Cat, dude, guy, fella…
Please forgive me...but I'm curious...[Why isn't a knee to the groin a more common fighting tactic?]
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This is very very much the case. In Dave Grossman’s text on the effectiveness of ‘combat’ fighting, appropriately titled On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and Peace, he notes in the section regarding the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that many times soldiers in combat and police officers involved in violent conflict often fail to note serious, painful, and even debilitating injuries until they are pointed out by other observers. In a combat situation the pain response is often attenuated by the body’s parasympathetic response to allow the person to keep fighting. This is the same ability that allows for the apparently superhuman feats of strength and endurance that occasionally appear regarding a parent rescuing a child and so forth. The “tunnel vision” and endorphin release for marathon runners is a somewhat less intense version of this response.
Of course, most bar fights are not combat in any sense of the word; they are a type of playfighting that Rory Miller (Meditations On Violence) calls “The Monkey Dance”. In essence, it is two guys posing for status, and this can be seen in behavior as each participant will try to be louder, bigger, and more boisterous than the other without actually making contact. Most actual fights either come out of chemical stimulation (drink, drugs) or encouragement/shame from external sources. Very rarely do these type of fights degenerate into hard-hitting combat, and the point of punching the face versus the body or crotch is to leave a visible mark on the opponent. The real danger is when more than two participants are involved, because the natural aggressive/protective pack behavior comes in; to wit, when an individual fighter is part of a group he is unwilling to be seen as weak by the group (thereby risking exclusion) and therefore individuals will escalate a fight that they would not normal engage upon by their lonesome. In general, 98% of the population (accoording to multiple studies cited by Grossman) will not voluntarily impose serious injury on another person via close contact without substantial training and conditioning to suppress their normal adversity to violence.
Regarding the question posted by the o.p., aside from the psychological impact of a groin strike as not being effective in a Monkey Dance type of fight, the groin is actually a fairly difficult target to strike without being snug up against the opponent. Aside from the crotch being a small target and the tested protected from above by the pelvic bone, it is an area that men are instinctively protective of, and the forward snapping-type kick required to hit the crotch is a slow and visible kick, usually requiring a preceding punch or strike to distract the
opponent. In practice, most forward kicks will end up hitting the thighs or blocked by the defender. If you are within contact range a knee strike or (if attacked from the rear) a heel kick can be quite effective, not only at causing pain to the testes in the case of an unprovoked attack (where the defender is not in combat mode) but also compressing the spine, and so the move is a reasonable one to teach for women’s defensive course, but not as effective in a stand-up fight. Most contact martial arts (karate, ju-jitsu, savate, Krag Maga) do teach groin strikes in various forms (kicks, punches, knee strikes, arm reaps, et cetera) as a part of their repertoire.
I do have an issue to pick with a number of posters who have suggested that not striking the groin is some kind of barroom version of (Mutually) Assured Destruction. Aside from the fact that this is not the case, it is also an inaccurate comparison. Assured Destruction is a deterrence theory that assumes that display of the capability of overwhelming force by both sides will inhibit either party from initiating an attack, not an unstated transactional agreement between parties in combat to not resort to a particular level of force. The adversity of fighters in a non-combat situation to perform serious maiming attacks isn’t out of the desire not to be subject to similar attacks–if this were the case, one would expect the fighter to be even more aggressive in order to incapacitate his attacker–but because he does not seek to and will not be rewarded by performing serious injury to the other party. Fighting, be it monkey dance or real combat, invokes only the most primitive areas of the mammalian forebrain (those involved in basic emotions) along with the hypothalamus (which controls autonomic functions) and does not really involve rational thought at all, which is why training comprised of very simple steps and basic movements practiced by rote is critical for developing good soldiers or other combatants.
Stranger
You’ve heard, you just won’t listen. Going back more years than I care to mention, I got in a LOT of street fights as a teenager. Probably tried to hit/kick some guy in the balls 20 times, all to no avail. Same with other guys trying it on me.
The groin is hard to get at and easy to defend. You can grab, punch, or whatever when the two of you are rolling around on the ground fighting, but it’s not going to get the desired results. Much better to go for the nose (blinds him with tears) sternum (knocks the wind out) or stomp his fingers (the PAIN!).
Trying to hit somebody in the nuts and cause enough pain to stop the fight does not work. Period. While you’re wasting time with that, the other guy will be kicking your ass.
Oh, I know. I wear one about five days a week 
Still, I don’t think light contact really counts in this case.
Bas Rutten is an MMA fighter who has worked in a bouncer and been in street fights, is an advocate of the groin kick. “Everyone underestimates the kick in the groin.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3K-mrlYG7Y He’s a real character, he has this hilarious self-defense DVD that has some excerpts (as well as the whole pirated thing) on Youtube. There’s also a “Bas Jones” parody and a meetup with the guy who did the parody.
