Knife Defence Training in Melbourne

We Take Knife Defence Seriously

We take knife defence training in Melbourne very seriously, and once you’ve read this page, so should you. Knife violence is the most common high-level threat we face in Melbourne, and for anyone serious about self defence, learning how to deal with it is a necessity.

For 3 months every year our Adults (16+) and Junior Adults (11 to 15) classes focus on how to safely evade, control and disarm a person who is trying to hurt you, or threatening to hurt you, with a knife. Outside that block, knife defence stays on rotation as part of our normal training cycle.

Over the years several of our students have had to deal with a person with a knife in real life. I’m very proud to say not one student has been cut. In every case they either disarmed the attacker and got away, or controlled the attacker without hurting them.

What You’ll Learn

• Awareness and avoidance: recognising danger early and getting away before a knife comes out. The best knife defence is not being there.
• Distance and movement: moving so you are much harder to cut, and creating chances to escape.
• Controlling the knife arm: how to trap and control the attacking arm when you cannot get away.
• Takedowns and restraints: taking the attacker down and controlling them.
• Disarms: securing the knife only when it is safe to do so.
• Other weapons: needles, bottles, screwdrivers and anything else that can cut or stab.
• Real-world scenarios: our main training focus is street assaults and domestic violence, the two biggest issues in Melbourne.

Every technique is practised safely with training knives, step by step, and builds up gradually to realistic pressure.

Knife Crime in Melbourne: The Figures

• In 2025, 61% of robbery victims in Victoria faced an offender with a weapon (Australian Bureau of Statistics).
• Under-18s committed 62.4% of robberies in Victoria in 2025 (ABC News, citing Crime Statistics Agency data).
• In 2024, 45% of machete-related incidents in Victoria involved 10 to 17-year-olds (Crime Statistics Agency Victoria).
• Weapons offences in the City of Darebin, where our dojo is, reached 375 in the year to June 2026, up 25% since 2017 (Crime Statistics Agency Victoria).

Why I Stopped Taekwondo and Changed to Japanese Jujutsu

I switched from Taekwondo, which I really enjoyed, to Japanese Jujutsu in 1990 because two friends and I were threatened with a knife by someone much larger than us. That’s when I stopped playing sports martial arts and started training in a martial art focused on practical self defence, with a very strong history of knife defence. I’ve never looked back. They are two completely different skill sets.

“If you’re not learning knife defence at your martial arts school, then you’re not really learning self defence.” — Craig Guest, Chief Instructor

Where Knife Defence Is Taught

Knife defence is part of our Adults Martial Arts and Self Defence classes (16+) and our Junior Adults classes (11 to 15). There’s no separate course to book: start with our Free Trial Classes and you’ll train in the full system.