Fight Science! Did anyone watch this?

[krelnius]

Ok, I just got done watching fight science, I'm a bit of a mixed martial arts fan and I can't believe some of the things I saw and heard according to the tech's on this show. It was hosted by national geographic though so I can't really say its a bunch of mystic jargon, they were using cameras and dummies to record this stuff as accurately as possible according to the show.

you can read a bit about it here
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060814-fight-science_2.html
and here
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/channel/fightscience/

My big question is, according to the show, a Muay Thai knee, from a champion Muay Thai artist, a spinning back kick from a tkd champ, straight kick from a karate well you get the idea, they tested lots of martial arts techniques from people that had performed these techniques on some pro level or a sort and yet when they compared the knee of the Muay Thai champ to the Dim Mak technique of the Ninjitsu artist and both had enough force to compress the chest plate 2 inches and cause enough internal trauma to kill a person. No big deal, plenty of martial art techniques can kill a person, the crazy part is the Muay Thai strike is a knee delivered from a drawn back leg while holding the head of the dummy so it absorbs all the force and the leg even has 2 or 3 feet to build of power, the Dim Mak on the other hand was performed from about 1 to 1 and a half feet away with a hammer fist.

I don't know if many of you read much about martial arts but this just doesnt happen, even in the pro's nobody touches the raw power of Muay Thai techniques for destructive force. Everyone thats ever fought Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic for instance, agrees that his Muay Thai kick is by far the most powerful they have ever felt. Many others can tell you plain and simple that usually a single punch will not win a fight without following it up with more punches but a single knee can and often does win fights, they do incredible damage. You can see this for urself, take a pillow and punch it haha, then knee it, you'll be able to tell the difference even the average person can never reach knee power with a punch.

Even a pro boxers punch was no match for the Muay Thai knee, and I mean a huge guy, probably a heavyweight boxer, the Muay Thai champ is probably about 155-160 where as the Ninjitsu artist was definitely 150 or less. Now I'm not an idiot, I've read a lot on martial arts, thousands of pages, I've read about every major martial art for sure, including Ninjitsu and I just don't see this being possible.

I've read even the woo side of most martial arts, including Ninjitu's claims of "chakra" and other energies inside the body that can be focused to do superhuman things, but this really is superhuman and I don't think chakra had anything to do with it.

On the show when the boxer hits for about 1000lb of force they take apart the technique, same with the muay thai knee, they explain the transfer of power from the feet to the limbs and show how the force is generated but when they showed the dim mak they didnt do this, they basically just showed it and said what it did but not how.

So, since the show left a gap I was wondering if you guys could fill me in on ways this would be possible. But please don't just tell me its centrifugal force or plain old training. Everyone on that show had years and years of training and some couldnt even match the dim mak fist with their techniques using their legs and full body weight although they were larger or the same size as the ninjitsu artist. Guys on here did things like striking at around 40 feet per second, which trust me, is amazing. The tkd or tae kwon do arist had the fastest reaction time which was absolutely insane, but thats something u can train, a trained soldier will react faster than an average citizen, this I understand, but 2 soldiers should be fairly even, but in this cast the ninjitsu soldier did something the other soldiers couldnt even when they had (for sake of the soldier analogy) a larger military.

Any ideas?

 

[Stitch]

Dunno, but I've seen old footage of Bruce Lee demonstrating a 1 inch punch, where he started with his fist 1" from somebody's chest and was able to put them on the floor.

 

[alfaniner]

There'll be no shutting up thaiboxerken now...

I only saw the first hour (taped the rest while watching the Shatner roast). As far as the non-weapons segments, it seemed that they were acknowledging that each martial art had one particular technique that seemed to outdo all the others.

I love the graphics, but was a little put off by their showing some mystical "energy" flowing up from the floor to the fist. They should have just highlighted the specific muscles and bones that come into play. They also didn't account much for the mass of the practitioner. Sure, the kung-fu guy's punch wasn't as powerful as the boxer's, but he weighed about 100 pounds less, also.

I would love to have a shot at that crash-test dummy myself. We have a much more affordable version that we use, but the numbers are only relative and not in specific foot-pounds or such. I'd also like to see how my balance stacks up on those plum flower risers. (23 years martial arts experience).

 

[Bikewer]

Here are the comments on the show I posted on another forum:

My impressions, not very well organized:

The entire show was a bit too "made-for-TV", with lots of footage of the extremely muscular and handsome Aussie TKD guy doing things that the less-telegenic experts would have done better...

