If a group of military veterans, security contractors and mercenaries with backgrounds from the US military, French military (including numerous French Foreign Legionnaires), Rhodesian forces, South Africa, Commonwealth nations and Great Britain sat down between 1987-1995 and decided to adopt or develop a curriculum for knife-fighting to use against supernatural threats, what style might they decide on?
Most of them have homes in the Caribbean, though some live in the Greater Houston area, coastal Louisiana or Florida. Generally, they had done security or mercenary work in Africa at some point, several were Vietnam veterans or Algerian War vets, and the oldest among them were WWII veterans, like the old Patron funding their work (French Foreign Legion 1939-1954). Ages 19-75, with the median around fifty.
It's established already that a number of the senior people had taken Krav Maga lessons, but only as a combatives course as a small part of paratrooper training. None of them was a qualified Krav Maga instructor in 1987 and there were no special connections to Israel among them.
One of these founders was a graduate of Commando training by William E. Fairbairn and another had been trained by the SOE, both having learned 'Silent Killing' or FCCT, but while both of them served in the military after WWII, they were soldiers in a world without monsters and consequently did not use much of their hand-to-hand training. And neither was ever a hand-to-hand instructor in their respective service (though one was an SAS instructor at Credenhill).
They'd be actively looking for recruits strong-willed and adaptable enough to accept the existence of the supernatural, but secrecy would be more important to them than swelling their numbers. They'd bring in comrades at arms they knew from their service and trusted with their lives or maybe someone recommended by people like that, after months of getting to know them subtly, but not strangers.
For complicated real-world reasons, J.R. Kessler, the Patron funding their Monster Hunting, was friends with a grandmaster of
Vovinam who emigrated to Houston in the 1970s and some of the senior people studied at the Vovinam dojo, but I don't know if that would realistically include any useful knife fighting.
These were mostly well-traveled and cosmopolitan men. While their time was mostly spent on the US Gulf Coast, the Caribbean or Africa, some would have done business or security work in European and Asian countries. This would have been to a much lesser extent than their extensive work in Africa, around mining, petroleum and other mineral concerns.
The threats they feared ranged from possessed humans, unnatural human-shaped foes and the utterly inhuman. Many might require special weapons (cold steel, silver, hawthorn stakes, etc.) or special methods (beheading, stakes through heart, etc.), so even if firearms were favored, everyone needed to have way to kill monsters whom lead bullets merely irritated. Knives are something everyone can usually carry, whether legally or concealed illegally, but I imagine that they also wanted to explore machetes and the like for the occasional decapitation.
In Haiti, machete fencing is called '
Tire machèt', in Colombia '
Grima' and in Venezuela '
Juego del garrote'. I can find plenty of evidence that assaults and murders with 'cutlasses' (local term for machete) are committed in Dominica, St. Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago at very high rates (compared to attacks with any other weapons), but I don't know what would be an appropriate name for a formalized style synthesized from locals known to be good with a blade and the military combatives background of our mercenaries.
What might mercenaries who live and work in the English-speaking Caribbean, but on islands where Francophone Creoles are widespread, end up calling the study of knife and machete techniques as a formalized body?
What suggestions do forumites have for where they might go for training or even someone to hire to help them develop knife fighting?
What kind of background should such an instructor have?
In the Caribbean, their best contacts are on Commonwealth nations like Dominica, St. Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago, as well as French islands like Guadeloupe and Martinique. Before Castro, several of the older guys had business interests in Cuba and they retain friends among Cuban expatriates. In the US, their best connections are in the Greater Houston area, with New Orleans and some parts of Florida also relevant. In 1987, they'll not have all that many academic or law enforcement contacts (more minerals, petrochemicals and security), but they'll work to to gradually correct that, with significant budgets to investigate reports of the paranormal.
Basically, if a bunch of tough guys who'd seen the elephant got together after they discovered the existence of monsters and discussed what kind of training curriculum they'd have to create to teach people to destroy the limbs of the walking dead, stake or behead vampires or at least be able to defend themselves with a good steel blade or a silver-coated one, what what kind of instructor might they decide to hire?
And what martial art style might they adopt, in terms of GURPS Style Familiarity?