In “Is head-butting for real?” Gfactor addresses the finer points of head-butting. It’s a very good article, but it didn’t answer something I’ve been wondering for a long time. I have a rather large and heavy head. I tend to have a natural “instinct” to head-butt, if you will, but have pretty much never seriously done so because
a) I’m not often in a situation where it is prudent
b) I don’t know what’s going to happen
Now, forehead to forehead never occurred to me. In fact, forehead to anything sounds like asking for trouble. My instinctive head-butt would be with the side of my head somewhere over and behind the ear to the face. So what would happen? I’ve hit that place on various vary hard objects by accident throughout my life (and let’s get the “and it shows” jokes out of the way now ) and nothing ever won – plywood breaks, sheet metal dents, cabinet doors get their hinges ripped off (long story). Worst case is when both a large steel corner and I wind up momentarily dazed. I know that overall I’ve been lucky with not having killed or seriously hurt myself, but I still have a lot of trouble visualizing how hitting somebody on the face with a hard part of one’s head could knock you out but not them.
Faces seem a little fragile, and in movies the head-butter usually assists themselves by pulling on the back of the head-buttees head. Forehead to forehead seems retarded, but somehow it just feels that a single full force hit with a skull to center of a face would at the very list be permanently disfiguring, and perhaps in a lot of cases even permanently disabling. What am I missing (assuming the maneuver can be executed)?
Any discussion of head butting should include a mention of Wesley Willis (may he rest in peace). Wesley was an obese, homeless, mentally ill, possibly idiot savant, who performed music and drew bus pictures in Chicago.
His songs included ditties like: I Kicked Batman’s Ass, Ten Minute Oil Change, Rock Saddam Hussein’s Ass, and my personal favorite Fuck With Me and Find Out.
He was known for head butting, and did some jail time since he often went off his meds and head butted the unsuspecting random person. Here is what Wiki said about Wes:
I met him in 2000, and found him likable in a weird way. He died in 2003, leaving an estate of less than $300 although he recorded over a thousand songs.
Headbutting forehead-to-forehead works if you are prepared and the other person isn’t. I remember learning to play soccer and thinking that heading a ball was always going to be painful, but after a bit you learn how to time things and such. So most of the time you can hit the ball no problem and not feel a thing. But sometimes (as low skill players like me are want to) you goof up and “Ouch!”
A prepared opponent basically makes headbutting a lose-lose situation. It’s a ball that is striking back. Not going to work.
OTOH, if the guy doesn’t see it coming, it’s going to hurt him a lot and you not-so-much.
When I was a lot younger I saw a head butt in a movie and decided to copy it if I got in any fights. I got in a fight with my sister and she never saw it coming and I grabbed her shoulders and slammed my forhead into her face. It hurt her pretty badly and she started crying. So I think it is highly effective if you hit the softer parts of the face like the nose and eyes.
Ok, head-but to soft tissue: this can work.
Head-but to hard forehead: not a good idea. (I’m not sure how the element of surprise can help you ftg. Are you saying that the attacker can obtain a superior angle? Wouldn’t attacker and defender suffer equivalent damage on average?)
Anyway, I was wondering whether most head-buts depicted in movies were head-to-forehead or whether they properly portrayed an impact to the nose, face or other soft parts. Or is it ambiguous?
I watched Red Eye because the question was specifically about that movie. The head butt is to the forehead; the butter bleeds a tiny bit, but the buttee is immediately and bloodlessly knocked out.
Yeah. I’ve been the recipient of a headbutt. In Glasgow, as it happens.
My attacker aimed for my nose, and hit it with some skill. It hurt me a lot, but he was sufficiently unaffected to grab my head again as I reeled and slam it off a stone wall.
Lesson? Someone may well be a moron, but it isn’t always a good idea to point out the fact
I was a wee bit disappointed that I read through the entire Staff Report without coming across the phrase ‘Glaswegian handshake’, which is how I heard it.
Perhaps Gfactor was concerned the sterotyping would cause the article to be kilt.
Some martial artists condition their head to such a degree that they can break concrete blocks with a headbutt. If they went forehead-to-forehead with a normal person they probably would be fine.
I can break boards and tiles with a headbutt, it’s ridiculously simple, doesn’t even draw blood. I’ve never tried bricks out of a sense of self preservation, but I’m confident I could do it if required.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with “conditioning the head”. As the article says, the problem is that a badly executed headbutt shakes up the brain. You can’t condition your brain. The reason why you can break bricks with a headbutt is entirely due to technique. Strike high up on the head, use the legs for power, keep the neck rigid.
The idea that you can develop callouses of the brain doesn’t make much sense.
hiya
the instructor in the video clip in the article isnt Bob Spour its me, Richard Grannon
there is another youtube clip on how to headbutt here which is a bit more informative in terms of combative application headbutt video
The headbutt is a very effective technique, but it has to be delivered with precision and skill to get results
I had some friends from the working class area of NewCastle who would head butt each other for fun (lightly I guess as no one was ever knocked out). I thought they called it a “Scottish Kiss”, but it may have been Glasgow.
OK, so I’m probably a day late and a dollar short with an example of head-butting before 1980 (and please let me know if I should have posted this in the original thread). But, for whatever it might be worth, this guy has plot summaries for a bunch of Three Stooges shorts. According to him, in the 1942 masterwork What’s the Matador, Curly head-butts a bull, knocking out the unfortunate beast. I’d be willing to bet that the Stooges didn’t let that tactic go unused in other circumstances. I’m not a Stooge fan, though, so this is all I got.
) and nothing ever won – plywood breaks, sheet metal dents, cabinet doors get their hinges ripped off (long story). Worst case is when both a large steel corner and I wind up momentarily dazed. I know that overall I’ve been lucky with not having killed or seriously hurt myself, but I still have a lot of trouble visualizing how hitting somebody on the face with a hard part of one’s head could knock you out but not them.