There was a lot of footage of contemporary Wushu and "competition" weapons forms that had nothing to do with fighting.

Some of the stuff was either silly or misinformed. For instance, there was a lot of talk about "Dim Mak" in association with the "ninja" of rather dubious qualifications. To my knowledge, Dim Mak is associated with "internal" Chinese arts and I don't recall any ninjitsu discipline having anything to do with the purported disruption of Chi.
Instead, our ninja performed an admittedly-powerful chest strike to the area of the heart. Big revalation that such a strike may kill; boxers have suffered fatalities from such blows.

The opening segment was about the "legend" of a one-blow knockout. Legend? Did any of these people spend any time watching boxing matches?
Interesting that the boxer delivered the most powerful punch, but not unexpected.

The speed segment was interesting as well. Some of the artists were capable of delivering strikes at the rate of around 100 per minute, or 3 every two seconds. Not bad; I seem to recall that various Wing Chun stylists could manage something on the order of six punches per second using a sort of circular technique.

I have to admit that the two big strong guys breaking up a lot of concrete looked impressive. I wouldn't want that 275-pounder tackling me!

The weapons segment gave us pretty much what I expected; short, light weapons are fast, longer, heavier weapons hit harder, flexible weapons hit hard but are hard to control.
To kill someone at a distance-shoot 'em. Would have been interesting to see a Kyujutsu practitioner rather than the Kyudo guy... I have seen a very few demos of the use of the combat bow.
The limitations of the shuriken were manifest; no penetration.

All in all, I thought the 2-hour show was a little "gussied-up" for TV, and found several credulous repetitions of legend as fact. Overall, pretty interesting though.

I'm still inclined to think of contemporary Wushu as having much more to do with gymnastics than fighting.

A number of the other forumites agreed that they let the Aussie TKD guy do a lot of the weapons stuff because he looked much cuter than the chunky Japanese kenjutsu master...

 

[DreadNiK]

Ok, I just got done watching fight science, I'm a bit of a mixed martial arts fan and I can't believe some of the things I saw and heard according to the tech's on this show. It was hosted by national geographic though so I can't really say its a bunch of mystic jargon, they were using cameras and dummies to record this stuff as accurately as possible according to the show.

you can read a bit about it here
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060814-fight-science_2.html
and here
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/channel/fightscience/

My big question is, according to the show, a Muay Thai knee, from a champion Muay Thai artist, a spinning back kick from a tkd champ, straight kick from a karate well you get the idea, they tested lots of martial arts techniques from people that had performed these techniques on some pro level or a sort and yet when they compared the knee of the Muay Thai champ to the Dim Mak technique of the Ninjitsu artist and both had enough force to compress the chest plate 2 inches and cause enough internal trauma to kill a person. No big deal, plenty of martial art techniques can kill a person, the crazy part is the Muay Thai strike is a knee delivered from a drawn back leg while holding the head of the dummy so it absorbs all the force and the leg even has 2 or 3 feet to build of power, the Dim Mak on the other hand was performed from about 1 to 1 and a half feet away with a hammer fist.

I don't know if many of you read much about martial arts but this just doesnt happen, even in the pro's nobody touches the raw power of Muay Thai techniques for destructive force. Everyone thats ever fought Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic for instance, agrees that his Muay Thai kick is by far the most powerful they have ever felt. Many others can tell you plain and simple that usually a single punch will not win a fight without following it up with more punches but a single knee can and often does win fights, they do incredible damage. You can see this for urself, take a pillow and punch it haha, then knee it, you'll be able to tell the difference even the average person can never reach knee power with a punch.

Even a pro boxers punch was no match for the Muay Thai knee, and I mean a huge guy, probably a heavyweight boxer, the Muay Thai champ is probably about 155-160 where as the Ninjitsu artist was definitely 150 or less. Now I'm not an idiot, I've read a lot on martial arts, thousands of pages, I've read about every major martial art for sure, including Ninjitsu and I just don't see this being possible.

I've read even the woo side of most martial arts, including Ninjitu's claims of "chakra" and other energies inside the body that can be focused to do superhuman things, but this really is superhuman and I don't think chakra had anything to do with it.

On the show when the boxer hits for about 1000lb of force they take apart the technique, same with the muay thai knee, they explain the transfer of power from the feet to the limbs and show how the force is generated but when they showed the dim mak they didnt do this, they basically just showed it and said what it did but not how.

