I hope this story helps with this question:

A student asked his master how to survive the duels in his school. he
wanted to know when to attack and when to wait.
His Master told him that all is told in the first meeting of the
swords. If you feel the sword pressing hard, cut right away and win.
If you feel a faint pressure, know that you are facing a good
swordsman and you need to wait for him to attack. If you feel nothing
at all, smile, you are already dead.

Cheers, Sharon.

--- In systema_group@yahoogroups.com, "johnc6802" <johnc6802@y...> wrote:
> Hi everybody... recently I sent a mail to Rachel about some doubts in
> how systema confronts an attack since I think the concept is to deflect
> the movement of the oncoming limb in the same plane of its movement and
> repositioning our body in order to obtain a better situation, but I
> have had real problems when I have tried to do it against a knife
> attack... I think it was because the attack wasn't fully commitment and
> my partner was very carefull and with a little of fear to attack me..
> (he's my student.. LOL) BTW Anyone could help me about this topic?
> that's because in my Wing Tchun training we mainly contact the attack
> BEFORE it gets close to our body and systema is quite different...
> Thanks