Have you read this?

[TKDTony2179]

Interesting article on Black Belt Mag.

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/m...the-death-touch-and-other-martial-arts-myths/

I bet there is more than we know.

 

[Flying Crane]

Interesting article on Black Belt Mag.

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/m...the-death-touch-and-other-martial-arts-myths/

I bet there is more than we know.

what more do you believe there is, that we know? I found the article to be a piece of pretty uninspired writing. Some things to agree with, some things to agree with - sort of, and some things to not really agree with at all.

 

[clfsean]

Just something to take up print space... nothing new & really nothing old... just meh.

 

[arnisador]

I agree--but some of those things to do need to be said to beginners, of course, and that's not bad. He was doing a Master Ken on standard BS.

 

[Touch Of Death]

what more do you believe there is, that we know? I found the article to be a piece of pretty uninspired writing. Some things to agree with, some things to agree with - sort of, and some things to not really agree with at all.

For instance, if you spear hand someone in the jugular, you really do run the risk of killing them. I don't know why he is poo pooing throat shots. He should be warning people to stay away from throat shots for God's sake. But he is the expert.
Sean

 

[TKDTony2179]

what more do you believe there is, that we know? I found the article to be a piece of pretty uninspired writing. Some things to agree with, some things to agree with - sort of, and some things to not really agree with at all.

I would like to know what you agree with and dont agree with. Yea I have heard most of these myths before and only strike I can see as a dim mak death touch is a strike to the throat that crushes the wind pipe.

 

[Flying Crane]

I would like to know what you agree with and dont agree with. Yea I have heard most of these myths before and only strike I can see as a dim mak death touch is a strike to the throat that crushes the wind pipe.

well, there could be other things that cause some kind of internal damage that might not be apparent immediately, and could be treated with modern medicine but they didn't have those options 200 years ago so they lead to a "delayed death". Dim Mak could have a basis in that kind of thing.

He talks about the reverse punch and the myths around that, and he wants to put it within the context of sparring and competition. That's just a different animal, competition/sparring and self defense. There's a lot of overlap between the two, but there are still differences. I'm not a karate guy so I'm not going to talk too much about the reverse punch as far as they see it. But I will say that I believe people today often do not understand how to really engage the full body in delivering a strike. Even Mr. Wallace talkes about the reverse punch being from the hips or the waist. I disagree. It ought to come from the feet and up thru the legs, thru the hips and torso. That's a very different animal than just the hips, it's much more powerful. I don't know if Mr. Wallace understands that or not. Maybe he does and he was just condensing the information for the masses. But the presentation doesn't give an accurate picture of how best to deliver a strike of any kind. So I'm not gonna say it ought to literally be a "one punch, one kill" strike. But I do believe people today for the most part do not understand how to really maximize the power in their strikes. If you do fully understand this, then you realize that each strike has a greater potential than most people believe. You still gotta be good with using it, but if you know how to do it then you've got a better chance of landing it with real authority.

Regarding his points about a woman vs. a man, he's right to a point. A typical man has a size and strength advantage against a typical woman. But a woman can develop her skill to overcome that advantage. She doesn't literally need to become physically stronger than the man. Up to a point, better technique and better skill can overcome size and strength differences. There can be limits to that, but size and strength are not automatically the deciding factors in the exchange.

So there's a couple examples for you.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I would like to know what you agree with and dont agree with. Yea I have heard most of these myths before and only strike I can see as a dim mak death touch is a strike to the throat that crushes the wind pipe.

If been told you can damage organs with a concussion of air,but ts not like you can practice on your buddy; so, its a worthless idea none the less.

 

[Touch Of Death]

well, there could be other things that cause some kind of internal damage that might not be apparent immediately, and could be treated with modern medicine but they didn't have those options 200 years ago so they lead to a "delayed death". Dim Mak could have a basis in that kind of thing.

