Tag: martial arts

Mad Skillz: How to, in an appropriate context, choke somebody unconscious in 8 seconds

Let me open with an arbitrary disclaimer. Only try this at home if your home is being invaded and you can take the criminal by surprise. Even then, you might be better off kicking them in the groin.


Not the hold suggested below.

I don’t know when you’ll need to use this, and I hope you never will, but Craig Schwarze is a seriously tough guy. He doesn’t just watch UFC like the rest of us. He does martial arts stuff. He knows how to do stuff you’ve only seen Chuck Norris do. He blogs about Genesis 1. You don’t get much tougher. You should, by the way, check out his blog. I’ve been reading it pretty much since I started blogging, and his post rate a few years back inspired me to up the ante here.

Here is his guide to taking down said opponent.

1. Position yourself behind the subject

2. Take your right arm, hook it around the subjects neck, and then place your right hand on your left shoulder. At this stage, the subjects neck should be sitting comfortably in the crook of your elbow

3. Take your left hand and slide it behind the subjects head, with the palm facing toward you. Use it to grip your right shoulder. There should still be no pressure on the subjects neck

4. Gently begin to squeeze your elbows toward each other. Don’t press too hard or quickly, or you will “gas” your arms. Just steady pressure together

5. Your forearms would put great pressure on the arteries on either side of the subjects neck. There should be no pressure across the throat. If applied correctly, subject will lose consciousness within a few seconds

6. Check out a quick demonstration (sadly embedding is disabled on this video)

Thanks Craig.

Feel free to submit your own mad skillz via my email address, found in various locations around this page (try the header).

Samurai v Shadow

My new week’s resolution was to post less YouTube.

This video killed that almost straight away.

Bonus. This Wolverine v Hand graphic novel/video thing is cool.

Wolverine Vs The Hand from Gary Shore on Vimeo.

Both are from one cool thing a day.

Hoda Korosu – the art of improvised weaponry

This guy is pretty awesome – he could kill you with a magazine. Watch.

Or a book.

Or a newspaper.

Or, if you want to carry all of those at once… a briefcase.

A lightbulb moment

Cardboard tube fighting is so passe. All the tough guys are now taking their sporting conflict to the streets with fluorescent tubes. At least in Japan.

Once, at work, after replacing a dead bulb I thought it would be fun to swing the old tube around and ended up whacking it on the big bin outside. They shatter like crazy. I can’t imagine this being good for one’s health.

Some of the pictures at this link are a little disturbing. This is the least disturbing of the bunch.

japanese_neon_fight4.jpg

Car Fu

If you thought the best bit about Transformers 2 was the kung fu robots then you just have to check out this trailer for a Chinese movie that’s coming out this year. It looks awesome.

Geriatric ninjas

These old people are being taught cane-fu. The ultimate in “aged care”. Found here.

“In the two-hour session, participants are taught a sampling of moves to use in different situations. The cane can simply be swung in circles, used to grab a foot or neck, and fashioned into a bat or poker. Advanced techniques even show a senior how to use a cane to ward off someone with a gun or knife.”
“You just don’t realize how much pain you could put on somebody really quick,” said 61-year-old Ed Smoak of Pinellas Park. “Nobody thinks of a cane as being any kind of an impressive weapon but even a person like me — I’m disabled, like I said I don’t move real well — and even me, I could do this.”

Umbrella capers

Tokyo Raiders is a very good bad Hong Kong Kung Fu movie. With an umbrella wielding protagonist. As featured below.

He also competently wields a vacuum cleaner in this scene…



Effective. One can only imagine he’d have been more effective with this custom made umbrella weapon. The Umbuster .