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I heard of this a long time ago but never saw the actual video. So I’m glad to finally see Dan Inosanto wielding a knife on police officers to illustrate the lessons from the Tueller drill. Props to TDA Training for the find.

A lot has been said about the Tueller drill already so I won’t rehash it all here. Just some thoughts:

If you’d like some more background, here’s an interview with Sergeant Dennis Tueller on his drill back then and his thoughts on it now.

I like what he said about movement, looking for cover, obstacles, etc. These are all concepts you consistently find in traditional martial arts that have kept their original knowledge. Nil novi sub sole, I guess.

When you look at Dan Inosanto in the clip, notice how he sticks his hand in his pocket to take out the knife. That should be your cue to act. Every time a hand goes out of sight or you can’t see what’s in it, you should expect it to either hold or go for a weapon.

A key issue many people seem to miss is that the Tueller Drill points out the importance of controlling the distance when you’re close and not only when you want to stay at 21 feet or more. Either you have to be far enough to react with a fight stopping response (i.e. shoot the guy) or you have to be close enough to stop him from getting his knife out. It’s this being close part that people tend to overlook. There’s more to it than meets the eye but it can work very well. More on that another time.

Notice how smoothly Mr. Inosanto goes from rushing the LEO to recognizing the target as it opens up and slashing the officer’s exposed throat cleanly. Doing that as you’re sprinting forward full speed is not as easy as he makes it look.

A lot of bullshit has been said about knives in general and the Tueller drill in particular. I usually don’t comment all that much because this is a topic that brings the keyboard warriors out of the woodwork. But it was cool to finally see this video with Dan Inosanto after having heard of it for so long.