Why Karate Punches Don’t Measure Up

Written by Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved

One main reason people study the martial arts are to develop power, or at least a sense of power.  I started studying Karate at a point in my life when I felt pretty powerless and the training gave me a sense of getting some of that power back.  By spend hours upon hours at my local dojo throwing punch after punch, and kick after kick, into the air I began to feel that I was powerful and being a small kid that really helped my self-esteem.

The problems came later when I really began to test my skills and see how powerful I really was.  At the age of about 12 I was a black belt in Taekwondo and studying Ryuku Kenpo and, while it was clear that it was all “Karate”, what I was learning in Ryuku Kenpo was so drastically different from Taekwondo that I decided I needed to test things to see what worked and why. 

I asked a lot of questions of my instructors, read lots of books, spent hours in the dojo and at home hitting punching bags and homemade striking pads, and of course getting into fights.  I learned that while both arts taught the reverse punch, they were different in their application and I found that I could hit a lot harder with a Ryuku Kenpo reverse punch than a reverse punch from Taekwondo; later I was floored to discover that I could hit a lot harder than either method by doing simple western boxing techniques.

Every now and then I hear about studies that say this as well.  In every study that I’ve been able to find is seems that when tested the force delivered by a boxer’s punch seems to range between 776 pounds of force per square inch on the low side to about 1,300 pounds of force per square inch on the high side.  A popular 1985 study of professional boxer Frank Bruno showed that he averaged about 920 pounds per square inch of force. (Note: it should be noted that these figures were compiled in a laboratory setting where boxers stood in one place and focused on punching as hard as they could.  In a ring where they have to move around and worry about getting hit the numbers you’d see would undoubtedly be a lot lower.)

When martial artists are given the same study and given the opportunity to put the reverse punch up against the boxer’s cross the numbers are considerably lower:  in most tests the force delivered by martial artists range between 325 to 412 pounds of force per square inch.

If the martial arts, Karate in particular, are so sophisticated and deadly why are our punches so much weaker?

The answer isn’t that difficult and can be found both by looking at physics and what other arts teach.  For example, Taekwondo is largely Shotokan Karate which was developed by Sensei Gichin Funakoshi.  Sensei Funakoshi grew up studying Ryuku Kenpo but then changed the art from the effective fighting system that it was to a greatly watered down version designed to improve the spiritual and physical development of school children.  He wrote about this in his autobiography about how his “Karate-Do” was a far cry from the skills he learned from his teachers.  Many things taught in Karate-Do are actually designed to NOT hurt people so it would be safe for children to practice them on each other during school.  However, when we look at the original teachings in Ryuku Kenpo and even the Chinese styles of Crying Crane and others that formed the original arts we can see that there are a lot of differences in the teachings that make the techniques more effective.

The first thing that robs a Karate punch of power is the lack of intent.  I’ve wrote about this numerous times, about how boxers tend to be able to beat up martial arts practitioners largely because of their intent, or in other words…boxers train to hit people and martial artists train to “preform techniques.”  Every time a boxer works their pads, the heavy bag, the speed back, spars with their partner, or even shadow boxes the air, with each and every punch they’re thinking about hitting their opponent and putting them down.  Boxing is the art of hitting people with punches and they do it very well. 

Contrast this with a typical Karate class; students and teachers walk up and down the floor punching and kicking the air.  In most schools they don’t actually hit things with their techniques very often and when they do throw a punch or kick they’re thinking about how their arm is positioned, where their knee is, etc.  More often than not a martial artist is focused on preforming the technique a certain way and that is a huge problem the martial arts face today if they expect their practitioners to be able to survive a real violent assault.  Sure, you have to get down the performance side of techniques but once that is done you should spend your time actually using it; learn to actually hit things with it and when you hit things with it start to build the intent of actually putting people down with your strikes.

By getting used to hitting things and by starting to develop that intent to deliver the force to put a person down will by itself greatly increase the power and effectiveness of all your techniques.

The second thing that robs the Karate punch of power is really the context of the punch.  While I do, from time to time, break boards or other objects for training I believe that board breaking is largely to blame for the lack of power in Karate punches.

I remember I was told that it took the same amount of force to break a pine board that it does to break a rib bone so if I could break a single board then I could break a rib and if I could break 3 or 4 boards with my punch then I should pretty much just register my hands as deadly weapons.  The problem is that while there are some great benefits to breaking boards, there really isn’t any correlation between the experience of breaking a board and the experience of hitting the human body.

To break a board you need to snap your technique so the force is delivered in a very short burst in a very small area.  Since boards are stiff and don’t give they fight you and break as long as you have that good snap.  Hitting a human body is the opposite; hitting the body is like hitting a big sack full of liquid and it bends, compresses, and gives in order to keep from breaking.   

If I hit someone in the ribs what will happen is firstly the soft tissue of muscle and fat will absorb some of the force, then the body will move away from my punch and it may bend, curl, and rotate to further dissipate the force of the punch.  After that the ribs will actually compress about 3 inches to avoid breaking.  If you want to hurt the things inside the human body you have to focus not on snapping your punch which will largely be absorbed by everything I just mentioned, but instead you have to focus on driving your punch through and penetrating with your blow. 

If you really want to be able to cause injuries and put someone down when you need to, you need to focus on driving your punches and pushing them through the target.  Since the ribs can compress about 3 inches make sure your punch penetrates at least 6 inches, or better yet why not 12?

The problem with this is that this “driving force” is very effective when it comes to injuring a person and putting them down but it is not what you want to do when breaking a board.  In fact, I remember when I first learned the difference between “snapping force” and “driving force” and when I did my board breaking went downhill.  I had a really good right reverse punch that could break 3 boards every time, but when I started to focus more on self-defense and “driving force” I ended up either pushing my board holders backward or, a few times, pushing the boards out of their grip.  That is when I really stopped breaking boards because it wasn’t fun anymore.

Karate largely teaches “snapping force” both because of Shotokan’s “Do” design and focus on breaking boards that requires that kind of power.  When you focus on that kind of power there are two specific things you end up doing that really suck the force out of your punches.

The first thing that board breaking and the use of “snapping force” teaches you that robs you of power is to make contact with your target very briefly.  I see all over the place, schools teach people to punch and then retract their punch right away.  Some schools teach to retract your punch faster than the speed at which you threw it.  The problem is, in the same way that the longer you hold on to a hot pan the more you get burned, there is a direct correlation between the amount of time your fist has contact with the target and the amount of force you deliver into your target.  If you punch your target and pull back right away then most of the force generated in your punch will be spent retracting the punch and won’t go into your target where it does “work.”  The best method is to punch your target and then push your fist into the target until the target moves away from your fist.  That way all (or most) of the force you generate isn’t wasted.

I see people punching and kicking pads that their partner is holding and in their “snapping force is good” mentality what they’re looking for to know they’ve landed a “good punch” is largely the sound.  They want a good snapping sound when their fist hits the pad; however, it would be so much more beneficial if they focused on going through the pad and knocking their partner backwards.   One of the drills my students do is one partner stands naturally and holds a kicking shield tight against their body and their partner has to hit them until they knock then all the way to the other side of the room; and then they switch who has the shield and the other partner knocks them back across the room.  By doing this student’s learn how to actually use the punch so much more than they ever will by breaking boards.

The second power robbing thing that board breaking teaches is the improper timing of the hip.  When you throw a punch you get most of the force by driving forward with the legs, rotating the body, and throwing your hip forwards.  The moments while your hip is traveling forwards are the most powerful moments in the punch.

After I had received my 3^rd degree black belt I had an instructor tell me that I was ready to learn one of the closely guarded secrets of Karate.  He called it the “Double Whip Principle.”  He said the best way to generate force in a punch is to move your hip first and fist second.  He told me to start by bringing my hip back and then throwing my hip forwards and right about the time my hip was square I should start to throw my punch and finish my rotation.  I have to admit this was very powerful.  This works by increasing the acceleration of your fist which can greatly increase your power.  While I will always cherish this lesson it only took me a few weeks to find problems with this.

The “Double Whip Principle” is in fact a fundamental principle in Karate, and while not largely taught in the US from my experience, it is taught in both mainland Japan and Okinawa.  This technique generates a great amount of “snapping force” but it doesn’t generate “driving force.”

If you think about it, if I need to drive my punch a minimum of 6 inches into my target to make sure I break that rib then what happens at the end of my punch is the most important.  Since the time when my hip is in motion is the most power portion of my punch then it needs to come at the end as well.

I’ve seen more and more people in the martial arts community start to teach this and I think it is a great thing.  If you want to not just snap your punch and leave all your force at the surface of your attacker but rather drive you punch into your attacker so the force enters his body and defeats its attempt to absorb and compress to not be injured then you have to focus on the end of the punch and that hip needs to move second.

The best method for doing a reverse punch with power that I’ve ever seen is to start by bending your knees to lower your weight and ground yourself, then bring your right hip back so that it is at about 45 degrees from your target.  Chamber the punch and start by pushing with your legs and shooting your arm straight out with you palm facing the ceiling and your elbow tucked in and facing the floor.  Once your elbow moves forward enough to be flush with your side you both start to rotate your arm like a traditional punch (I always hit with my fist at a 45 degree angle) and you should throw your hip forward and rotate your body into the punch, finishing with an exhale and pushing your fist through the target, allowing the target to move backward and way from your fist.

By doing this you’ll notice that when your fist hits the target your arm isn’t straight and your punch isn’t done like it is in a normal reverse punch; rather your arm still has a good 6 or 7 inches to move and your hip still has a good 3 to 6 inches to move forward making sure you drive everything inside of your target.

While I’ve never used any electronics to actually test the pounds per square inch of force delivered in a reverse punch delivered in this manner I do know from personal experience that I can hit just as hard if not harder than any boxer I know.  I can have a partner stand naturally and hold a kicking shield tightly against their body and with a single reverse punch I can knock them backwards 4 to 5 steps and they all agree that if the pad was not there absorbing the impact they’d all be on the ground and wouldn’t be getting up.  Now while that is great for me, the important thing is that when I hold the pad and they hit it I have the same response.  It is the technique that works regardless of who does it.

Breaking The Punching Arm

By Matthew Schafer

Copyright 2015, All Rights Reserved

I’ve always felt very fortunate that I’ve never really been injured during training.  At the time of this writing I’ve been in the martial arts for 28 years and I’ve seen a lot of people have to either put their training aside to recuperate from an injury or quit the martial arts all together because of it.  The closest I’ve ever been to getting injured was once I got kicked in the side of the head by another student that I didn’t realize I was sparring (he got lost in the rotation and just figured he’d attack me while I was sparring someone else) and he kicked me so hard I had severe neck pain for two weeks and couldn’t turn my head.  I’ve also been knocked out several times so I guess you could say I’ve had a concussion or two.

The three biggest injuries I’ve ever seen during training, which all happened while I was studying Tae Kwon Do, was a guy tearing his ACL during a front kick because he kept his base foot pointed at his target, one of the black belts get carried away during sparring and take a side kick that broke two rips and bruised his liver, and another young man who had to put his black belt test on hold because he broke his arm during a punch.

When it comes to doing martial arts techniques most systems teach you to keep your shoulders back and relaxed and keep your elbow in and pointed down.  Not only is this the strongest way for you use your arm (allowing you to deliver more force during a strike) but it is a smaller movement that is harder for an attacker to see coming.  There are a lot of advantages to keeping your elbow in and down, but a main one is it protects your arm from being broken during a punch or grab.

One thing that I noticed while studying Chinese Martial Arts and Ryuku Kenpo is that if they see you punching with a horizontal first and elbow pointed outward an arm break is one of the first techniques they will go for.  One of the first lessons I had when I was a child starting martial arts was that you never wanted to punch like that.  I asked my teacher why and he responded by making me hit a 100 lbs. heavy bag for a half hour.  Once that was done he ask me how my arm felt and I responded that my wrists were a little tender and I could feel it in my neck.  He explained that punching with a horizontal fist was a bad position for my wrist and that is why my wrist was sore and that soreness reached up to my neck and shoulder.

Next he had me put on some light gloves and told me to punch him full contact.  I tried to punch him both a hard as I could as well as fast as I could and he stepped out of the way each time.  After about 10 minutes he explained that punching that way naturally lent itself to raising the shoulder before the punch came so all your opponent had to do is move out of the way as soon as he saw your shoulder move.

Finally, he told me the biggest reason why you shouldn’t punch with your elbow pointed out is that if you run into a “real martial artist”, especially if you go to China or Okinawa, and throw a punch like that they will snap your arm like it was a twig.  He then showed me if you take a small step when the punch comes so it just misses, and then you bring your arms up and rotate towards the arm you will easily break their elbow if it is pointed outward (but not if it is pointed downward).  He said the primary techniques martial artist in China and Okinawa go for in a real fight are kicks to the knees and groin and strikes to the eyes and throat; but if they see you sticking your elbows out they’ll back up a little and open themselves up for a punch so they can side step it and break your arm.

That is exactly what happened during that Tae Kwon Do class where the kid got his arm broken during a sparring session.  He and another black belt candidate were sparring and when a right punch came the 2^nd student stepped to the left side allowing the punching arm to miss and pass between his arms which here held in a boxing position and then the 2^nd student rotated back to the right to throw a left  punch to the 1^st student’s body.  However, by pure accident, the wrist of the 1^st student’s punching arm got pinned by the right arm of the 2^nd student which was up protecting his jaw and the sharp rotation caused the arm of the 1^st student to stretch and the front of the 2^nd student’s left shoulder to slam into the back of the elbow breaking it.

Why You Need A Qualified Instructor aka Choking vs. Strangling

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved

A few minutes ago a student of mine sent me a link to a youtube video where two girls are playing around with a choking technique. Apparently, one of the girls, the one being choked, is an amateur stuntwoman or sorts and as numerous videos of herself doing dangerous things sort of like the “Jack Ass” TV show.

This video is a great example of a couple of things like stupidity, natural selection, and of course the fact that if you film fairly attractive girls doing something people will stick around and watch it until the end. In this video on girl is going to render the other unconscious using a “rear naked choke.” The problem is that they don’t know what they’re doing and the one girl ends up choking the other girl until she coughs or flail her arms and then the first girls lets her go and after a pause they start over. This goes on for 12 minutes and the girl never does pass out. The video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqlze-aPaGY

Here is the first issue I’d like to highlight, the girl being choked is named Rachel Star and from quickly browsing her videos on youtube it does appear that she has some degree of actual martial arts training. There are videos of her using the nunchacku, possessing various other pieces of martial arts equipment, and doing some kickboxing. This girl has most likely received some degree of training in some art form.

So, either her instructor wasn’t good enough to impress upon her that these techniques are dangerous and shouldn’t be played around with or they did impress that upon her but she thought she was capable of doing so anyway. The fact that the technique was applied wrong and that she couldn’t quickly discern that proves that she is not qualified to be doing that technique.

While you should always practice your techniques at home, the parts where you actually inflict trauma to another person should only be done under the careful supervision of a qualified instructor. To do otherwise is to invite serious injury.

The second issue I’d like to highlight is one of my pet peeves when it comes to marital art terms because when people engage in these it shows a lack of understanding that they should have. My first pet peeve is when talking about firearms and someone calls a magazine a “clip.” While minor, this bothers most shooters because it signals that the person is engaging in a very dangerous activity without receiving the proper training. The second is when people don’t know the difference between a “choke” and a “strangle.”

The technique in questions is very very old. I learned it as the “Thugee Stranglehold.” One of the first mentions of this technique is from records of the Thugee who were a group of murderous bandits that worked along the silk trail in Asia. They would stalk a caravan of merchants, sneak into their camp at night, silently kill everyone using the Thugee Stranglehold or strangling them with lengths of silk. Then they would dump their bodies in pre-dug graves and make off with all the goods causing the caravan to simply disappear. This group is where we get the term “thug” from today.

The Thugee Stranglehold is one of the first known names of the technique. When the US Marines first learned it they called it the “Japanese Stranglehold” and after a while it became known as the “Marine Stranglehold.” However, the name that has lasted the longest is the name from Judo. Judo calls this technique the “Rear Naked Choke.” “Rear” because you’re doing it from behind, “naked” because you aren’t using clothing or any tool to do it, just your own body, and “Choke” because…I really don’t know why.

The Japanese call this type of technique “Shime-Waza” which translates into “Constriction Technique.” I’ve spoken with several people skilled in Judo, Jujitsu, and Aikijitsu and some tell me that the Japanese did make a distinction between choking and strangling and other tell me they did not, they have 36 techniques that were “shime-waza” and they didn’t make that distinction. So, I simply don’t know if the Japanese referred to this technique as a “choke” due to ignorance, non-distinction, or it was mistranslated and never corrected.

[NOTE: I was just recently told in Jujitsu this technique’s original name was "Hadaka Jime" which means “naked strangle” but when the sport of Judo came about it was switched to rear naked choke. I can’t vouch for this being true, however.]

There is a difference and as martial artists the difference is very important to know. Simply, a choking technique compresses the windpipe causing the person have difficulty breathing. From there they will choke, panic, and eventually pass out. Choking is horrible. Depending on the amount of pressure on the windpipe it can take several minutes for them to pass out and they will be left with a very sore throat afterwards. When they wake up it will hurt to talk or swallow and they will often have a headache. Before the pass out they will panic, flail their arms, and can be very dangerous. Not being able to breathe is the scariest thing for the human brain.

A strangle, or strangulation technique, leaves the windpipe alone and instead compresses alongside the windpipe to seal off one or both carotid arteries. The carotid arteries deliver blood and oxygen to the brain and when that gets cut off the person begins to feel light headed and weak. If the restriction is great enough the person will pass out. A solid strangulation technique like the Thugee Strangle Hold can render a person unconscious in about 5 or 6 seconds and can be fatal if applied for longer than 2 minutes.

After a person passes out they start to convulse and sometimes even snore. If you’re intention is to just knock them out that is the best time to let them go. If you let them go when their body goes limp it could be a trick to get out of the hold but it is very hard to fake the convulsions convincingly. The strategy is to let them go limp and then wait for a change in their breathing and the start of convulsions before you let them go.

Typically, a person is unconscious for a few seconds and as long as a minute and when they wake up they may have a little headache or feel a little weak but that soon goes away when they start to move around.

The difference between the two are huge; a choke hold causes a person to cough, panic, flail their arms and fight back so it takes time, makes noise, triggers the “fight or flight” instinct and when a person wakes up they are in a good deal of pain. Strangulation causes a person to get light headed and weak and then just passes out very quickly. It is quick, silent, and if you wanted to kill someone you could just throw it on a person for 2 to 3 minutes or, what probably happened far more often, just long enough for them to pass out and once they were out use a tool like a knife to finish the job.

Choking techniques and strangling techniques do two different jobs and result in two different outcomes.

From the screen cap of the video I placed here you can clearly see how most of the force is going on the girl’s windpipe which is why she choked and was in pain instead of simply passing out.

“Fear Does Not Exist In This Dojo”…The Real Life Sensei Kreese?

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved

The movie the “Karate Kid” really only had one villain. Johnny, the blonde antagonist of Daniel LaRusso is a punk kid that can’t be held totally responsible for his actions because he’s following the tutelage of the real villain Sensei John Kreese. The Kobra Kai Dojo, under Kreese’s leadership, instructed young kids to be bullies and to prey on the weaker members of society. It is quite possible that a true life John Kreese has just stepped forwards.

This video entitled “Kenpo Karate Street Fight - Sensei JC”, which can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su5SJl9miuM, may have captured a man who is not only extremely lucky but also perhaps the true leader of the Kobra Kai. In this video the man states that he is in his karate school and he sees two kids hanging around his car so he confronts them. He politely tells them to leave his car alone as one kid holds a spark plug in his hand. He then gets within distance of the kid who is standing by his car and that kid puts his hands up in a fighting stance and his friend starts to flank him from the side. Bravely, he takes the offense and attacks first which sends the first kid reeling backwards and making the other kid stop his advance and “flee like a coward.” He manages to fight off the kid who then flees and the sensei and his car are now safe like true champions.

That is how Sensei Kreese saw the events and how he narrated the video. The problem is you can clearly see that what happened was not exactly what was described. What really happens is he assaulted one young kid and then stole the other kids bicycle. Only by seeing the world through the eyes of someone like the Kobra Kai’s Sensei Kreese does this man see himself as someone who acted bravely and is setting an example of responsibility.

The video is really an example of how to get killed or end up in jail and I will be using it in my classes to teach my students how not to handle a potential dangerous situation.

To break down what actually goes on, first the guy puts himself in a stupid situation. He is in the relative safety of his school when he sees two kids in the parking lot getting a little too close to his car for his own comfort. He doesn’t know if these kids have guns, if they have 10 friends standing on the other side of the parking lot, or if they’re sociopaths who have no problem with killing him. I assume he has insurance on his car and pays tax money to support the police so why didn’t he just stick his head out the door and yell, “Get away from my car or I’ll call the police!”? He had a camera recording what went on in the parking lot so he could have even pointed to the camera and yelled, “Hey, you’re on camera. Get away from my car or I’ll call the police!”

Leaving the relative safety of the school to confront those two is pretty much everything a responsible martial artist should be teaching their students not to do. Self-defense starts with being smart enough to recognize stupid situations and not put yourself in them. BUT…not for Kreese because fear does not exist in this dojo!

Then he approaches the kid and you can’t see if he has anything in his hand and you cannot tell what they did or didn’t say to each other, but you can tell that the kid did not do anything aggressive that warranted being attacked! He didn’t throw a punch and he didn’t get into a fighting stance first. Even during Kreese’s narration he stumbles when he says that the kid got into a stance because he’s watching the video and can see that it isn’t true. There is no reason to attack that kid, unless you’re John Kreese and you know that the enemy deserves no mercy! I’m sure that as he was hitting that kid the music was playing in his brain…”you’re the best around…nothing’s going to ever keep you down!”

The second kid that is supposedly flanking him does no such thing. As soon as he starts to assault the first kid the second drops his bike and runs away. Surely, he is freighted by the awesomeness of the Koba Kai technique and not running for help because some crazy adult is beating up his underage friend. After that you see how the first kid gets hit repeatedly and offers zero resistance! Old Kreese there talks about being a responsible martial artists and using only necessary force but then why does he not immediately disengage when the much smaller kid doesn’t fight back? Why does he chase him around the car? Luckily, pain does not exist in this dojo so the kid is ok.

After all of that Sensei John Kreese steals the second kids bicycle! I don’t know about you but I don’t know a better way to top of the Kobra Kai ice cream sunday of assault and battery than to add a nice cherry of theft.

Don’t get me wrong, from what I saw in the video I absolutely think the kid planned on keying the guy’s car. I’m sure he was/is a young punk and perhaps the beating was beneficial for him. However, this lesson on responsibility this guy decided to share with the world is anything but and he is very lucky someone didn’t pull a gun and kill him right there in his own parking lot.

Once the very lucky “hero” is finished he has to take his stolen bicycle back in the dojo like a true hero to wipe his brow and get back to work instructing the next generation in the fine art of sweeping the leg. Here’s to you Kreese! Now watch out because they might come back with the Cuban version of Mr. Miyagi (or a lawyer).

Knife to Throat, A Misconception

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved

A classic method of intimidation, both in movies and in real life, is for someone to put a knife to your throat. Feeling the sharp sting of the metal blade as it digs into your flesh definitely bring to the forefront of your mind the fact that you are merely mortal. For the most part criminals with weapons like to get as close to you as they can with those weapons because the natural instinct is that the closer they are the more control they have. Therefore, guns, knives, and many other weapons are often held very close to the victim so that there is no mistaking the grave situation they’ve found themselves in.

In as many ways as there are to hold a weapon to someone there are probably several hundred times more techniques to deal with the same situation. Whether it is moving out of the way, pivoting, pinning the weapon, controlling the arm, or the myriad of other tactics, the martial arts are full of answers to these situations.

One thing that I’ve noticed over the years is how people have gotten into almost mysticism when it comes to knives. The methods of using blades have nearly become almost dogmatic verging on cultish. Once person says, “the only way to stop a knife attack is this way!” and other person counters with the opposite and each guru has their hoard of followers. However, no matter how sure these knife experts are of their idea that “this” is what a knife attack looks like and “this” is how you defend against it, most of them can be disproven by watching a few hours of video footage of stabbings happen inside prisons. Prisons, of course, are where criminals learn how to be better criminals.

Earlier this morning, I watched a martial arts class held by a young man who was a black belt in some style of Karate that I’m not familiar with. This kid was surprisingly knowledgeable for someone who probably wasn’t old enough to graduate college and I enjoyed watching his class quite a bit. The only thing that really made me cringe a little was when he was showing self-defense techniques against a knife held to this throat.

The techniques he taught themselves were good; they were aggressive and straight to the point, I have no doubt they would have worked. However, he spent a great deal of time talking about the “fact” that once a knife is against your throat all your attacker has to do is make a little move and his knife will slice your jugular vein which will open up, start spraying blood, and you’ll die. This is where medicine and martial arts part ways.

I don’t know where the idea came from that a knife could easily slice through a human body but it starts to get ridiculous. Do you know why the US military stopped teaching soldiers to slice their enemy’s throats? The answer is because it is actually quite hard.

First, you need a very sharp knife…VERY sharp. Who knows what kind of knife is being held to your throat or how sharp it is. The skin of your neck is so soft even a fairly dull knife can feel like a razor. Most people treat knives very poorly so chances are that unless the knife is relatively new and still has a factory edge on it that it is hardly a razor.

Most people have carved a turkey before. Think about that; your cutting into skin and muscle, how easy is it to just go right through? Yes I know you’re cutting through the breast where the muscle is thickest, but if you didn’t slice across the breast to cut off a piece to eat and instead slashed at it how deep do you think you’d get? Now, how about it you held the blade right up to the turkey and then made a quickly slash like you were trying to cut the throat, how deep do you think you’d get?

I’ll bet the carving knife you use at Thanksgiving is a lot sharper then the knife some punk places against your throat. A knife isn’t magic, if you want the skin to open up you’re going to have to work for it.

When you cut the throat you really want the carotid artery not the jugular. The carotid artery comes directly from the heart and with ever heartbeat it delivers load after load of blood to your head and brain; the jugular vein carries that blood away from the head and back to the heart. Cutting a jugular vein can kill you it just takes longer. The blood will flow instead of pump out and it is easier to stop with pressure. The survivability of a cut or severed jugular vein is higher than a carotid artery.

NOTE: In this image from Gray's Anatomy the Sternocleidomastoid Muscle can be clearly seen along with the Jugular. The carotid artery is in back and colored red.

The problem is the carotid artery lies about an inch and a half inside the neck! First you have to get through the skin and down to the muscle. The muscles of the neck are quite thick and even with a doctor’s scalpel a quick slice won’t cut through them, especially the Sternocleidomastoid Muscle. This is the big muscle you can fell on both sides of your windpipe when you turn your head. This muscle runs in front of the jugular vein which sits in front of the carotid artery.

So, if you want to cut someone carotid artery you have to get through and inch and a half of skin, muscle tissue, and other bodily components. Anyone who has every butchered an animal or even cut into a rotisserie chicken that you buy at the supermarket should be able to tell you that flesh has a bit of resistance to it.

There are people walking around all over the work with scars on their necks from having their necks slashed and throats cut, and the reason they’re walking around is because those injuries are often perfectly survivable. Due to watching movies most people think that all you need to do is to take a little swipe at the throat and it will open right up and their victim will be dead in a matter of seconds but it doesn’t work like that.

If a criminal does put a knife to your throat and then go to cut you they’ll have instant resistance and almost no acceleration to get through it. I’ve seen many pictures of people who have had exactly that done to them and most have a nasty looking wound but it is just deep enough to get to the fat under the skin. Someone holding a katana sword to your throat may be able to severe your head with a quick movement of the sword, but some street punk with a knife is probably going to give you a perfectly survivable wound if they have the presence of mind to cut you when you make your first movement (which isn’t to say that they won’t stab you to death a few seconds after that).

Lastly, most people don’t understand how knives cut. A knife cuts by being drawn back and forth across the skin and not by merely pressing down. A lot of criminals merely press the knife into the skin and wonder why they don’t see blood.

Beyond Fight or Flight

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved

It is commonly taught that when an organism is threatened it will respond with one of two instinctive reactions: fight or flight. In other words, when an animal or a person is threatened it will instinctively stand its ground and fight or it will run away.

I’ve never bought into this thinking. Fight or flight is hogwash and I realized that when I was 7 years old and I was in a car with my mother when we hit a deer at night. The deer saw us coming and it didn’t run away nor did it attack, but rather it stood there like the quintessential deer in the headlights.

There are actually 3 different responses an animal can give and a human is capable of at least 5. An animal will instinctively fight, run away, or freeze in fear and be killed. A human will either fight, run away, freeze, surrender, or comply.

Fight and flight are pretty easy to understand so let’s look at the others.

When a person gets attacked it is usually by surprise and they simply don’t know what to do. While those trained in self-protection will have a plan for when an attack occurs and will have rehearsed their response numerous times in a controlled environment, the average person will not have a clue of how to respond. First their mind will try to wrap itself around the situation; they will think things like: is this really happening? Am I really being attacked? Maybe this is a joke? Maybe there are cameras around and that Ashton Kutcher guy will jump out? Next their thoughts will progress to accepting the situation is happening but not knowing if they are in real danger; they will think thoughts like: is he really going to hurt me? Things like this don’t happen to me, they happen to people you see on the news. What is he going to do to do me? He can’t kill me because I have to give that presentation to the PTO next week. After that they will try to think of appropriate responses and debate with themselves whether they should resist.

While they do all of this the attacker will have a frozen victim to do with what they see fit. Often an attacker will rob a victim and flee before their victim fully realizes what just happened. A criminal knows that if he attacks correctly his victim will most likely freeze rather than resist and that is what most criminals count on.

Next you have surrender. Let’s say a masked gunman runs into a bank full of people and orders everyone to lie on their stomach. While there might be an initial reaction to freeze, most people will go right into a response of surrender. They realize the threat and their thought process says, “ok, if I just do exactly what he wants he won’t hurt me.” That person immediately abandons all notion of resistance and their life now solely in the hands of the gunman. Whatever the gunman says they will do and if a debate of whether to resist or not was to come up by the other hostages they will normally take the side of the gunman in hopes of not being hurt.

Lastly you have comply; in that very same bank all the customers were ordered to lie down on their stomach when the gunman rushed through the door. While some responded by freezing and most responded by surrendering, one or two people had some training and they responded by complying with the gunman. The difference is that man with training assessed the situation and made the decision that it was too dangerous at that time do confront the gunman so he makes the decision to be compliant and do what he is told. However, while the surrendering individuals basically stare at the floor or shut their eyes and hope for the best, the man who complies does what he is told but also observes the situation and waits for an opening to act.

Another example of compliance is that you’re coming home from work and you get out of your car when suddenly you’re grabbed from behind, pushed against your car, and the muzzle of a gun is shoved in your face. They tell you not to make a sound and then they turn you around and you see two men both pointing guns at you. You assess the situation and you don’t feel there is anything you can do at the moment. They push you to your front door and take you to the living room. While you walk in you carefully watch their shadows to try to determine where they are and listen to what they say. Now you’re standing in the living room and you can hear a man standing behind you but then you also hear someone run down the hall towards your bedroom. You now know they have split up and you glace over and catch a reflection in a window and see that the gunman behind you is looking around the room trying to decide what is valuable enough to steel. You quickly turn around, disarm the gunman, knock him down, and then run out the front door towards a neighbor’s house where you lock the door and call the police. If you had surrendered you wouldn’t have even known they had split up.

Pre-Assault Body Language Indicators

By Matthew Schafer
Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved

Violence has been thoroughly studied by the FBI and other groups and what has been found out is that most violence attacks don’t happen out of the blue, but rather there predictable things that happen before hand. If we know what things tend to happen before an assault occurs we can notice them and act at that point to prevent the situation from developing into violence.

Here is a list of eight things that a person tends to do right before they attack.

Walking with their arms out of sync with their feet. A normal person will not only swing their arms when they walk, but they’ll coordinate their arm with the opposite leg. So, if they stepped with their left foot they’d swing their right arm forwards and vice versa. A normal relaxed opposite hand-foot stride in the natural way to walk and keeps us in balance. A person who is planning on attacking someone will often lose this coordination and end up either moving their feet while keeping their hands and arms frozen in place (no swinging of the arms at all) or they will tend to walk by moving the foot and arm of the same side.

Lowering of their body. Before a lion or other predator attacks their prey they will lower their body and drop their heads to get more stable; someone about to be violent will often do this as well. Typically they will slightly lower their chin, lean forwards slightly to move their shoulders over their toes, and bend their knees slightly. If you see someone do this as they come up to you it is almost a certainty that they will attack.

Evasive eye contact. Someone who is planning on attacking you will almost always want to look you over first. People who do this tend not to turn their head completely towards you but rather move their eyes to look out the corners. If you notice someone looking at you in this manner, especially continually, be aware. If every time you look at them and they look away quickly that is an indicator that you caught them doing something that they didn’t want you to see.

Rapid or heavy breathing. When someone decides to attack someone else their body prepares for this by increasing heart rate and releasing adrenaline into the blood stream. A person breathing heavily or rapids but not doing anything physical at the moment is either sick, in very poor physical condition, or getting ready to do something.

Effects of adrenaline. As stated above, a person planning on committing a violent act will release adrenaline into their bloodstream beforehand in order to get ready for the crime. If you notice the effects of adrenaline you can spot this before anything violent occurs. Be on lookout for someone who isn’t physically exerting himself but starts to breathe heavily or rapidly, sweat, or fidget. In most people their hands (especially their non-dominate hand) and their knees will begin to shake. They may also fidget, “pump” their hands open and closed, and repeatedly touch their face, hair, and body as if they’re nervous.

Something that deserves special attention is if you see someone lifting their heels and lifting up on the balls of their feet. This is a very common fidgeting maneuver by people getting ready do something physical. This is often seen done by athletes just prior to performance. Another effect of adrenaline that deserves special attention is pacing. Quite often a person will pace back and forth before suddenly turning and throwing a punch or attacking with a weapon. This pacing is another way a person will try to burn off adrenaline before they do something physical. If you notice someone starts to pace back off and give them a lot of room so if they do attack you can see it coming.

Someone “Quartering Off.” Quartering off basically means aligning their lower body in sort of a fighting stance. A lot of the time people will have natural tendency to put one foot slightly in front of the other and turn slightly to the side before they attack. This is not a traditional fighting stance as most people with their hands up, but rather a relaxed slight turn of their body and placement of their feet. If someone is confronting you and you see them start to assume a quartered stance this is probably a subconscious way of them telling you that they are about to attack. You should either move in and attack first or back up and give yourself more room and reaction time.

Raised, hidden, or busy hands. While you should never watch a person’s hands to see when they are going to attack, you should be aware of what their hands are doing while they are at a distance because if they are going to attack you chances are it will be by using their hands. If you can’t see their hands because they are in their pockets, behind their back, just not visible this can mean they are grabbing, or are already holding onto, a weapon. A person with busy hands either digging in their pockets or playing with the bottom of their shirt or jacket could be accessing a weapon. A person who is planning on throwing a punch will often raise their hand first, not in a fighting stance but in a relaxed ready position. If a person nears you and they have their hands in front of their body and you see them start to slide their arms up the front of their body above the height of their belly button that is a good indicator they are getting their arms ready to throw a punch. This also includes crossing their arms because this also puts the arms above the belly button. You may also see clenched fists or someone may quickly open and close their hands as if they’re getting ready to make a tight fist.

Playing out the attack beforehand in their head. Something that often happens before a person attacks is they play the situation out in their head beforehand, even going through a conversation they may have with you. You can often see them looking down at the ground fully engaged in their mental activity and often you will see their lips moving and maybe even their head shaking “yes” or “no” as they play out the conversation. As they do this you may notice their hand move slightly as they mentally punch or you may see them touch their clothing where a weapon is kept. This mental rehearsal might be a very subtle thing or they might be psyching themselves up and their moving may be dramatic. A lot of times you can see this behavior in fighters right before a boxing or wrestleboxing match. If you notice this behavior it is a good idea to leave the area.