I would immediately interpret that as "I don't need a knife (to absolutely fuck you up right now)" based on the oblivious completely casual tone and lack of any fear.
Which if you know anything about martial arts is complete bullshit and doesn't exist. If the dude has a knife, there isn't a "badass" alive that survives without huge injury, and death most times. There is a reason the saying "the winner of a knife fight dies in the ambulance" exists.
Which is why you end the fight before it starts. The greentext got lucky but by reacting oddly enough to make the robber pause then leaving they did the right thing.
I've been in a similar situation except I punched the thief before they drew the knike and then left. The fact he was obviously high as a kite probably helped. Ultimately, a knife fight between two sober, focused opponents, who are intending to kill or seriously injure will likely end as you suggested, but it the aggressor isn't actually ready to fight the fight can be avoided, or ends up much less lethal.
A knife fight between someone who has a knife and someone who doesn't just makes you an easy target. A 12 year old can stab a huge guy to death. Check the marker tests on youtube. A dude wears a white shirt / nothing, the 12 yo has a marker and is told to stab. Even with them not doing the "maniac stab" there is always a cut or stab that kills you. Lots of time tendons are cut which means you couldn't defend yourself. Lots of time someone nicks your liver. Sometimes a stab goes through an artery, through the heart, etc. The fact that your punch worked means you got extremely lucky and the other guy immediately stopped.
That's the thing, if the other guy actually means to harm you and has a knife, and you're within range, you're going to get injured or killed. If they just mean to scare you you might get lucky. Telling the two apart in the instant you have isn't always feasible, but you can usually tell if someone's impaired enough that you can get away. Yes, I got lucky, but it was an 'educated' choice as I'd seen him, rather unstably, coming.
I was taught that if you're faced with a potential fight you try to talk your way out of it, failing that you run, and only if you can't do that do you fight. If you have to fight you do so to end the threat as quickly and safely (for yourself) as possible.
What are the videos called? Searching for marker tests just gets me markers, adding "knife" gets me sharpening techniques, and adding "knife fight" just gets me music.
https://youtu.be/-s7E-PsMJRI?si=tP6HLeRMTtvsw30D try this one. It's called "there is no such thing as a knife fight" by Hein's approach to aikido. Am on mobile so can't find a shorter vid for you.
Except again, no one trained in a martial art tries to be a hero when a knife is involved. The "Nike" technique is the only solution, you only fight when there is literally no possible way of running. Even then, throwing your wallet at them is prefferable to getting stabbed and dying.
Responding with a nonsense question or statement can apparently reboot an assailants brain momentarily, and make it easier to defuse or escape. I dont remember where I read it, but apparently if someone's trying to shoot or stab you you can scream something like "Chickens dont eat meat!" And the assailant will go " whats chickens got to do with this? Do chickens eat meat? Im pretty sure they do its just not really normal to feed them meat. But still, why are we talking about chickens?" And by then you're uppercutting him in the balls and legging it in the other direction.
It's actually very likely the guy didn't even have a knife. I had a mentally ill guy once approach me and my friend while we were hanging around in the street waiting for the store to open. He was rambling a bit but he mentioned he was gonna get his shotgun and kill someone (he didn't specify us, in fact I don't think he ever made a direct threat against us, but it was clear he was trying to scare us). My friend was sweating bullets but I just asked if he was hungry and gave him my bag of trail mix. He left, confused. I'm quite sure he didn't have a shotgun.
People are so unused to violent confrontation in the United States that just suggesting violence indirectly can be enough to scare them into giving you something. Anon's "mugger" was probably doing this. And they don't expect it to work every single time.
People are so unused to violent confrontation in the United States that just suggesting violence indirectly can be enough to scare them into giving you something.
Yeah, I've often wondered whether this guy "successfully" "robbed" me. Seems like a lot of semantics though, genuinely I just thought having some food would probably chill him out and make him leave, but you might ask, is this actually different from being robbed?
I guess the difference is when he was gone I felt good about myself.