In Cecil’s latest column, Is the “Ninja Death Touch” real?, he cites a study:
:eek:
Bet they had a lot of fun finding volunteers for that one. “Wanted: healthy individuals to serve as targets for martial arts experts testing their ‘death touch’ ability …”
Just this week on Fox’s local news here in Chicago there was a report on a man who claims that his Dim Mak prowess was such that he could knock a person out without actually coming in contactwith the person. This was demonstrated on several of his students, however when taken to a different martial arts studio to try his technique on the students there, he didn’t feel the right “vibe” coming off of them and could not reproduce the results.
All in all this has all the earmarks of a total fraud…
I’m actually wondering about the “44 year old teacher”. This sounds awfully similar to an incident which occurred at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, MD in the late 90s, though I forget exactly when and the name of the teacher involved (I went to a neighboring high school and didn’t know the man personally). I distinctly remember that he’d had a history of heart trouble that was generally blamed and that nobody was really surprised that he fainted and died shortly after breaking up the fight. Does anyone know which specific incident The Master was referring to?
In an episode of the TV series Quincy, there was an even more far-out claim made about dim mok:
A homicide victim was found with one of his major organs ruptured, but there was no obvious source of external trauma and the victim was alone when he died. Quincy’s hard-nosed investigation eventually revealed that a dim mok practitioner had placed his palm over the organ while the victim was still alive, and had set up some kind of mystic vibrations inside the organ such that it would rupture several hours later.
Kinda reminds me of the “quivering palm” power given to monks in AD&D, whereby they can touch a victim and command him to die any time up to a week later.
Heard of the term “rubbing the wrong way?” My tai chi chuan teacher says that if you rub certain parts of the body in the opposite rotation that he prescribed, you all but invite headaches, etc.
…
You don’t believe this, do you?
Originally Posted by capacitor
Response by Cisco
I absolutely believe it. You have your martial arts instructor move your knee in the opposite direction from its normal rotation, and you’ll get intense pain… right after that irritating cracking sound.
Ask a masseur. I vaguely recall that you can cause problems if you massage against the predominant path of the veins (back toward the heart).
Touché 
Do you recall the name of the schools used or the practitioner? This local martial arts snob was just wondering.
Film at 11- the Bullshido webside has a download of the failed TKO artist. I like the part where the roporter says"You just hit me in the head".
http://www.bullshido.net/modules.php?s=&name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownloaddetails&lid=80&ttitle=Dim_Mak_vs._BJJ
Special thinks to Phrost at the James Randi forum.
I suppose we could make some jokes about BJJ guys not knowing when they’ve been beaten, but…
That was pretty funny. Dillman’s come up in another recent thread.
Um … blood in veins normally flows toward the heart.
Yes, that’s what I said.
Ambiguity, there, in whether the paranthetical was supposed to agree with “the predominant path” or “against the predominant path”. Kinda makes you wish we had a standard precedence in English, or grouping delimiters, doesn’t it?
I’d just like to add that I fell victim to a blow to the carotid artery during a game of floor hockey. Clearly not a fatal blow, but a scary incident nonetheless.
We were playing in the gym/theatre of a local elementary school. I wasn’t actually playing when it happened, but sitting on “the bench”, which happened to be the edge of the stage at one end of the gym. And, of course, one of the hockey nets was centered directly in front of the stage.
While I was sitting as far away from what would be considered “behind” the net, I still had to watch for the occasional sharp-angle shot or rebound off a player or the crossbar of the net.
Unfortunately, at just the right - or, rather, wrong - moment, something (likely someone else not playing) took my attention for a brief moment. I turned my head slightly away from the floor at the same time a player proud of his hard (yet often inaccurate) shot struck the ball.
This guy was actually right in front of the net, yet missed wildly. But, as I said, he did have a hard shot, which happened to hit me right in the side of the neck. I was dazed but still awake, for a while at least. I slid off my seat to stand on the floor of the gym, but promptly passed out.
The guy in charge of floor hockey being played at the gym (this was during the summer, and part of the city’s “parks and recreation” program) almost died from fright. I quickly came to, however, and made by way into the hall to the water fountain.
After soaking my head and drinking a good gulp from the fountain, I stood up straight, and promptly passed out again. This time, dropping to my knees and lying flat on my back in a fairly awkward looking position. I quickly came to again, however, and sat off the rest of the game.
