In the movies, it’s always easy to knock someone unconscious. All you have to do is give them a whack on the head or karate chop to the neck or, of course, the old Vulcan Nerve Pinch. But boxers can take repeated shots to the head and stay on their feet. So, if I’m ever being held prisoner and want to make a daring escape, how can I knock my guards out?
I believe a blow delivered to the correct spot where the base of the skull joins the neck will do the trick. You can also hit someone on the temple hard enough to break it, but I’m assuming you don’t want to kill your captor.
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
It just ain’t as easy as the movies portray it (suuuprise)
I think you would have to get really lucky to knock someone out with one blow. I keep thinking that those people in the movies that get “knocked out” with one blow are gonna get up and spoil the following scene.
One of the few to be personally welcomed to this board by Ed Zotti.
Yours truly,
aha
There is a ‘button’ located about half-way between your jaw-bone (earlobe) and chin. When you see boxers going at it for a long time, then that 1 blow hits in the face and they crumple- that is the winner hitting the button. Maybe you’ve heard of a ‘glass-jaw?’ That’s when someone just needs to be tapped there and they go down. It has to do with the placement of nerves in the face and neck- and no, in a real fight, it’s hard to hit. You have to hit someone there with an angled punch- say from about 4 to 5 o’clock going to 10 or 11 o’clock - hard enough to turn their head to the side (and up!) so that it gets the nerves in the neck.
There are other ways to knock someone out- choke-holds (which are not a knock-out due to lack of air, but because blood cannot escape the brain, therefore you give someone a mini-embolism), heavy hits to the back of the head, etc. But they are more dangerous and sometimes can kill a person.
I used to box a bit when I was a kid, but I cut easily, I bleed a lot, and I don’t like pain.
Well, of all the times I fought, I only had two “one punch” knockouts. By that, I don’t mean the kind where you’re just battering someone until they fall, but one clean swat that makes the other guy fall down go boom.
One was an overhand right that caught the guy on the temple. Lucky shot.
The other was a right cross that landed on the flat part of the jaw.
Now, I’m no brain surgeon (or even a good boxer), but it sure seems to me that if you can rattle that cage a bit, Mr. Brain will shut you right down.
And I won’t even go into the times I found myself looking up at a guy in a blue shirt holding fingers up at me.
I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me.
—Stuart Smalley
Sorry, but shots to the base of the neck are not likely to knock somebody out.
There is a technique in kyusho that is a triple strike that can knock somebody out which ends with a strike to the neck (it is commonly called the “three point knock out”). It does work, I have had it done to me, but I feel obliged to point out that it would be practically impossible to get in a fight since it require very precise aiming. Sufficient training could overcome this drawback but most people do not have the time or discipline to develop this skill. As pointed out to me by a colleague it does have applications in the early phase of a confrontation before it becomes an all out brawl.
The concept stems from nerve strikes and the cycle of destruction (as opposed to the cycle of healing). If I recall correctly, the order is Earth-Water-Fire-Metal-Air (opposite for healing). Every pressure point/nerve center in the body has an associated type (Earth, Water, Fire, Air & Metal as well as being a yin or yang point). Hitting a single pressure point results in pain, two results in a stun & nausea, 3 in a short knock out, 4 in possible death/long knock out, 5 in death. Hitting alternation yin then yang points heightens the effect. There are plenty of “three point knock outs”, practically endless really, other than the one ending with the neck.
The easiest way to knock somebody out, that you could actually realistic use in self defense, is with the carotic choke. As with most martial technique, it is pretty hard to teach it properly online and there are plenty of ways to do it wrong. A properly applied carotic choke will put somebody out in 5-15 seconds.
Addendum: Two additional points.
#1) Depending on who you ask pressure points/nerve stikes do not work or have greatly decreased effectiveness on between 20% to 33% of all people.
#2) There are additional ways to knock people out with strikes (like hitting the jaw bone about directly underneath where the eye is). However, all of the generally cannot be counted on to be struck because of the precision aiming required and hits there have to largely attributed to luck. This, of course, doesn’t mean you should TRY to hit them (better than nothing after all), but developing a self defense mindset by counting on these sorts of blows is ill-advised.
