stopping or killing because of their penetration.

[Dr. Snubnose]

Southnarc's methods make a lot of sense...even though I carry a Yojimbo and Chinook in the pockets, in a fast no holds barred attack I might not have time to reach for them...same may be true for my firearms...in a seated position creates some more problems...to overcome this I wear a Ronin crossdraw tilted fwd...I can reach across my front with my right hand and grab the Ronin in my fist (thumb facing up) and the Ronin goes comfortably into Pikal Grip, blade facing in and the thrusting and hooking and shearing and thrusting begins...makes a lot of sense to me...cause it will work...not very pretty...not very fancy...but mind you effective...Doc

[greencobra]

Thanks. Good information and explainations guys.