He talks about the reverse punch and the myths around that, and he wants to put it within the context of sparring and competition. That's just a different animal, competition/sparring and self defense. There's a lot of overlap between the two, but there are still differences. I'm not a karate guy so I'm not going to talk too much about the reverse punch as far as they see it. But I will say that I believe people today often do not understand how to really engage the full body in delivering a strike. Even Mr. Wallace talkes about the reverse punch being from the hips or the waist. I disagree. It ought to come from the feet and up thru the legs, thru the hips and torso. That's a very different animal than just the hips, it's much more powerful. I don't know if Mr. Wallace understands that or not. Maybe he does and he was just condensing the information for the masses. But the presentation doesn't give an accurate picture of how best to deliver a strike of any kind. So I'm not gonna say it ought to literally be a "one punch, one kill" strike. But I do believe people today for the most part do not understand how to really maximize the power in their strikes. If you do fully understand this, then you realize that each strike has a greater potential than most people believe. You still gotta be good with using it, but if you know how to do it then you've got a better chance of landing it with real authority.

Regarding his points about a woman vs. a man, he's right to a point. A typical man has a size and strength advantage against a typical woman. But a woman can develop her skill to overcome that advantage. She doesn't literally need to become physically stronger than the man. Up to a point, better technique and better skill can overcome size and strength differences. There can be limits to that, but size and strength are not automatically the deciding factors in the exchange.

So there's a couple examples for you.

A woman just needs to understand what self defense is, and that cover is her greatest tool.

 

[Flying Crane]

A woman just needs to understand what self defense is, and that cover is her greatest tool.

yeah, self defense is not the same thing as sticking around to slug it out and "win" the fight.

 

[Touch Of Death]

For instance, if you spear hand someone in the jugular, you really do run the risk of killing them. I don't know why he is poo pooing throat shots. He should be warning people to stay away from throat shots for God's sake. But he is the expert.
Sean

...So if you see me coming at you with a toilet plunger, run.

 

[rlobrecht]

At least he didn't attempt to dispute the Wuxi Finger Hold.

All kidding aside, I found his discussion of the reverse punch to be the only interesting one. The other 4 just basically said, nope they are BS. And the whole thing about women being weaker is just terrible. That may be true when talking about the average woman vs. the average man, but realistically we should be talking about a trained female artist vs. a street thug. The martial artist will be familiar with techniques to create distance and allow her to get away.

But at the end of the day, we all clicked through to the link and saw the ads, which is what they are looking for.

 

[clfsean]

At least he didn't attempt to dispute the Wuxi Finger Hold.

All kidding aside, I found his discussion of the reverse punch to be the only interesting one. The other 4 just basically said, nope they are BS. And the whole thing about women being weaker is just terrible. That may be true when talking about the average woman vs. the average man, but realistically we should be talking about a trained female artist vs. a street thug. The martial artist will be familiar with techniques to create distance and allow her to get away.

But at the end of the day, we all clicked through to the link and saw the ads, which is what they are looking for.

*sk'doosh*

 

[fighterxaos]

I read that article a few days ago. Even though I didn't agree with him I felt I could see why he'd reach some of the conclusions he did until he got to women. So women are at disadvantage because men are physically stronger? Besides remembering male martial artists like Royce Gracie who defeated bigger stronger opponents by having good technique I was remembering some women I know personally where I might have a strength advantage but that wouldn't stop them from making me look like a fool if I were dumb enough to try something because they're really well trained.

So basically my reactions while reading it were:

"ok..."
"alright..."
"I can see where you're coming from I guess"
"DUDE WHAT!?"

 

[Cyriacus]

I read that article a few days ago. Even though I didn't agree with him I felt I could see why he'd reach some of the conclusions he did until he got to women. So women are at disadvantage because men are physically stronger? Besides remembering male martial artists like Royce Gracie who defeated bigger stronger opponents by having good technique I was remembering some women I know personally where I might have a strength advantage but that wouldn't stop them from making me look like a fool if I were dumb enough to try something because they're really well trained.

So basically my reactions while reading it were:

"ok..."
"alright..."
"I can see where you're coming from I guess"
"DUDE WHAT!?"

Women are at a disadvantage - A disadvantage which can be overcome up to a point. The 'peak' for each gender is different, but it is, as you got at, completely possible to, in the context of sport, be a good technician and get by on that. But an equal technician with superior physical strength? Thats where you find an imbalance.