This is an excellent point, and an excellent book - I also like Grossman’s followup On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. I would add to that that conflict runs a spectrum between all out life or death for both parties and the “monkey dance” (or what I’ve always called an “ego fight”), with escalating degres of severity in between. Not every conflict is going to be as psychologically stressing as wartime; Grossman is describing conflict at the far end of the scale in which the psychological and physiological response is so great that a gunshot wound will go unnoticed, and if a gunshot can’t even be felt, nothing one can do hand to hand that doesn’t completely incapacitate an opponent’s ability to act will be of any help. A predator-prey situation may not escalate to that point, at least for the predator. A predator isn’t necessarily looking for combat at all, but rather a victim, the less threat the better. In such a situation the assailant isn’t necessarily in the same flight-or-flight response state as the assailed, and the infliction of unexpected pain may be the difference between the defender buying enough time to retreat to a point of safety and being the victim of whatever the predator is looking to inflict. I would never advise somebody to not even bother trying a groin strike, but rather to be aware that a groin strike alone may or may not be enough to end or escape violent conflict.
I cal BS on the OP having seen every “Marshall Arts” movie. Two off the top of my head featured prominent groin strikes:
Karate Kid 2 – Miyagi teaches Daniel the move (Drop wallet, bend to retrieve, nail the nutsack), and it is later employed in the bar in Korea.
Mortal Combet – Johnny Cage uses the nut punch (a move his character had and used to good effect in the video game) on Goro the half dragon. Apparently, Dragon balls are harder than human balls, but Johnny Cage still got the required effect.
Don’t forget Jean Claude Van Damme’s winning move against the sumo stylist in Bloodsport. Down into the splits, up into the berries. Classic.
And just for fun: Joe Son getting punched in the nuts (repeatedly) at UFC 4.
Since I think pretty boy “Johnny Cage” was indirectly based on JKVD, that fits perfectly, and almost perfectly describes the Johnny Cage nut punch move in the game. In the movie, it looked like this:
I thought that was Mark Hamill
Because all bad guys wear cups?
But really, I’ve always thought, that as agonizing the pain is from a kick to the ol’ applebag, during a fight your adrenaline and dopamine is sky high, and some things that you would think would be end-of-the-world debilitating are overridden by these hormones which have a certain analgesic effects so the pain isn’t as in the ‘foreground’ as your fight for survival.
I’m guessing it just isn’t all that effective in a real fight. It’ll definitely hurt, if hit juuust the right way, but I think chances are, it’s just gonna increase adrenaline, and aggression.
We should mention that even if you do hit the nads, it doesn’t really hurt unless they smash into the pelvis or something. A glancing blow or one that is impeded by stretched clothing (say, from a wide stance) isn’t going to do any good.
And I think women overestimate how much space they really take up down there. Even if you got a kick past the guarding limbs, you still might just hit the pelvis on either side of the scrotum. It’s even possible to kick too deep and make solid contact behind the scrotum while the balls just get lifted out of the way a little bit.
Lastly, if the man has one front forward and one behind him, the balls aren’t “between the legs” so much as “behind” at least one of them. Good luck solidly making contact.
This is GQ, won’t someone please answer the question!?
Ok, seriously…
I once dated a guy who got in a fight over a pool game. He got kicked directly in the twin vindicators but continued with the fight and was on top when it was broken up. He complained of pain when urinating for a few days but it did not affect his fighting ability.
Well, my father once said the only true answer to any question was “it depends”. That having been said, even wearing a cup, a good solid nut shot can be a fight ender, even for an experienced fighter.
Regards,
Shodan
This just beat HardOn Colliders for best Testicle Names ever.
You do see it , and then two seconds later the kicker/puncher is lying on the ground getting religion, because the kickee turned into the kick and let the kick hit the thigh or worse , miss.
Its a pearl harbor type of strike that happens cause the other party is not expecting it, not unlike getting cold cocked.
I cant speak to any other jurisdiction and quite frankly even outside the Toronto area, different attitudes prevail. Most fights will occur in two flash points, Bar fights and street fights/roadrage. The best way to win such an occurence is simply not to get into the fight, but sometimes you have too.
Now we get to the jurisdiction. Hollywood usually has two individuals squaring off with onlookers to the side awaiting the outcome of the fight. In Toronto, most people move in packs and while your swinging on the douche, his buddies are closing in with beer bottles and other weapons to swat you , so your situational awareness is now 360 degrees.
Now its a dominance thing and when it comes to go time, you want to simply overwhelm the douche before the bouncers come swarming in, which they will and break things up. The averaage altercation will last roughly about 10 seconds , by which time you will have at least landed several blows to the face and your attempting to break an arm or a leg.
I dont move around enough anymore to comment on street fighting , so this would be a random occurence thats best ansewered with a groin strike , to buy time to dee dee, and its rare that I have heard of anything of that nature thats not a swarm on one. So your looking at running , delay and run, and then finally improvised melee weapons.
Declan
Nutcrusher. In theatres everywhere this fall.
Sorry, the quoted bit just makes me giggle every time I read it.
Nutcruncher would be the awesomest movie ever. so would the sequels: “Nutcruncher 2: just when you thought it was safe to take the cup off”.
Nutcrusher 3: Low blow and Nutcrusher 4: Fall of the sperm count would be where the series really starts to peter out. But Nutcrusher: Begins (Eurpean title: Nutcrusher: Before the Ball Drop) will be a critically-acclaimed revitalization.