The Piper System Blog

Ok, so all you need is a knife and, uh, another guy with a knife. Yeah, so now all that’s left is a damn good reason to stick the sharp pointy end in the other guy. Well, there you go. A Knife Fight. The End.

Or is it??

What is this fascination amongst us as martial artist, with a weapon that is synonymous with murder, violent rape, assault, armed robbery and 70% of all serial killings? Am I missing something? No disrespect to all knife handlers, but let’s put a few things in perspective. All the weapons in the martial arts we currently study have been used on some battlefield in some war centuries ago. We also study the weaponry used during invasions of past cultures, and of course, the inevitable resistance or rebellion that follows. For example, the samurai and the ninja, the Spanish and the Philippinos, the Chinese and the Mongolians, and let’s not forget the African continental wars to name but a few. I only mentioned a few (more popular) cultures everyone’s familiar with, to help my point.

You see, all these cultures have at some point in their various historical time lines experienced major conflicts which caused massive socio-economic change due to these small battles and larger scale wars. Of course,these are documented, which we inevitably study for various reasons. However, upon closer inspection we find that the knife wasn’t and could not be the deciding factor in any of these battles, no matter how large or small. So our attention is drawn to CRIME - the only thing that affects a modern day society in a major way. As civilians not experiencing large scale foreign invasions, a street scuffle, car jacking, drunken brawl and typical mugging is the order of the day (besides, in modern-day warfare, guns are used, not knives or sticks).

Now crime is not a competition. It doesn’t give you time to prepare or warm up. It doesn’t guarantee 1-on-1 match-ups. It’s not a fair match. Its, uh, not a match at all. Commercial sponsors don’t usually advertise their products during a mugging. So why the need to call it knife fighting,when no sane person will ever want to engage in a lethal blade vs blade exchange? If you are ever faced with a knife in a threatening manner it simply means you are a victim of crime. When this happens the criminal assumes you are unarmed, and if you were armed, he’d rather get the jump on you before you retrieve whatever it is you’re carrying. Now the question is, would he have done the same if you were already brandishing a like weapon before his initial attack?

I think not. To quote Marc McYoung, “a criminal is a middle-line predator. He’s the hunter and the hunted’. This simply means that if a criminal sees that you’re no push-over, he would try to extract himself from this situation and find a weaker, more compliant target, otherwise he risks serious injury or death to himself. Note that I used the word ‘criminal’ and not the usual ‘opponent’, because only a criminal would pull a knife on somebody, an opponent is usually found in a dojo or martial arts studio holding a training knife, which also means that an opponent lacks the one necessary component vital to the attack - INTENT !!!

Without proper intent there can be no attack, no urgency to defend oneself, no motivation to stay alive. So why then do we train knife attacks in the same way as ordinary sparring, when knife encounters are assaults dependent on surprise and your lack of preparation? If you were to spar with your classmate, would you start to attack him while he is busy putting on his gloves or when he’s at the urinal? Thats how a knife attack works. It’s unfair, scary and usually occurs when you least expect it. In a dojo however, you are already psychologically aware and prepared for any attack, and the chances of you succeeding in your defense will be greater just because you know your opponent will not possess the intent found in a typical street encounter. We tend to overlook that factor most of the time when we train.

While we are looking at a more in-depth discussion of the issue of what we prefer to call knife assaults, this beginning article should get your mind questioning and reevaluating the concepts that you may have learned about how knives are used and are trained in the modern dojo. The Piper System is a study of how skilled, experienced and murderous criminals in our culture use knives and other improvised weapons, and the lessons we have learned from our and others’ experiences, as well as from criminals directly have iven us an entirely different perspective from what we have found to be the common (flawed and incomplete) paradigm in dojos and training halls today.

Knives are generally the tools of the criminal. They are short-range weapons, they depend on concealment and surprise, and criminals seek to avoid knife duelling at all costs. Think about these points and we’ll come back to the subject again soon.

Your comments and input are welcomed, as always.

