Martial arts evaluated.. show called Fight Science..

[pegasi]

Has anyone else seen a program on cable tv called Fight Science??

It was on recently. In it they evaluated different techniques of different martial arts using science to evaluate the techniques in scientific terms of impact strength, damage caused, etc. They had a group of engineers that work with crash test dummies work with some world class martial artists of various styles to determine the reality of what martial arts can do to the human body. They determined that a one punch knockout is possible, that the ninjitsu death punch could really cause death by stopping the heart, that Taekwondo's spinning back kick was the most powerful, etc. They also looked at why power breaking can be accomplished by the human body, if the agility displayed by ninjitusu practicioners is real, etc.

This was a very interesting show about martial arts, covering information about different styles, including the use of weaponry. I definitely would recommend watching it.

[throwdown]

I have seen it. I was not impressed really.

I saw the part of the show where they measure the impact force of the kicks and punches of Martial Artists and so forth and I was just laughing.

They told one guy that his side kick has the same amount of force as a car wreck. That is a complete load of you know what in my opinion. If that were the case this guy would be killing people in karate or kickboxing tournaments.

Of course the readings are going to be so high when hitting a stationary target.

Try hitting a moving target that hard.

[pegasi]

Yes, I realize that there's differences between hitting a moving target and a stationary one, etc.

The show does provide some valid explainations for how martial arts can be so effective. Their explainations relating things to car crashes may seem out of context to us, but considering that the engineers were taking the information in relation to their experiences with evaluation of car crash effects on people, you can't blame them for phrasing their analogies in reference to what they're experts at.

They could have done better in that respect, choosing analogies more relevant to the rest of us, but I think the show was informative anyway.

[bushido_man96]

I did not care for the show at all. The weapons section especially. It was a show of stylization, and that was really it. The "ninjitus death punch" is not really a "ninja technique." It is a punch to the heart essentially, and the results of such a technique are neither secret nor Eastern in origins. These things have been around for years.

[KarateEd]

As far as death blows go, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding Max Baer (a boxer from the 1920s-30s).

"Baer fought Frankie Campbell (brother of Brooklyn Dodgers star Dolph Camilli) on August 25, 1930, in San Francisco and with only two blows, knocked him out. Campbell never regained consciousness. After lying on the canvas for nearly an hour, Campbell was transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he eventually died of massive brain hemorrhaging. An autopsy revealed that Baer's devastating blows had knocked Campbell's entire brain loose from the connective tissue holding it in place within his cranium.

Ed

[The BB of C]

I saw it to be a very interesting and logical study. However they left out a couple of core factors in the experiment. But it's probably good that they did because otherwise the experiment would have never ended.

[learning kempo-karate]

Hello, It was fun to watch the first time. Second time..somethings made you wonder? .........Aloha

[throwdown]

I don't buy that whole "death punch" stuff at all.

A good boxer can hit harder than a karate-ka hands down in my opinion.

[gzk]

I'd seen that a while ago. It was interesting, but should be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, TKD isn't the only style with a spinning back kick, had Karate been represented by someone bigger and stronger who'd chosen to use that kick he might have come out on top.

The boxer had the most powerful punch, which is plausible, because as he said, "All we do is work on punching", yet, as they explained the physiology behind the knockout punch, they mentioned that the size of the puncher matters, and the boxer would have been the largest of them all. A pound-for-pound comparison would have been interesting, if the aim was to compare techniques rather than technicians.

However, I don't think the test environment for the Muay Thai fighter's knee (which, by the way, was the one compared to a 35 MPH car crash, not the Karateka's side kick) was as contrived as some might think, because typically, the knees are used when fighters are clinched, and so the recipient of the knee is indeed relatively stationary. It's still not quite realistic, but it's more realistic than taking a huge windup to kick or punch a stationary dummy that you aren't controlling in order to make it stationary.

[Ace2021]

I quit watching it after I saw them show a 100lb (examples) Kung-Fu guy punch the thing, then show a 200lb Boxer punch it and say the Boxer's punch was the strongest.

Of course it would be, Force = Mass X Acceleration. Hmm, who has more mass?

They should have had same size weight for all the guys, etc.

Good television....not so good science.