In any case, a number of topics and phrases that I've discussed or used all came together in an extremely short chapter in Dave Grossman's book On Killing.
On Soapbox...
NOTE: Please read the darned book yourself! No excuse some of youse guys quoting someone else quoting the book, or arguing about whether or not what I say is substantiated in the literature.
Off Soapbox...
In any case, this book (and a few others) should be required reading for a black belt in any martial art. I'm going through it a second time these days.
THINGS YACKED ABOUT LATELY ON THE FORUMS...
1) Whether or not humans do or don't have an innate resistance to killing.
2) Whether or not "Uechi pointy things" are valid self defense (not sparring, not full contact sport fighting) techniques.
3) Forum martial bravado from cyber warriors vs. those that have "seen the elephant" and tend not to be so full of themselves.
The particular section of the book I'm referring to is on killing and physical distance. According to Lt. Col. Grossman's theme, modern computerized warfare sanitizes the act of killing in war so that kill rates are dramatically increased. Actually though there's a flip side to this. Just as it's easy to kill when you don't have to look a man in the face, so too is it easy for victims in war to accept killing without mass psychological trauma when they don't see the faces of their tormenters. Interesting... Many of the theories in WWII held by Nazi Germany (terrorizing Britain into submission with massive bombings) turned out not to be true. The population was instead galvanized.
Meanwhile killing when you have to see the face of the opponent and/or hear the sounds of death are psychologically traumatic to the point that the vast majority of soldiers CANNOT do it (15 to 20 percent killing rates in most wars pre Vietnam) without significant psychological conditioning. And the flip side here is that the psychological trauma induced on victims is maximized when they see the faces of their tormentors. A classic example is the suffering of the Jews in the Nazi death camps at the hands of the psychopathic personalities chosen to do these deeds.
The book in this section goes from "bombing range" all the way to "hand-to-hand combat range," and even "sexual range." It starts with the clinical and finishes with the kind of stuff that can make you stay awake at night.
Raffi, you need to read the chapter on "Killing at Edged-Weapon Range: An Intimate Brutality." You'll never view your art the same way again!
But the good stuff for you Kara*te (empty hand) practitioners is the chapter on hand-to-hand combat range. I will quote sections from this short chapter.
Oh really? Must not have heard some of what we've heard... But I digress.At hand-to-hand combat range the instinctive resistance to killing becomes strongest. While some who have studied the subject claim that man is the only higher-order species that does not have an instinctive resistance to killing his own species, its existence is recognized by almost any high-level karate practitioner.
Ever wonder why they ban those techniques in the UFC fights?An obvious method of killing an opponent involves a crushing blow to the throat. In movie combat we often see one individual grab another by the throat and attempt to choke him. And Hollywood heroes give the enemy good old punch in the jaw. In both instances a blow to the throat (with the hand held in various prescribes shapes) would be a vastly superior form of disabling or killing the foe, yet it is not a natural act; it is a repellant one.
I get the impression that Grossman is a psychologist and not a psychiatrist. I believe a round in the cadaver lab would have made him state his case just a little differently. (Right Ian?) Nevertheless, his point (oops!) is well taken.The single most effective and mechanically easiest way to inflict significant damage on a human being with one's hand is to punch a thumb through his eye and on into the brain, subsequently stirring the intruding digit around inside the skull, cocking it off toward the side, and forcefully pulling the eye and other matter out with the thumb.
I got to thinking about this. A lot. Actually I had a student in my karate class once explain the technique to me. Then I thought about it some more... Then... BINGO!!!
Ever heard of a boshiken? (Thumb fist)
Sorry, I don't feel it's ethical to post this on the internet. What do you think, Van? I think people who want to read the gruesome details (and ALL karate instructors) should buy the book and read page 132.One karate instructor trains his high-level students in this killing technique by having them...
It continues...
Read this chapter. Then think about it... You'll never doubt the capability of ONE Uechi pointy thing (the boshiken) again...As we will observe when we study the process by which the U.S. Army raised its firing rates from 15 to 20 percent in World War II to 90 to 95 percent in Vietnam, this procedure of precisely rehearsing and mimicking a killing action is an excellent way of insuring that the individual is capable of performing the act in combat.
In the case of (censored above), the process is made even more realistic by (Read the book!!!) Few individuals can walk away from their first such rehearsal without being badly shaken and disturbed by the action they have just mimicked. The fact that they are overcoming some form of natural resistance is obvious.
And so it is with this "empty hand" art. Much food for thought.Man has a tremendous resistance to killing effectively with his bare hands. When man first picked up a club or a rock and killed his fellow man, he gained more than mechanical energy and mechanical leverage. He also gained psychological energy and psychological leverage that was every bit as necessary in the killing process. In some distant part of man's past he acquired this ability. Two major religious works, the Bible and The Torah, both speaking for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and one of its first uses was Cain's overcoming his instinctive resistance in order to kill his brother, Abel. He probably did so not with his bare hands, but with an application of mechanical and psychologcal leverage not available to any other creature on the face of the earth.
- Bill
