Okay, I was watching “Midnight Run” and “My Cousin Vinny” this last weekend. On both movies, there were numerous instances of people getting knocked unconcious with one punch. Also, I have seen on many Star Trek episodes, Kirk is able to render his opponent unconcious with a single karate-type chop to the back of the head. My question is this: How hard is it to knock someone out? I imagine if it takes Tyson 2 or three punches to do it, the average man can’t expect to do it like in the movies. Second question: are these scenes from movies even remotely believable (Glass jaws?)?
It’s very believable, however you need to keep in mind some extenuating circumstances re: boxers:
- They’re wearing gloves, so probably no broken hands.
- They’re wearing mouth guards which cushion blows to the head much more than you might think.
- They’re used to getting hit in the head so they’re not so easy to knock out.
Being able to knock somebody out with one punch is no more or less believable than being able to kill somebody with one shot in a Western (or a Star Wars movie, for that matter).
If you know how to do it right, it’s “relativly” easy to KO someone - especially if they aren’t expecting it, but it doesn’t happen very much. There are a few threads on KO’s from a bit back, but since it’s the middle of the day I won’t try searching for them. Just from memory it has to do with the brain being bounced around in the skull a certain way to put it simply and different places to hit someone to maximize the effect. As far as the movies are concerned, yeah - they make it look much too easy. I don’t think it’s very common outside of boxing-type matches where you get half an hour’s worth of some dude standing there as a punching bag to try and get it right. I’ve never seen it happen in real life; kicking someone in the nuts or smashing a beer bottle over their head is much more common and a more sure thing for the attacker. Captain Kirk had to have some sort of futuristic space chop in order to save his ass from being vaporized all those times, but that one was about as realistic as Spock’s nerve pinch :D.
K.O.ing someone with a knife-hand (karate chop) to the back of the kneck is far easier than doing it by puching them in the head, at least in terms of the force required. I’ve seen people accidentallly KO’d from that strike that strike, and it was no-where near full power or on target. I’ve also come within a hairs breadth of being KO’d by an average sized woman using that move (my legs and balance went for about 5 minutes).
So yeah, Kirk’s knockout chop is more than plausible (though his technique is ridiculous).
I don’t know much about fighting but I did sit in on a seminar where a brain doctor from the University of Chicago was giving a speech (as boring as it sounds the speech was meant for laymen and was quite fascinating).
I do recall from that speech the doctor mentioning knocking someone out. While she didn’t have specific methods for doing this she did have some pointers.
Basically you can withstand front-to-back acceleration of your head MUCH better than you can withstand side-to-side motion. In short, punching someone square in the front of the head is much less likely to knock them out then hitting them on the side of the head.
Watch boxers, they go in for the side or, better yet, an upper-cut to the lower side of the jaw causing the head to both jerk up and spin to the side (kinda getting it all in there).
Of course, if you take martial arts there are other things you can do to improve your chances. There are strike zones all over the body and if you hit the right spot you’ll do far more damage then the same strike at a random spot that’s not a strike zone. On the head the temple, just above and behind the ear (you can feel a little dent there) and just under the nose on the upper lip. A good pop to any of those points (easier said than done to do it right) has a far greater chance of success in knocking someone out than just hitting someone somewhere on the head. BE WARNED…hitting people in those places may do more damage than just knocking them out (if done right). DO NOT do any of this unless you fear for your life (no joking around and it’s overkill for your typical bar brawl). You shouldn’t be fighting anyway…