Holy moly! When I stated to answer there were no replies!
There are strike zones that most people learn on their second day in a martial arts class. One is right below the nose, one is just up and behind your ears (you can feel a dent there) and so on.
Of course, in reality hitting those spots and hitting them CORRECTLY to get the desired effect is pretty hard without training.
One thing I did learn in a seminar on the differences between men’s and women’s brains (and yes…there are some differences) is that a human can withstand a front-to-back impact MUCH better than a side-to-side impact. Hence boxers generally prefer to swing in and hit their opponent on the side of the head rather than the front.
While this side-to-side rattling of your head is much more likely to knock a person out it is also more likely to cause permanent brain injury.
Forget about those ‘strike points’ you learned in your second day of martial arts class. You’re not going to knock anyone out by hitting them there. While you’re at it, forget about all those killing blows you heard about, like driving the nose into the brain, etc. Almost all of it is myth.
There are basically two ways to knock somebody out - one is to damage the brain by having it slosh around and slam into the skull. This is your classic concussion, and it’s what knocks most boxers out.
The second method is to cut off the flow of oxygen to the brain - the carotid choke that Glitch mentioned. BTW, I’d like to add a safety warning for the kids here - just because someone can hold their breath for 30 seconds without damage does NOT mean that you can hold someone in a choke for 30 seconds with safety - a carotid choke hold can kill someone very quickly. When you hold your breath, the brain gets progressively less oxygen as your body absorbs what’s in your lungs. When you choke off the blood supply to the brain, it gets ZERO oxygen instantly. There have been many, many cases of accidental death because a bouncer in a bar or a police officer didn’t understand this.
A more problematic way to knock someone out is through damage to the nerves which transmit information to the brain. Extreme pain can cause unconsciousness, and possibly disorientation due to nerve damage. This would be the triple-strike Glitch had mentioned, but it’s problematic first because it’s extremely difficult to do properly, and second because everyone’s nervous system behaves differently in subtle ways.
In the end, it is actually very difficult to knock someone out. When a boxer knocks someone out with one punch, it’s usually a cumulative effect from the dozens of punches the other boxer has already received.
If you’re planning on getting into a fight, remember that it’s going to be painful, bloody, and not at all cool or quick. The Bruce Lee ‘Drop em with a kick’ fighting style exists only in the movies.
The other thing that movies seldom show is that blows to the head are often fatal, or at least very damaging. Concussions are no laughing matter; one doesn’t just hop up from a concussion and start whaling on another person. Side effects of concussions include: nausea, blurred vision, memory loss, brain damage, and death.
Often times a blow hard enough to render a person unconscious can also shatter the skull, which leads to a whole other mess of problems.
Glitch and you others:
What are the facts on the choke holds? I had been told by a few instructors that certain choke holds weren’t actually ‘chokes.’ They didn’t deny O2 to the brain, that they knocked people out by not allowing blood to leave, thus increasing the pressure around the brain, and thus, bye-bye. Now, I can work it out that a carotid artery choke is not that type, because an artery by def carries blood from the heart TO the brain. Therefore denying blood to the brain when cut-off…Maybe I was confused or didn’t hear them right, but it made sense at the time. As I recall this was a discussion between the differences between choking someone with hands from the front (lack of O2), and the highly functional right-hand-on-the-left-bicep, left-hand-on-the-back-of-the-head (either pushing forward or to the side so the opponents ear touches their shoulder).
Can you clear this up a little?
Oh, and to add my $.02 on the dangerous issue(again)- these things are really really bad to do to drunk people. You don’t want to go to prison because some drunk throws a wild one at ya. Of all times to walk away, that is one of them.
The answer, Tomcat, is a lot of both. (You knew that was coming right?)
The brain is very oxygen hungry. Depriving it of oxygen makes it go out real fast which is why the carotic/carotid choke is so effective. So, it is literally a choke.
Some chokes, like the catotic/carotid. if applied without care or improperly can be fatal in a number of ways.
First, it is possible to accidentally break the neck of the “victim” as he starts to “relax”.