So, since the show left a gap I was wondering if you guys could fill me in on ways this would be possible. But please don't just tell me its centrifugal force or plain old training. Everyone on that show had years and years of training and some couldnt even match the dim mak fist with their techniques using their legs and full body weight although they were larger or the same size as the ninjitsu artist. Guys on here did things like striking at around 40 feet per second, which trust me, is amazing. The tkd or tae kwon do arist had the fastest reaction time which was absolutely insane, but thats something u can train, a trained soldier will react faster than an average citizen, this I understand, but 2 soldiers should be fairly even, but in this cast the ninjitsu soldier did something the other soldiers couldnt even when they had (for sake of the soldier analogy) a larger military.

Any ideas?

Hmm. Don't let my friend see this, he goes on and on about Ninjitsu (because he practised it for like a month and one of his friends still does it) and makes out like it is the ultimate in combat.

Sounds impossible to me as well, just going by what you have said and my own limited martial arts training, but I'd be interested to hear a good explanation.

A quick search reveals someone's critique of the program:

http://news.adcombat.com/article.html?id=11681

 

[Bikewer]

The link indicated is a fairly decent analysis.

I didn't see anything special in the "ninja's" blow; a fairly straightforward hammerfist. Boxers have died in the ring as a result of punches to this area, and that's with gloves on. Other athletes in other contact sports have as well.

The entire "art" of Ninjitsu is somewhat problematic, IMO. For many years, the sole practitioner/instructor was M. Hatsumi, who ran a small but select school in Japan. (some may remember him being featured in "Live and Let Die".)
Ninjitsu as practiced at that time concentrated on the "traditional" methods of combat, the specialized ninja weapons and techniques, and also concealment, stealth, and so forth.
The first Westerner to study there was Stephen Hayes, and he began writing about his experiences and publishing some books (with Hatsumi's permission, apparently) back in the early 80s.
This was the beginning of the "ninja craze" which swept through the martial-arts community at that time. Soon, much as had happened with Kung-Fu, every other MA instructor around had bought a book or two and hung out a ninja shingle. Some even claimed to have been secretly students contemporary with Hayes, or to have studied under other, more secret "masters" who conveniently had died....
We know that ninjas became a staple of action movies (they had long been part of Japanese culture, figuring prominently in Noh theater back to the reformation) where they would often appear in full black ninja fig in broad daylight...

All of which is very interesting, but the prominent Japanese feudal-era historian, Stephen Turnbull, wrote a scholarly book on the ninja that maintained that much of what we have today as ninjitsu is in fact derived from folklore and myth, and that the reality of ninja activity and techniques was much different.
This book was not greeted with much enthusiasm by many in the MA community, even though it had a glowing forward by Mr. Hatsumi himself. (they said he was being polite...)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/18...4691/ref=pd_bbs_6/002-3909261-7834432?ie=UTF8

 

[Ordf. Mjau]

Dunno, but I've seen old footage of Bruce Lee demonstrating a 1 inch punch, where he started with his fist 1" from somebody's chest and was able to put them on the floor.

Ah, yes, the infamous "1 inch punch". Also known as a "push" to the uninitiated.

The suggested method of defending against it is to place one foot behind the other, so as to smoothly absorb the aggressive nudge.

 

[Bikewer]

I'm somewhat familiar with Lee's techniques, having studied JKD at one time, and a friend of mine went to one of the seminars Lee put on. He volunteered, and maintained it was no push! He had a phone book against his chest, and ended up sharply on his posterior. Recall that Lee was quite small...

Lee classified a "one-inch" and a "four-inch" punch, but the technique was similar in both cases. The blow (like all good blows) starts with the rear foot, and is a violent twisting motion with the body involving plenty of hip motion. The wrist is relaxed, and "snaps" the fist straight just before impact.

Properly done, it can be quite violent. Directed against the solar plexus, a potential knockout blow.


A lot of folks think of Lee as an egomaniacal movie-star. He was that, but he was also a serious and studious martial artist who synthesized what was most likely the basis for what we are calling "mixed martial arts" today.
His fighting techniques (as opposed to film work) were direct, simple, and fast.

 

[krelnius]

ok

Ok, yes I realize that often boxers have died from blows that are similiar to a strike with the fist but boxing makes it a lot easier to die in the ring because of the rounds, 80 soft hits to the head make even 1 more soft hit seem like a stick of dynamite regardless of the gloves being used 12oz 4oz whatever but even in pro MMA like pride and UFC nobody has ever been killed even in fights where stomping and "soccer kicking" to the head of a DOWN opponent is allowed. No deaths.

