Imagine a bad situation in which you feel a rapidly increasing sense of danger leading to an oncoming attack. Maybe words are first exchanged giving time and room. Maybe there is a brief option to flee and scream or to stay and throw a hard kick. Maybe there’s time and room to stand him off with a stern command, pepper spray, a good-sized knife, or even a gun.

Now imagine there’s none of that. No warning. No time. No room. And not a frontal confrontation. The first clue that something is wrong is that you feel an arm around your throat and a hand clamped over your mouth. The grip you feel is like steel, the strongest most unforgiving force you’ve ever experienced. You are being carried or dragged backwards and the world blurs past your vision which is starting to go dim.

That’s what we imagined when we began designing Tigress - a brutal, sudden, grappling attack. An attempt to take you away from your family for good. We felt that you may be carrying pepper spray, but wouldn’t be able to get to it or aim it if you did. We felt that you may even be carrying a gun, but again lack the time and room to use it effectively. We considered that you’re probably untrained and unwilling to carry a sizable knife, that stabbing access would be unavailable, that cutting with a long blade would require too much wrist strength and articulation. We considered that any of these weapons might take too much time to deploy. They could be easily fumbled and dropped in a panic and even end up in the wrong person’s hand.

Now imagine Tigress:
Tigress waits right there - ready to spring into your hand. It takes minimal time or fine motor control to get it open and into action. If you fumble, re-grab it, it’s tethered. Use it the way you would use your fingernails, like a claw - only this claw cuts to the bone, over and over again in seconds. No careful aim, no precision required. Go ahead and thrash. Go ahead and shake with rushing adrenaline. Cut!

Tigress is not like any other knife - fixed blade or automatic. Many years of design, prototyping and testing went into making it uniquely suited for self-defense. Some of the key features are below.