There is considerable strong opinion that Cold Steel has some of the best real life training available. I like the knives they have as well and that may save you a lot of time and money.
MOST martial arts training of any kind is better for the Dojo than for the street -- for the simple fact that on the street they don't practice the same moves and counter moves nor do they have the same rules.
The Cold Steel seminar is Cut and Don't Be Cut and runs $400 for two days. I have read MANY positive and unsolicited comments about the training from serious martial arts instructors and real life fighters, i.e. street fighters. I like what I have read and think they are likely the best. What I know is from prison and from the streets and what I know is that I would not go to a Dojo for training in real street and prison knife fighting.
(800) 255-4716 3036-A Seaborg Avenue, Ventura, CA 93003
http://www.coldsteel.com/ is the site which is the slowest loading site I've ever seen and therefore nearly useless. It's a good thing they sell knives and not web sites.
You can see the knives easier here
http://www.geocities.com/willjan1128...COLDSTEEL2.htm
Good luck in your quest and training.
Having a knife has nothing to do with knowing how to use a knife or keep one from being used on you.
The most proficient knife fighter I ever knew was a migrant laborer I worked with when I was 15 and 16. He was the only knife fighter I ever met with NO scars. I worked with a couple of dozen experienced knife fighters all of whom had lots and lots of scars but the one. I saw him fight one time. The other guy pulled the knife first and had a very large knife. He got cut over a dozen times, and badly, in about 1 or two seconds and when he first lunged the expert did not even have a knife out. The expert fighter used a $3 folding fishing knife that he bought at a county fair that had a little less than a 4 inch blade and it was fairly dull and rusty. He was fast, ruthless, repetitive and surprising. He messed up the far larger guy with the far larger knife very badly.
I heard the attacker got over 400 stitches and three weeks in the hospital, the hospital being because of all the facial slashes and that he lost both eyes -- I don't know if all that was true.
All I know is that about 15 to 30 seconds after the cutting -- where the expert did all that cutting in a second or two and then ran, that the big guy suddenly gushed blood from all over his face, neck, arms and chest.
It convinced me to never, ever, willingly get into a knife fight. I learned even more about such things from the other migrants and later when I worked in the prison system.
The worst thing of all about street fighters is that they are used to cutting and being cut badly. I had migrant workers who would come to work after a fight a night or two before, cut all to pieces, one after a hatchet and axe fight where he had a chunk cut out of his shoulder the size of an egg and he just laughed about it.
I don't want to fight a street fighter, they are used to it.
Concentrate on learning about real fighting and that is NOT in the Dojo -- unless you find one where they mop up blood... after the training session, and that's called a prison usually as that is where a lot of the training happens.