I mentioned Mirko CroCop who recently broke an opponents femur after several kicks to the same leg, not the first kick, but several. This is no big deal to me, its possible and not too amazing. If he walked straight out and did just 1 kick and snapped the guys femur then I'd be impressed. Not to mention that crocop is a heavyweight.

In this case, the 150lb ninjitsu guy hit way harder than he should have been able to and yes they did show way more of the TKD guy than anyone else. I also recall seeing what I believe was the legs of the wushu pro dancing up the plume poles so I don't think the Ninjitsu artist was the only 1 but probably the best from what the show said. My point isnt that a 1 hit knockout is impressive, its not it happens every day in MMA, not always with a fist but it happens.

What I'm saying is a lightweight striking harder or as hard as a heavyweight is flat out impossible according to basic physics. Even the show points out that your weight is a large factor in determining the power of your upper and even lower body attacks which was probably why the wushu artist hit so softly compared to the TKD and boxer but explain to how the ninjitsu artist did the same damage as the muay thai knee with his hand. Doesnt add up.

Second I would like to point out that although the show did kinda imply that the ninjitsu guy was using some kind of dim mak, I do think the ninjitsu artist knew what he was doing and has really studied traditional ninjitsu. Did anyone but me notice how everyone but him used a "Kia!" on their big hits, well except for him and the boxer, but he was the only martial artist that didnt. A small thing most wouldnt think about but in Ninjitsu you wouldnt wanna yell when your sneaking and....ya know....fighting pirates

Also I thought it was ironic that the Ninjitsu artist was the only 1 that seemed to have a sense of humor. "Come with me on a journey to your destruction!" lol thats great stuff.

 

[l0rca]

What I'm saying is a lightweight striking harder or as hard as a heavyweight is flat out impossible according to basic physics. Even the show points out that your weight is a large factor in determining the power of your upper and even lower body attacks which was probably why the wushu artist hit so softly compared to the TKD and boxer but explain to how the ninjitsu artist did the same damage as the muay thai knee with his hand. Doesnt add up.

I don't want what I'm going to type here to be seen as in defense of a show like this. Overall I hate what TV and other "martial arts programs" blare about the martial arts community. On the whole we are critical of ourselves enough to not need some silly scientists stick their protruding noses into things we have already discussed extensively. What I'm doing here is just giving a reason for a scenario of a Ninjitsu martial artist having a more powerful blow with his arm to the chest than a Thai boxer would.

Many kicking martial artists can tell you, is that once your leg is above hip level, you're fighting your own flexibility to a great extent. Anything higher than hip level means your power is being descreased; sometimes dramatically, sometimes not so drammatically. It also depends on your experience with throwing kicks at higher levels. You must shift your hips, and work on your base footing in a different way. Thai fighters use kicks in two main ways: the clinch and the Thai kick. The Thai kick is a swinging, full-force modified roundhose kick, with one's shin swun into the enemy's thigh. The clinch is a MT technique where the fighter grapples with a person's head and neck, while delivering kicks and elbows into the persons head, below and around the lower body, and the chest and stomach. But the clinch is not practiced as a one-blow deafeater; it is a combinations attack, much like a Karateka's rocks and blasts. The kicks to this area are not trained to be super-powerful. The Thai fighter, while very strong, full of stamina, and agressive is taught to pulverise his enemy, not end his life in one blow.

Ninjistsu teaches that a fight should end as fast as possible. The blows are often simple, but disguised, and over-trained, but like Shotokan's trade stepping punch. The goal is death; vulnerable spots with as much aggressive power as one can muster. Also, a punch to the chest, when trained well enough, I think, is far, far more ergonomic than any sort of knee. No sort of kick can touch that power other than a flying, or a side kick.

 

[Ordf. Mjau]

I'm somewhat familiar with Lee's techniques, having studied JKD at one time, and a friend of mine went to one of the seminars Lee put on. He volunteered, and maintained it was no push! He had a phone book against his chest, and ended up sharply on his posterior. Recall that Lee was quite small...

Lee classified a "one-inch" and a "four-inch" punch, but the technique was similar in both cases. The blow (like all good blows) starts with the rear foot, and is a violent twisting motion with the body involving plenty of hip motion. The wrist is relaxed, and "snaps" the fist straight just before impact.

