Many people in the field of combatives, particularly edged weapons combatives, have devoted hours and thousands of words to the subject of slight of hand in relation to the use of weapons. I have encouraged those who would listen to read this material, consider it and practice it.
Some question this, and fail to see the relevance of learning the stage magicians skill with weapons. I can understand that, I didn’t “get” it for a long time either – but there is value to it, and it can be considerable.
Sleight of hand can be used to create fatal deceptions, tricks against the eye and mind of your opponent to defeat him, but it can also be used to hide something you don’t want seen by non-combatants. Active concealment is the term I use for the hiding, disguising or directing the eye away from a weapon that is in hand/in play.
Leading up to or during an engagement active concealment is a disguise or deception that tricks your opponent into giving you a place to hurt him, or draws him into a false confidence putting him between the rock and the hard place of “get hurt or get hurt”.
Post-engagement, during retreat/Nike-ryu/Escape & Evasion, active concealment is hiding your tools still at hand, as you quietly slip away from the scene.
Although you can plan it and execute your concealment to the prescribed pattern, the height of your ability to use sleight of hand and active concealment as fluidly as any other combat skill, acting and reacting with your environment as needed, with “no-mind” more than conscious effort. This is why we study and play with things in the safety of our own home, so that when we need them they come naturally.
Not long ago a close friend of mine had an incident in which he was forced to adjust the attitude of an aggressive drunk in a movie theater bathroom. Although the drunk had four buddies, he made the mistake of being the only one between my friend and the door. After assisting the drunk in breaking a wall tile with the back of his head, my friend stepped past him and out the door just as a police officer was walking in. My friend, smelling booze walking into the bathroom, had palmed a folding knife and it was still in his hand as he left. That hand having just come off the attackers face, it was up at eye level, palm out, with the knife still pinched in place by the thumb. Turning his palm inwards and muttering something along the lines of “Damn, those guys are drunk! So much for taking a piss” my friend looked the officer right in the eyes, then looked over his left shoulder drawing the officers gaze away from his right side as they passed. With his right side passing first, he slipped the folder into his pocket and let his hand dangle at his side as he walked calmly down the hallway to the exit. He used misdirection with his eyes, body position, verbal distraction (talking draws attention to you, but right choice of words kept the cop focused on what he was there for anyway) and sleight of hand to safely leave the scene without causing any other incident.
When he first told me about this we had to spend some time remembering what he did to divert attention away from his right hand and not accidentally present as a threat to the police officer, and be able to keep on heading away from the fight and home. Adrenaline clouds the mind, yes, but this too goes to the “no-mind” of a true skill, it comes when needed without forced thought to make it so.
His relatively short time spent practicing and playing in front of the mirror with a few simple ideas and concepts had paid off – when he needed it, it came naturally and probably saved him at the very least several hours worth of hassle.
Such a successful use of sleight of hand can almost seem unimportant when performing it, it is so subtle that even you can be lost to its quiet deceptiveness. This is a skill worth taking time with, on all levels. Learn what you can do with your eyes, hands, voice, feet and body. These ruses, deceptions, tricks and camouflages can save your life, end your enemies and keep you the “grey man” afterwards.
Some essential eReading on this subject, some of it directly related, some of it you have to make related through your own work.
Magic by Don Rearic http://donrearic.com/Magichoudini.html
Subliminal Gestures by J.A. Keating http://donrearic.com/SignalsKeating.html
Sleight of Hand in Knife Fighting by James Sass http://donrearic.com/sass1-sleightofhand.html
Now You See It, Now You Don’t by Pete Kautz http://alliancemartialarts.com/magic.html
Deceptions by James Keating http://www.jamesakeating.com/MjkG.html
Motion Camouflage http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/~aja/motion_cam.html
Angle of Anothers Gaze http://www.rense.com/general38/gaze.htm
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