Second, you can keep excessive blood in the brain causing severe medical … problems.
However, it is very unusual for this to happen unless the choker does one of two things.
- Applies the thing very tightly and for too long.
- Uses a reinforced choke. This was a real problem when the police first started using this choke (in the 60s), because they were taught to use their baton or flashlight instead of their arm. The choke works MUCH better like this. It also was accidentally killing people.
All in all, you don’t have to worry about causing any permanent damage as long as you just use your arms in the choke and make sure to release the “chokee” fairly promptly after he goes out.
One last caveat, the carotic/carotid choke is a short term knock out. It lasts between 2 (!!!) and 20 seconds. That’s right it can last as short as 2 seconds (typically if the choke is entirely tight and some oxygen was still getting through). So, once you get your knock out, get out of there before the guy gets back up.
sigh proofread first, Glitch …
that last bit should be “Typically if the choke isn’t entirely tight…” instead of “Typically if the choke is entirely tight…”.
I used to think that one of the things they taught you in cowboy school was how to hit people just hard enough to knock them out for a precise length of time. You’ve seen it. The guy with the white hat whacks a bad guy in the back of the head with his pistol and then remarks, “I reckon he’ll be out for about an hour.”
Then I spent some time with neurosurgeons and emergency physicians and found out that to hit someone hard enough that you can be pretty certain that they will knocked unconsious you will have to hit them hard enough that there is significant chance you will kill them.
The other thing they don’t cover in B westerns is the post-concussion syndrome. People who have been knocked unconscious for a while do not wake up, rub their head, and go back to business as usual. In fact they are likely to be confused and have memory problems. Sensitive tests show that many people who have been knocked out still have subtle mental defects months later.
I once saw a movie called High Risk, about some working-class schmoes who decide to steal a million dollars from a drug kingpin in Columbia. So they go to South America and find the guy’s compound. Now to get past the guards. Stealth is essential. They sneak up behind the first lookout and one of our heroes decides to knock him out, whacking him in the head just like in the movies. “OWWWWWWW! AH! MI CABESA! OWWWWWW!” the guard yells as he holds his head. Laughed my freakin’ head off. Seemed much more realistic that just knocking a guy out. Only time I’ve seen it happen that way in a movie.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
Thanks Glitch! Clears it up a little.
I have so many thoughts going through my head that sometimes it’s hard to finish a
Tomcat, re-reading your post I can see I didn’t completely answer everything.
There is essentially two types of chokes, and three main ways to knock somebody out.
Knock Outs
- Deprive oxygen.
- Nervous system shock.
- Exhaustion.
The first two are pretty self explanatory so I’ll save some bandwidth.
The third is to break the will of the body to continue fighting. This is very difficult thanks to the “fight or flight” instinct. This includes causing such massive damage that even if the body has the energy to fight the rest will not respond. If you want to see this in action do an “iron shirt” exercise and then some heavy sparring. You won’t win. 
In any event, a technique which causes blood to not leave the brain would, IMO anyway, be a type 2 or type 3 knock out. Either it causes the nervous system to shut down, or it breaks the ability of the body to fight.
Chokes
Both types of chokes are type 1 knock outs (deprive oxygen). The two types are:
- Lungs
- Brain
Choking out the lungs are effective in that NO part of the body is getting oxygen. Try letting somebody get a hard front choke on you (BE CAREFUL! Get somebody you trust to do it right!). All your muscles start to shut down because none of them are getting much oxygen.
However, there are some drawbacks. First, it isn’t easy to stop all air from coming into the lungs. You really have to press HARD. Second, by pressing so hard you can accidentally crush their throat. Third, legally, it looks bad. It makes you look like aggressor. Fourth, any throat choke from the front is pretty easy to get off.
So that leaves choking out the brain. There is only one way to do that and that is to stop the flow of blood through the carotid artery.
The drawbacks to this is … well, I covered them above.
I hope that helps clear it up some more. If not feel free to ask any follow-up question. I’ll answer it to the best of my abillity if I can.
Here’s a somewhat relevant thread from a couple weeks back.