Choking Safety

[Jay]

I just came across this by accident

http://www.aikiweb.com/techniques/gunther1.html

If you read the 4th paragraph it states:

The bradycardia one means that if you're choking just the right spot very high and fairly lateral on the neck, up behind the sternocleidomastoid muscle and only an inch lower than the jawbone, you may accidentally put your thumb on the sensor located in the wall of the carotid where it divides into internal and external branches. That sensor is there to tell the heart to slow down if the blood pressure going into the brain is too high. If you push hard enough on the vessel and up the pressure in it, the sensor tells the heart, "Whoa! We gotta surge of 80 mm Hg in here! Back it off!" And the heart obediently slows down to nothing, at which point it can start to fibrillate and you die. The reason this is rare is dual. Number one, the sensor is small and hard to get to, so it's chance if you happen to be over it. Number two, young people with resilient arteries are almost all resistant to this reaction to carotid compression. Old people with hardened arteries are much more susceptible. However, this has been thought to be the genesis of death in cases in which the perpetrator confessed, "I was mad at her, yeah, and I took her throat in my hands, but honest to God I didn't do anything! She just went limp the instant I touched her!" and the autopsy is negative. So this is always something to bear in the back of your mind when practicing chokes: if your partner is the one in a thousand whose arteries aren't resistant to this, and if you hit exactly the right spot, they could go limp in your hands and die without your even achieving a good choke. Scary.

Now I would have thought that if this was true we would have heard of one instance of this either in martial art training or in competition.

The article is by an M.D so I would have thought it was legit.

[bushido_man96]

I wouldn't know about the sources, but I suppose something like this could be true. As mentioned, its probably not a likely thing to happen. But, with most things, especially physical activities, there are risks involved.

[JiuJitsuNation]

Yeah at first it was kind of alarming to read. Then I thought about how long I have been letting folks choke me. Then I thought of the rest of the world and grappling arts. Anything is possible but not something I'll take into consideration.

[sensei8]

Yeah, the full article causes one to take a slight pause, not just the 4th paragraph. Thanks for the article Jay!

[ninjanurse]

It is not uncommon for a doctor to use this technique (called carotid massage) to slow a heart that is beating too fast to maintain adequate circulation. It is, however, ineffective is some cases and does have the risk of slowing the heart to much.

[Jay]

Yeah at first it was kind of alarming to read. Then I thought about how long I have been letting folks choke me. Then I thought of the rest of the world and grappling arts. Anything is possible but not something I'll take into consideration.

Yea I agree that was my attitude towards it as well. I think for 99.9% of people chocking is safe. Its a hell of a lot safer than striking to knock someone out.

[bushido_man96]

Its studies like these that make it mandatory for LEOs to get "certified" in things like head and neck restraints.

[Jay]

Its studies like these that make it mandatory for LEOs to get "certified" in things like head and neck restraints.

Bushido Man I actually did some more research on this topic and I can't find the link but I think it was on wikipedia under vagus nerve and the theory that the person put in the adticle is disputed in the medical community. Equally I didn't realise there are such things as chokes designed to deliberatly target the vagus nerve to basically stop the other persons heart. Google is an interesting thing.

[bushido_man96]

Yes it is. There is so much out there, and anyone can put anything out there, without any kind of credence.

[ripdog]

That's kind of interesting, however after hanging around with tons of jiu jitsu players, submission grapplers, and judokas over the years I have never heard of anyone retelling any sort of story about this. Nor have I seen anyone ever report something like this anywhere online.

However strangling is serious business, I wouldn't let anyone apply a submission hold to the point where I went unconscious. Even for demonstration purposes. You never know what might happen...