As far as the difference between a trained woman and a thug, well, it depends on the thugs choice of tactics and the womans ability to decide escape = good. The thug can be either gender, incidentally.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

In order:

1) Reverse punch. Is this even a specific belief people have, beyond the folks who think an expert martial artist will be knocking opponents out with every shot? As he says, the reverse punch is pretty much just the karate equivalent of a rear cross. Like any power strike it can produce a one-hit knockout, depending on who is hitting, who is being hit, and how well the particular strike lands. In most cases it won't.
2) Knife hand. Same as #1. Honestly, I think the only people who would believe in the magical power of these strikes are the same ones who believe the movie scenes were Chuck Norris drops an opponent with every punch and kick. In that case I'm not sure they're limiting the magical belief to just those particular strikes.
3) Dim Mak. Yeah, even some trained martial artists still believe in the fantasy of the delayed death touch. Then again, some people believe in no-touch knockdowns using chi power. Some people are just gullible and they really want to believe in magic. I would say that over 99% of martial artists recognize the myth as what it is, though. You don't really need Bill Wallace to tell you it's BS.
4) Trained woman vs untrained man. If he's referring to the idea that any trained woman can automatically beat any untrained man then he is correct, it's BS. (For that matter, so is the idea that any trained man can automatically beat any untrained man.) If he's trying to say that any woman fighting a man will always lose, regardless of training, then he is the one who is full of crap. Rhonda Rousey vs random guy off the street is going to result in Rhonda breaking the random guy's arm more than 99% of the time. The legitimate point that he might be trying to make is that size does matter. If you're fighting a much larger opponent, then you need more than a few self-defense lessons. You need years of hard-core training including lots of time sparring against much larger training partners in order to have a chance. Wallace may have been trying to get that point across. Or maybe he's just a sexist. I don't know.
5) Champion knocking out any opponent. This bit is actually written in a confusing fashion and I'm not sure whether Wallace or the editors are to blame. The "myth" being referred to is that a champion in the ring can knock out any opponent. Then in the meat of the paragraph he's just referring to the discrepancy between point fighting competition and full-contact competition where the fighters have conditioned themselves to take a hit. It's unclear whether he's trying to say that a point fighting champ might not be able to take out a well-conditioned kickboxer or if he's trying to say that some kickboxers are so well conditioned that they can't be knocked out even by another champion kickboxer or if he's just making the rather obvious point that even a full-contact champion doesn't always win by knockout. Anyway, the most accurate statement would probably be that a high-level full-contact fighter with heavy hands in the upper weight divisions has the potential to knock out any opponent, but that it won't always happen, especially against another high-level fighter who is well conditioned and knows how to defend himself.

Overall, I don't see anything that enlightening about the article. It looks like hastily written filler for the magazine.

 

[lklawson]

well, there could be other things that cause some kind of internal damage that might not be apparent immediately, and could be treated with modern medicine but they didn't have those options 200 years ago so they lead to a "delayed death". Dim Mak could have a basis in that kind of thing.

There's a reason sporting events have a defib machine now.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[arnisador]

I read that article a few days ago. Even though I didn't agree with him I felt I could see why he'd reach some of the conclusions he did until he got to women. So women are at disadvantage because men are physically stronger? Besides remembering male martial artists like Royce Gracie who defeated bigger stronger opponents by having good technique I was remembering some women I know personally where I might have a strength advantage but that wouldn't stop them from making me look like a fool if I were dumb enough to try something because they're really well trained.

Back in the day--and he's older than I am--martial arts were heavily advertised as letting a child, woman, or 98 lb. weakling defend themselves against a 250 lb. biker. Technique would let you use his strength against him--his weight was virtually a disadvantage to him! So, I get why he's putting this in as a myth with the others--indeed, myths like one punch, one kill have long since been debunked, but he's showing his age with his selection of topics.

 

[lklawson]

Back in the day--and he's older than I am--martial arts were heavily advertised as letting a child, woman, or 98 lb. weakling defend themselves against a 250 lb. biker. Technique would let you use his strength against him--his weight was virtually a disadvantage to him! So, I get why he's putting this in as a myth with the others--indeed, myths like one punch, one kill have long since been debunked, but he's showing his age with his selection of topics.

I remember seeing those ads in the back of Spiderman comics.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[arnisador]

Yup--ads for courses like that, Dim Mak, secret Ninja weapons (a long pin), and so on. That's what this sounds like to me!