What is the minimum age, in your opinion, to start teaching a child lethal knife fighting for self defence?

I agree, 5.

The best knife depends on the common weapons of the other children, and the cultural responses to violence. My choice in my circumstances was the pencil.

18 is when I learned fencing, and 21 when I learned rapier fighting. I would say 18, or when mature ,or learning knife fighting. I would encourage learning diplomacy and martial arts first.

I’m thinking something like 25.

It’s not until age 25 that the part of the brain responsible for complex judgments and decisions comes fully online. If you’re trained only in non-lethal combat, and you find yourself compelled to self-defense, then we as a society are willing to accept a certain amount of bad judgment on your part. Maybe it wasn’t really self-defense, but the damage you’ve caused is fixable. On the other hand, if you are trained to kill, then you are a menace to us all until you have a very solid and very nuanced understanding of what constitutes self-defense.

Note that all of the above assumes a fairly safe environment where being attacked with a knife is extremely unusual. If you as the parent determine that any killing the child does must necessarily be in self-defense, because murder awaits him behind every corner, well, I pray that you can find some way to get yourself and your loved ones out of that war zone.

Until then, I say begin his/her training as soon as he’s able to grasp any object. Surely he doesn’t need a lethal weapon in his hand in order to learn how to wield one. And it’s not all about the knife, either. He’ll need to know how to get out of the way of the other guy’s knife. He won’t need a lethal weapon in his hand for that training either. At what age put a lethal weapon in his hand? At the same age you let him start going out the front door, if you live in a place like that.

Peace and luck

Probably early teens. Most importantly, is to teach that knife fights should be avoided if at all possible…

A guy put a knife at my chest, when I was 19. I pulled mine. It almost turned into a bloodbath. I had other friends going for guns, and it had no way of having a good ending.

We left the party. Got drunker. Went back and beat up like four guys pretty bad. No knives, that time, but one guy got badly injured. I saw him years later, and he still couldn’t grow hair on the side of his head, and seemed permanently fucked up…

Whenever they have enough manual dexterity to write their own name.

(This was the answer our dentist gave when we asked when the kids should start brushing their own teeth.)

How old were you loli?

In utero. I have some old training tapes (in 8-track format) that can be played for the little snapper while he’s gestating. All mom needs to do is connect a pair of headphones and hold them to her abdomen.

Can’t start a child to young, so sooner the better as for the knife as the child ages you can up grade the knife.

Any age where the kid is ready to not panic in case he gets cut or stabbed in a fight and bleeding profusely.