I have a quick war story to tell about the Matriarch and its usefulness as a self defense blade.
About ten years ago, I bought my little sister a first gen Matriarch as a self defense knife. She was sixteen at the time, and I wanted her to have a decent knife she could use to protect herself from the hordes of predators that my big-brother sensibilities imagined were lurking around every corner. My sister is very pretty and even at that age, the guys were coming out of the woodworks. So I wanted her to be safe.
I made a wooden trainer for her to use, and for a month, she and I would practice Jim Keating's Civilian/hawkbill fighting techniques, which were very good and easy for her to remember. She got wicked fast at deploying her Matriarch, and I felt better knowing she had the means to protect herself.
Fast forward ten years. My sister is divorced now and took up with a new boyfriend. He's kind of a useless little tard, which is her type, so what can I say? New boyfriend is a student at the University and lives in a house with a half dozen other people. Now, despite my dislike of her new boyfriend, his one redeeming feature is that when she stays over with him and he leaves in the morning for his classes, he never fails to leave her Matriarch next to her pillow while she's sleeping. This is important.
So about six months ago, my sister is asleep over at the BFs house, when one of BFs new roommmates, some douche who'd been in the house for only three or four days, opened the bedroom door and woke her up, wanting to go to breakfast. This is a middle age guy--drunken, unemployed; a practically homeless wreck who was only able to live there because of the charity of the landlord. My sister told him to go away and to shut the door so she could sleep. He kept bugging her about it, though, so she finally gave in and told him she'd get up in half an hour and go with him. That seemed to satisfy him and he went away.
A few minutes later, she woke up to the roommate groping her in her sleep. So my sister did what any woman does when she wakes up to someone molesting her. She yelled WTF!!! and tells him to get the hell out. He stood up and started taking off his clothes, telling her how "this is going to happen" and "he needs this." My sister rolled to the other side of the bed next to the wall and starts looking for her phone, screaming at him to get out. He didn't. Asshole.
She got her hand on the phone and started to dial, but he lunged across the bed and grabbed her arm. She wrestled with him while simultaneously hunting around for her knife, somehow getting hold of it and she flicked the blade open. She screamed at him that if he didn't get the F**K OUT she was going to cut him.
He didn't believe her. He said, "You ain't gonna do s**t" and started trying to pull her across the bed.
So that was when my sister used those old Comtech techniques I'd taught her all those years ago. All that practice paid off, since some of it was still in her muscle memory, thank God. She pulled her hand back and into her chest, stretching his arm out. Then she pressed the Matriarch into the inside crook of his elbow and prrrreeessssed down. That nasty, curving talon of a blade dug into his arm and left him with no other place to go as she drove him right down into the bed, helpless. From there, she was able to negotiate from a position of power as he tried desperately to not move at all. Every time he made any kind of movement, the Matriarch's blade just dug in more. That blade is a damned bear trap--once your in, you ain't getting out. And she kept the pressure on while she dialed for her help.
It turns out, the only damage he had was a neat little row of puncture wounds from the teeth and a line of lightly cut skin, but nothing more. Just pressing the serrations into his arm did the job. Pain compliance at its best, and mind you, this guy was mildly drunk at the time and he still got the message.
So suffice to say, my sister is an even bigger fan of the Matriarch than she was before. We've actually begun to practice again, just in case.
The day of her ordeal, she sent me a cryptic text that said she need a stabbier knife. It turns out that while she will never be without her Matriarch, she also wanted a fixed blade that would be easier and faster to deploy in a f*cked up tangle. So I got her a Ka-bar TDI, which can still utilize the same Comtech techniques she knows, only it can handle thrusts and stabs easier and is very instinctive to use. Now she carries her TDI crossdraw and her Matriarch in its customary spot, clipped to the top of her boot, with a can of Saber Red on her keys and a Foster Brothers sap along for the ride.
While I've carried nearly thirty different Spydercos over the years, with waved Enduras being EDC'd at the moment, I have to say that my sister's Matriarch is the best $60 I've ever spent. It kept my sister safe, and worked exactly as intended. Jim Keating's old Comtech methods worked just dandy. No one got hurt (mostly), no one went to the hospital, and she is safe. Pretty good job for a knife that I've read some ignorant people mocking in other threads as a useless blade.
Thanks, Spyderco, you saved my baby sister. :thumbup:
