Can a martial art kills?

[TigerHeart]

Sometimes, I have mixed feelings when I practice karate. I was encouraged to punch hard and kick hard in a punching bag. I feel like I could break someone’s rib cage, break a arm or leg. If I get into a real street fight, I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Sometimes, I have mixed feelings when I practice karate. I was encouraged to punch hard and kick hard in a punching bag. I feel like I could break someone’s rib cage, break a arm or leg. If I get into a real street fight, I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

Any time people fight, there is always the risk of serious injury or death. That's life. Two drunks get into a fistfight, one falls and hits his head and dies. Or one has a heart attack and dies. And so on.

We should all be aware that risk is part of violence, whether or not you are justified in using it.

Good martial arts training will provide you with the ability to defend yourself in many circumstances. Over time, you will learn control as well as technique. You will have options (for example, locks, evades, throws, trips) as opposed to strikes which you may choose to employ if you judge that the circumstances call for it.

In the end, however, all of us, trained and untrained, have to accept the fact that when people fight, death or serious injury is always a possibility.

When it comes to self-defense, well if someone has to die, I do not want it to be me. I value life, but I put mine in front of the life of a person who is attacking me.

 

[lklawson]

Is this a serious question? Of course "martial arts" "can kill." Punching, kicking, choking, stabbing, clubbing, etc. all can cause serious, even deadly, injuries.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of using your martial arts training in such a way as to injure someone, then don't do that. You can keep training in whatever martial arts you wish. Just make the conscious decision that you aren't going to use your skills to hurt anyone, even in self defense.

It's a personal decision. You can choose to be a pacifist.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Martial D]

Sometimes, I have mixed feelings when I practice karate. I was encouraged to punch hard and kick hard in a punching bag. I feel like I could break someone’s rib cage, break a arm or leg. If I get into a real street fight, I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

I wouldn't worry about it. If you haven't practiced those blows in a sparring or fighting situation your chances of hurting anyone with them are pretty remote anyway.

PS how'd you get inside the bag?

 

[Touch Of Death]

You touch on an interesting point. It is OK to not think about killing with your strikes. The JKD guys call it chaining, but the idea, is that your strikes, are meant to give pause. So, if a bad guy points his plastic finger at me, I might back knuckle his hand, and while he holds his hand close, wondering, what the hell, I slip behind him, put him in a choke hold, and kill him that way.

 

[TigerHeart]

I was nearly got assaulted while I worked as a Street photographer. The assailant threw a punch at me. I was so scared at the time, and that compelled me to take a karate lesson. After mastering few forms, I realized when I had known karate, that assailant was very sloppied try to attack me, I would have finished him off with one strike.

 

[jobo]

Sometimes, I have mixed feelings when I practice karate. I was encouraged to punch hard and kick hard in a punching bag. I feel like I could break someone’s rib cage, break a arm or leg. If I get into a real street fight, I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

you get a lot of bravado on here , but, for all sorts of legal and moral reasons you don't want to seriously hurt someone if you can avoid it, far better to put them on their bum and leave than break an arm or choke them out. It's just easier that way, the techniques that are to deadly to spar with, are to deadly to use, unless your life literally depends on it

 

[MA_Student]

If they attack you then that's their choice. You're legally allowed to defend yourself. Also punching a bag or doing a form is very different to a real fight

 

[MA_Student]

I was nearly got assaulted while I worked as a Street photographer. The assailant threw a punch at me. I was so scared at the time, and that compelled me to take a karate lesson. After mastering few forms, I realized when I had known karate, that assailant was very sloppied try to attack me, I would have finished him off with one strike.

Maybe, maybe not, don't put all this hype in the one kill strike mentality. It can happen of course it can but a lot of times an attacker will be either full of adrenaline so he doesn't feel pain or under the influence of something so again he doesn't feel pain. So yeah you may finish with one strike but also 1 strike may not even hurt him at all

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

It's different between

- You can do it but you don't want to do it. vs.
- You want to do it but you can't do it.

When someone drags your wife into his car,

- a knock down punch can save your wife from being rapped. you may save her life too if she will commit suicide after been raped.
- a weak punch will make you to be regret for the rest of your life.

Self-defense is not only to protect yourself. It also includes to protect your family members.

 

[marques]

Sometimes, I have mixed feelings when I practice karate. I was encouraged to punch hard and kick hard in a punching bag. I feel like I could break someone’s rib cage, break a arm or leg. If I get into a real street fight, I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

Well, people fight back, moves and have bones. Hardly we can apply the same power to a living human.

On the other hand, I understand you. I am afraid of doing too much damage, too. (Or too little and lose my opportunity.) This is why I focus on leg kicks. The worse I can do is muscle rupture (could I break a femur?!). So nothing permanent. And usually, little power is already painful enough.

You can keep doing the entire Karate as a sport or an art, and focus on a few things for self-defence application.

 

[Streetfighter2]

Kill or be killed I know which I'd prefer

 

[jobo]

Maybe, maybe not, don't put all this hype in the one kill strike mentality. It can happen of course it can but a lot of times an attacker will be either full of adrenaline so he doesn't feel pain or under the influence of something so again he doesn't feel pain. So yeah you may finish with one strike but also 1 strike may not even hurt him at all

you don't have to hurt them, you just have to knock them over

 

[MA_Student]

you don't have to hurt them, you just have to knock them over

And then they get up and attack you harder

 

[drop bear]

Sometimes, I have mixed feelings when I practice karate. I was encouraged to punch hard and kick hard in a punching bag. I feel like I could break someone’s rib cage, break a arm or leg. If I get into a real street fight, I don’t think I want to kill or disable anyone.

learn to wrestle then.

 

[jobo]

And then they get up and attack you harder

no not generaly no, not once they have hit the floor hard, anyway it should give you a ten second head start, or you just knock them over again

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

And then they get up and attack you harder

There is something called "choke".

 

[jobo]

If they attack you then that's their choice. You're legally allowed to defend yourself. Also punching a bag or doing a form is very different to a real fight

well yes, but from a moral stand point, i really don't want to leave someone blinded or,with a permanent disability just Coz they had a few beers , had a row with their girl friend and then decided to take it out on me, its not at all proportionate to the " crime" if i can put them off the,whole idea by bopping them on the noise, then that seems best . From a legal stand point, the less damage you do, the less heart ache and hassle you will get from the law if it comes to having to justify the,amount of force used,

its so much easier to say, he attacked me, so i gave him a punch and broke his nose, than it is to say, he attacked me, so i poked him in the eye, permanently blinding him, then smashed three ribs, broke an arm, cracked his neck leaving him in a wheel chair and then choked till he passed out and left him brain damage. Just saying!

 

[drop bear]

well yes, but from a moral stand point, i really don't want to leave someone blinded or,with a permanent disability just Coz they had a few beers , had a row with their girl friend and then decided to take it out on me, its not at all proportionate to the " crime" if i can put them off the,whole idea by bopping them on the noise, then that seems best . From a legal stand point, the less damage you do, the less heart ache and hassle you will get from the law if it comes to having to justify the,amount of force used,

its so much easier to say, he attacked me, so i gave him a punch and broke his nose, than it is to say, he attacked me, so i poked him in the eye, permanently blinding him, then smashed three ribs, broke an arm, cracked his neck leaving him in a wheel chair and then choked till he passed out and left him brain damage. Just saying!

You didn't restomp the groin.

 

[jobo]

You didn't restomp the groin.

i did, that was remiss of me!