Now that I think about it, it may have been prudent for me to have made a quick trip to the hospital. I’m sure the guy in charge brought up the idea. Of course, if he had to drive me, he would have had to close up the gym. I’m sure another player would have offered in his place, but I insisted I was fine. After the game, I drove myself home. :eek: Wow. The more I think about it, the more scary it now seems.
And, while that was scary enough, I also think that, had I actually not turned my head, I might have gotten the hockey ball right in the Adam’s apple, which could have been even worse. (Is there a generally accepted medical term for the Adam’s apple?)
The guy that took the wild shot was a real braggart. I believe he played for one of the local school ice hockey teams, and while I don’t know if he was really anything special on the ice, he seemed to assume that he was just as good at floor hockey. I did get a good measure of revenge sometime later though.
While I usually always played defense, I also had a set of goalie equipment, and if one of the usual goalies couldn’t make it to a game, I’d step in net. Now, while I am a more than decent defenseman, I’d have to say that luck has played a major part in my exploits as a goaltender.
That said, I tended to play net very aggressively, coming out to play the ball and challenge oncoming players. When things got really busy around the net, I’d just flop down on the floor and try to cover as much of the bottom of the net as possible. (Which lead to some spectacular looking no-look saves. 
)
Anyhoo, the braggart - who also liked to cherry-pick (i.e. wait around at the center line for passes) - happened to get the ball and rush in for a breakaway. Playing my style, I rushed straight out at him and dove to poke the ball away with my stick.
Unfortunately for him, he either tripped and fell forward, or dove forward himself when he saw me coming. I ended up poking him right in the mouth, smashing out one of his front teeth. I quickly checked to see if he wasn’t seriously hurt in any way - then settled back into my net.
I do not apolize for things that don’t need an apology.
Anyhoo…
Beauty, what you experienced was probably due to a combination of hitting the carotid artery and the vegas nerve. The vegas nerve regulates heart rate and runs down the side of the neck. The carotid artery has been discussed in the article. By hitting both, you cause two things to happen: One the nerve that regulates heart rate is stimulated causing irregular heart rate for a moment. Two the carotid artery compresses, causing the current blood flow to “squirt” (its a technical term) in both directions. This causes the brain to register high blood pressure as lots of blood is suddenly in a very confined space and react by opening lots of capillarys in the trunk of the body. The “squirt” effect ends and suddenly all those blood vessels are waiting to be filled. This causes the head to lose quite a bit of blood into the trunk and you faint. I was taught this specifically as a way to knock an opponent out in a fight. It is unlikely in most cases to be fatal to a healthy human being.
Dim Mak is probably nothing more than good marketing on the part of fighting monks. The claim probably started with them stating that they could kill people long after they had hit them and no one would know what had killed the person on the outside. They would then punch the person very hard in the spleen (rupturing it) and say that person would die before two mornings had come (or some such). The person would be in agony and internally hemorrhaging but would not have any external appearance of injury except for some mild bruising. The local exagerrators would begin their stories and it would go from “That monk only punched him once and walked away, two days later he was dead!” to “Without even touching him, that monk killed him”. Chi and all that garbage doesn’t even enter into the equation. It is all good physics and physiology.
Thanks for the explanation, soaklord! I had a layman’s understanding about what probably happened with my carotid artery (my father is a paramedic and my sister is a nurse), but I had never heard of the vegas nerve. (Sounds like a gambling technique. )
Your mention of a shot to the spleen reminded me of another incident I was involved in. This time, however, I was the perpetrator of the injury. As is typical of many high-school boys, short hard punches are often exchanged in the course of “play”. During a makeshift game of softball (involving no more than a half-dozen players), I happened to hit a fellow classmate in just the wrong spot - a kidney, I believe.
While it was a typical playful punch :rolleyes: in which I never even drew back my arm, and struck him from a distance of no more than six inches, it seemed to have had some effect on him. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I really hurt him, or if he was just in a bad mood. He never said anything to me; just walked over to the fence and sat down, and looked annoyed. (We were all quite bored at the time.)
I believe this happened during a weekend. The next day of school, we learned that he had been “pissing blood” and had gone to the hospital to get things checked out. It wasn’t serious enough for him to miss any school though. I did feel pretty bad, and did apologize. And if someone knows me, they’d know I’m usually not someone who likes to roughhouse. So, it was somewhat strange that I briefly became known as the guy who made Matthew “piss blood”.
On the subject of “no-touch knock-outs”, here’s an article (translated from Russian; there’s a link to the original article on the page) about a supposed Russian super-soldier with such an ability…
Anyhoo…
soaklord, I think you mean the vagus nerve.
I think this is the video they sell for that.