Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
The lesson I took from that is to use bare hand techniques and send the attacker sprawling, at which point you will have plenty of time to draw a weapon. Seemed to me like going for a weapon first is only the right choice if you are very far away. Bare hand techniques on someone who is really hyped up, probably not trained, and lunging on an attack should be relatively straightforward to redirect and make him trip. But I've only ever sparred, not done any takedowns in real life, so I may be badly mistaken. That video sure seems to back me up though.
You're making three big and potentially fatal assumptions about the attacker, though. Rule 1 of going up against a knife is to expect to get cut if you get within range. What you put close enough for the attacker to cut determines how bad that will be. The advantage of the backfall is that it's not convenient to reach stuff on the ground when you're standing up, end especially when running, so the attacker has to slow/stop his charge or belly flop on top of you to continue the attack. If you're drawing from a fast holster, you should be able to get at least one shot off before he can do that.