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I am a Piper guardian. My name is John Taino Morales, I am known as Kaya. My passion in life is African and African-derived combat methods. My introduction to an African combat method came in 1989. I did not recognize it as that at the time. My cousin came to live with my family after doing time in Elmira prison New York. He showed me how the people with “skills” were fighting in the prison. He called it 52. Its dance like rhythm and posture matched perfectly with our attitude and posture. We were poor Puerto Rican kids from the projects of New York. It was a perfect match for our Hip Hop/Caribbean culture.

As I got older and had more experience with street fights, I began to realize the value of 52 from a martial artist perspective. I began to search for 52 practitioners (for lack of a better word) and to get serious with my research of it. Through my research, I began to realize that 52 was one of the combat methods created by the African Diaspora in the Americas. Through that realization I began researching native African combat systems. I would and still do spend hours on the internet, digging for anyone and anything that would leave me a clue.

On the net I kept running into a South African knife fighting method called Piper. The rumor was that it was a prison fighting method that was very rhythmic. That intrigued me greatly because it sounded very similar to what I was studying with 52. The problem was that there was no one in the states who knew it. Through the Urban Shield website, I got the phone number of Nigel February, the man that systemized “Piper”.

At the time that I called Nigel, I was working a security contract in Afghanistan. I contacted him through an internet line and the connection was horrible. It was a struggle to communicate but we spoke for about an hour and a half. We spoke about ghetto life in NYC and Cape Town, politics, 52, Piper and Form style (South African empty hand method created in the reformatories). From that point on we would talk a couple of times a week for a few months. The similarities between Black and Colored life in Cape Town, and African-American and Afro-Caribbean culture in NYC was to similar for me to ignore. I had to feel Piper and their culture for myself.

Nigel welcomed me into his home and I brought my friend and business partner Nikko along for the adventure. When we first met we all laughed at how Nigel and his family could pass for Puerto Ricans and we could pass for Cape Town Coloreds. Where we were coming from and what we had been through as a people was so similar that we created an almost instantaneous family bond with Nigel and his family. For three and a half weeks we practiced day and night. While we were in the car we “shimmied” our blades. While we lay down to rest we practiced passing the blades from one hand to the other as if possessed.

Nigel was funny, articulate and passionate about Piper. He would show us new things as the wind blew through the day or he would hold class and the Piper family would come down. Different Master Guardians would take us for a couple hours or a few days at a time and show us there perspective. I remember Jason showing us Nguni stick fighting. We practiced with him and he showed us how some of the knife movements came from the stick movements.

The rhythm, deceptiveness and similarities of Piper, Form Style and 52 are so great that our learning curve was extremely fast. It was as if something was awoken inside of me that was always there. It was very familiar. I am a former Marine sniper; I currently am a high threat protection specialist. My business is combat. I learn whatever I can from the warriors around me. I can say this, I have never picked up (learned) any combat movements as fast as I did in Cape Town in my life. The energy was flowing such that Nigel told us he has never taught anyone at this accelerated pace. The master guardians and Nigel would teach us. The guardians would help us along and we sparred with them. So we could feel the contact we used rubber and wooden blades twice. The rest of the time we sparred with real blades at high speed. We would start slow, learning control. Then we would work our way up the speed ladder. Nigel’s reasoning was this. You want to feel the pain of wood hitting you so you learn to move, but you also need to feel the intent and fear of the live blade when someone has the capability to cut and stab you.

The culmination of our training came with what Nigel called the Piper trials. We had to perform a series of tasks displaying and testing our Piper skills. I won’t explain the trials in detail because you really must experience it, but I will say this about it. The trials aren’t just the showing of techniques and performance of them on an immobile or willing partner. We did movements while running, jumping, squatting, crawling and dodging obstacles. We did movements while men physically held you down. After all of that you sparred full speed with the guardians. Live blades coming centimeters from stabbing each other. The event ended with South African stick fighting. After all physical tasks were complete there was hugging and cheering and acceptance into the Piper family.

My knife skills were next to nothing before I went to Cape Town. I am by no means a master knife fighter. But I can tell you this. Since learning Piper I have met and practiced with several martial disciplines and knife fighters. I have sparred with guys who have been knife or stick fighting for years. They respect my game and are shocked that I have been doing it for such a short time. In the years to come it is going to be a blessing to see what Piper evolves into. I am blessed to have Piper be a part of me.

AXE

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