Properly done, it can be quite violent. Directed against the solar plexus, a potential knockout blow.


A lot of folks think of Lee as an egomaniacal movie-star. He was that, but he was also a serious and studious martial artist who synthesized what was most likely the basis for what we are calling "mixed martial arts" today.
His fighting techniques (as opposed to film work) were direct, simple, and fast.

Sounds like a push to me, it also looked like one on the video I saw. Admittedly, I am no expert on Lee's techniques.

As far as I know you are quite right that Lee had an mma-type of mindset, saying something along the lines of:

"A year of training in boxing and wrestling beats a lifetime in traditional arts."

He was before his time in that regard.

 

[Bikewer]

I worked with the technique for a bit against my home-made PVC "Mook Jong". If you have been involved in the martial arts for a while, you can get a pretty good impression of striking force just from the physical indicators you experience on impact.
How does the target move, how does the feedback from impact "feel", and so forth.
Though I make no claims towards mastery of this particular technique, I could tell just from the impact I was generating that this was not a "pushing" technique. And I'm not nearly as quick as Lee was...

This was one of the complaints against some of Lee's techniques; only he could perform them well. Small, extremely fit, and lightning-fast, numbers of his students could not use some techniques efficiently.

It's remarkable that though Lee died in 1973, he's still a hot cover-boy in the martial-arts press.

 

[jmercer]

Sounds like a push to me, it also looked like one on the video I saw. Admittedly, I am no expert on Lee's techniques.

It's not a push. I can - and have - demonstrated it... there's nothing mystical about it at all.

Punches and kicks are still subject to F = ma; Force = mass times acceleration. Acceleration happens over distance; the longer the distance, the more potential acceleration is available.

Non-one-inch punches make obvious use of distance to generate acceleration - you can see it in the motion of the body, as per the TV program. However, the so-called "1 inch punch" utilizes the internal framework of the body - the skeleton and joints - instead of the overtly visible use of distance in a karate or boxing punch.

I have no opinion of how an "internal" approach compares in force to the classical "external" punch; however, I can cite from personal experience (on both ends of the strike) that a surprising amount of force can be generated in an apparently instantaneous manner.

Bruce Lee's demonstration is an ok example... Keep in mind that Bruce Lee was almost certainly limiting the amount of force he was generating; the objective wasn't to hurt the subject, but to demonstrate that power can be generated with comparatively little visible motion. The people being demonstrated to had never seen or encountered such a technique, and were quite skeptical. (As they should have been at the time!)

If you watch Lee's demo carefully, you can see how he's using his body for the distance involved.

 

[krelnius]

k

mercuryturrent, if u watch the show you will see a karate pro's side kick fall far short of the muay thai knee and even the spinning back kick of TKD. While yes a high kick does fight your own flexibility the muscles in the legs far outclass those in the arms. Squat 400 curl 150 kinda thing.

I watched the video again last night, i taped it the first time and while most would think that to get ANY kind of power like EVERY martial art clearly points out you have to start an attack from your feet even if its an upper body attack, but even tho the CG animation they show makes it seem as tho Glen Levy (the Ninjitsu artist) moves his feet, upon closer inspection you can see he stands still aside from hims arms and upper body in the actual footage of him and not the CG.

Another thing I would like to point out is that he is also a pro stunt man and coordinator that has done work on that new posiedon movie as well as hiliariously awesome things like playing a character on xena:warrior princess and even doing stunts and characters for episodes of power rangers. His Bio at IMDB films says that he got most of his amazing skills from training as a kid trying to be like the martial artists he saw in films. The problem was he didnt know they used wire work so he thought he could eventually train hard enough to do these things in reality. This might attribute to why when he jumped on the plumblossoms the Muay Thai champ said it seemed like he was using wires, infact in his Bio it specifically says that he can do a lot of amazing wire tricks without the wires at all.

Oh, and he has 5 black belts, so I think were counting him out if we assume his blow is all ninjitsu.

Another thing worth mentioning is, fight your own gravity all you want but I've watched pro's fighting in rings and cages and roundhouse and spinning back kicks, while slower than punches, always deal more damage. Specifically speaking there was 1 amazing spinning back kick by george saint pierre in UFC in his first fight against matt hughes that was amazing and sent hughes literally up off his feet and into the cage wall. A punch my lay you flat but I've watched hundreds of hours of MMA and never seen a punch send someone flying like this. I've also seen CroCop drop Bob Sapp with a single punch. It was to the jaw and broke sapps jaw causing him to tap immediately. Later, being interviewed sapp revealed it was a knee earlier in the fight that hurt him the most.

Fianlly, its worth mentioning that even if a punch aimed to kill should be stronger as a post above me pointed out their are 2 parts of the formula for force MASSxACCELERATION. Not only did the Ninjitsu technique start as close or closer than any of the punching techniques but he was easily one of the lightest 2 fighters on the show and hit reasonably harder than guys larger than him.

True ninjitsu blows would be aimed at being disabling or killing blows, but I highly doubt the boxer, tkd, or muay thai artists were holding anything back. Watch the video they are putting everything into these hits. Oh, and that rock-bodied TKD guy everyone has mentioned got to go at the dummy with a crobar and baseball bat during the weapons test. One of the female technicians points out that Glen Levy's hammerfist beat a baseball bat OR crobar to the HEAD.

I don't care what gets said, I've taken 4 staples to my head from being hit with a baseball bat and I've never been hit anything like what I felt that day anywhere on my body by anyone. The TKD artist wasnt a wuss either, he hit the dummy hard and with enough force to kill a person if he hit them in the head, just not as much as Glen Levy's hammerfist.

Also, its worth pointing out that Bruce Lee was a ROCK as far as tone and muscle went. Infact, according to his workout routines that are still on paper, if he really did what he wrote then he would be placed in the 100th percentile right now for strength. Incredible. Thats why he hit like a nightmare. Training. Glen Levy on the other hand, while obviously having trained 25 years and obtained 5 black belts is not incredibly muscular. Infact, he looks completely average...I suppose just like a ninja should look lol. I mean who suspects the average lookin fella?

 

[Ordf. Mjau]

It's not a push. I can - and have - demonstrated it... there's nothing mystical about it at all.


Non-one-inch punches make obvious use of distance to generate acceleration - you can see it in the motion of the body, as per the TV program. However, the so-called "1 inch punch" utilizes the internal framework of the body - the skeleton and joints - instead of the overtly visible use of distance in a karate or boxing punch.

I have no opinion of how an "internal" approach compares in force to the classical "external" punch; however, I can cite from personal experience (on both ends of the strike) that a surprising amount of force can be generated in an apparently instantaneous manner.

Not mystical at all?

I still think he was just pretty good at delivering a very short push very quickly. Nothing else is needed to explain what he did, at least on the videos i saw.

 

[krelnius]

hmm

I think making the assumption that the only thing involved here is just being good at delivering a quick, hard, short range hammerfist is a mistake.

Its ridiculous to assume that the other martial artists couldnt do the same under the given circumstances and when you consider they all had considerable experience they shouldnt be far outclassing eachother. Even if they were, ANYONE hitting harder than a baseball bat wielded by a grown man and doing it with their HAND is not adding up in my mind.

Go get a bat at the local sports shop in ur town, take it, hit something with it then try to imagine you or anyone else doing that with your hand. Then tell me he is just good at a short range punch. I'm not saying their is "chakra" or anything supernatural involved but I know for a fact that its not just a good punch. Its ridiculous, a phenomenon at least.

Everyone and their uncle can dissagree with me and say its no big deal, but nobody alive stands up to a bat or crobar and yet martial artists fight hand to hand every day. Nobody dies. No other martial artist on the show could do what he did either. Keep in mind he isnt a champ at all, as far as his Bio said he has never even done competition martial arts. Infact, he does comedy, stand up, stunt work, wire work...he doesnt have time to be training the best technique in the world. He also wasnt a huge guy, so toss out the mass half of the mXa=F and as far as acceleration well, watch the tape, the wushu champ hits faster.

So, please explain how LIGHTER and SLOWER = MORE FORCE. I've watched it over and over in envy and I'm telling you I'm baffled. I've got hours of pro's like crocop, bas rutten, gracies, dekkers, hughes, fedor, wandy, gomi, you name the weight class and the champ and I've got them on video and they all have landed dead on blows atleast 1 time in 1 fight and in some cases it didnt even knock their opponent out. (not that all of those fighters are primarily stand up) The point is, bigger, stronger, faster, and Glen Levy hits harder than them. Thats what I want explained.

If you think its just a good punch, ok, then please tell the heavyweight champs of the world that theirs is not so good.

 

[jmercer]

Not mystical at all?

Nope. At least, not as I'm taking your meaning of "mystical" to be, as in "magical". Mystical can also mean highly, intensely focused through meditation and practice. In the latter definition, there is a value to "mystical visualization", just like there's a value to sports visualizations in pro athletes.

I still think he was just pretty good at delivering a very short push very quickly. Nothing else is needed to explain what he did, at least on the videos i saw.

Well, in essence, every linear strike is just a push delivered very quickly.

 

[jmercer]

I think making the assumption that the only thing involved here is just being good at delivering a quick, hard, short range hammerfist is a mistake.

Its ridiculous to assume that the other martial artists couldnt do the same under the given circumstances and when you consider they all had considerable experience they shouldnt be far outclassing eachother. Even if they were, ANYONE hitting harder than a baseball bat wielded by a grown man and doing it with their HAND is not adding up in my mind.

Go get a bat at the local sports shop in ur town, take it, hit something with it then try to imagine you or anyone else doing that with your hand. Then tell me he is just good at a short range punch. I'm not saying their is "chakra" or anything supernatural involved but I know for a fact that its not just a good punch. Its ridiculous, a phenomenon at least.

Everyone and their uncle can dissagree with me and say its no big deal, but nobody alive stands up to a bat or crobar and yet martial artists fight hand to hand every day. Nobody dies. No other martial artist on the show could do what he did either. Keep in mind he isnt a champ at all, as far as his Bio said he has never even done competition martial arts. Infact, he does comedy, stand up, stunt work, wire work...he doesnt have time to be training the best technique in the world. He also wasnt a huge guy, so toss out the mass half of the mXa=F and as far as acceleration well, watch the tape, the wushu champ hits faster.

So, please explain how LIGHTER and SLOWER = MORE FORCE. I've watched it over and over in envy and I'm telling you I'm baffled. I've got hours of pro's like crocop, bas rutten, gracies, dekkers, hughes, fedor, wandy, gomi, you name the weight class and the champ and I've got them on video and they all have landed dead on blows atleast 1 time in 1 fight and in some cases it didnt even knock their opponent out. (not that all of those fighters are primarily stand up) The point is, bigger, stronger, faster, and Glen Levy hits harder than them. Thats what I want explained.

If you think its just a good punch, ok, then please tell the heavyweight champs of the world that theirs is not so good.

So what exactly are you saying here?

 

[krelnius]

well 3 things

3 possible options i see

1. He is the best.
2. He cheated.
3. He knows something nobody else knows.

Those are the options as I see it, either he was really better, or he cheated, or he simply is all technique but knows some technique that nobody else that i've ever seen in martial arts knows. The 3rd is highly unlikely, the first is unlickely given his bio's lifestyle with a real job and acting and doing comedy when would he train to master some amazing unheard of undiscovered technique? Finally, number 1 seems incredibly unlikely as well given that their are thousands of martial artists with more experience, larger muscles, and obviously faster martial artsits as well (the wushu artist from the show). So, I dunno exactly what or how he did...thats why I'm asking here, so people with more knowledge of the human body can explain how he kinda bent the whole MxA thing....cause if he isnt then everyone else there is an amateur, and they obviously were not, they were all champs in their own arts! They know how to put their weight into an attack for petes sake.

Also, it doesnt take a finely tuned body to hit damn hard with a bat and glen levy hit harder with his hand, so he knows something we don't, maybe there is a way to spin your arm and whip up more force at the insade hammerfist than with any other part of the body but I'll be damned if science would not have realized that by now, so you tell me what it was, afterall I'm the one originally asking the question.

Don't expect me to settle for "he punches hard" tho. Thats crap and anyone with a baseball bat will tell you thats BS.

 

[jmercer]

Techique and training would account for it. Also, remember - the guys being tested are most emphatically not the top fighters in the world. It would have been much more instructive to have them perform followed by some of the UFC and NHB guys, not to mention the current heavyweight boxing champ. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the details of this... if for no other reason than it's one helluva small statistical sample.

Thing is, hitting hard is a relative term.

It's also folly to compare arts and techniques based on individuals; some people are simply better physical activities. I saw an article today where Albert Pujols was given the same test that Babe Ruth was given 85 years ago. Link here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060822/ap_on_sc/bbn_pujols_science

As you'll see from the link, Al shows similar physical and mental characteristics to Ruth - way above average.

So keep in mind that part of this stuff is genetics.