The Physics of Karate (2021)
daily.jstor.org
daily.jstor.org
Concrete is more difficult, but there's still a trick to it. The blocks you use for breaking have a bit of flex to them, but are also extremely brittle. So just getting it to flex just a small amount will cause them to break in half. That's also why you place spacers between stacks of bricks or wood. You're leveraging the flex of the material to break it, and stacking them without spacers makes too rigid to break.
In short, this stuff is 90% magic trick.
I've gone through boards with a one inch punch with barely any effort, and also failed several times, and it has always been down to the person or persons holding the board for me.
That at least takes a measure of skill.
I still wish to believe that the crème de la crème, or the top 0.1% of the karate world, can muster enough force to break concrete regardless of any tricks.
I still think most people in the world wouldn't be able to break 2 pavers with no spacers. :)
So you're saying it's all for show, like some 10 kilo barbell weights being ridiculously oversized just to soothe the ego?
Ego develops at higher mass.
While it may look like a dance when a single practitioner is doing a kata or “form”, it’s anything but a performance or a dance. There’s full contact, pit, octagon, Bellator, K1, and various other avenues to “practice” your martial art on someone’s face.
I've spent years doing no contact karate, and years more doing full contact (but not full force) sparring in Thai and Western kickboxing. For the latter, there's not really a performative aspect to it. Nobody is watching, there's no forms, no real room for fancy flourishes that waste time. I get punched in the face a lot (I'm not very good), and have had the wind knocked out of me many times. I've also spent significant time doing the song and dance (literally) kickboxing at the local YMCA, which was more like Zumba than traditional martial arts.
All of it is great fun and exercise. There's nothing wrong with any of those approaches as long as it fits what you're looking for. There are a LOT of gyms and styles and teachers out there!
On a semi-related note, "liberal arts" refers to the skills that would be required to participate in a free society, particularly to participate in informed discussions on social and political matters. That's why liberal arts includes subjects such as math, science, geology, and public speaking. It feels like many people are not aware of that, which ironically is due to a want of proper liberal arts education.
Lyoto Machida uses Sumo as part of his MMA. At our school we've found it's pushing techniques useful once your get an opponent off balance.
The locks in Aikido are useful as pain compliance techniques used by people like law enforcement or bouncers. Compared to an art like Judo, the "throws" in Aikido generally don't throw your opponent to the ground and do damage. Instead they tend to cause your opponent to stumble away from you. Therefore, they aren't very useful in competition but they are useful in self defense where they can create an opening to get a weapon or escape.
The "dance and performance" (kata?) is essentially slow-motion practice of moves and responses. You are muscle-memorizing moves that you would deploy at full speed in a non-pratice scenario. It certainly looks like dance, and it feels a bit like dance too.
Because it's slowed-down continuous motion, you have to concentrate on keeping your balance. When that's translated to a non-practice scenario, it results in greater precision both in terms of motion and of force-delivery. Performing katas also develops strength; I gave up tai-chi because after every class, my whole body would ache.
Hell, that's why instead of saying "warrior" or "war", the English term is a euphemistic reference to an old god -- god of war, sure, but an indirect reference, suitable for polite society.
Dance appears to be a very natural and primal form of human ritual, so it's not surprising that most cultures have utilized it as a way for warriors to build confidence and demonstrate their attributes & skills.
It's meant to develop confidence.
Still, nothing will detract from the visceral wonder that I could never forget after seeing, in person, an extremely high ranked karateka (i.e. second in the world, in his style) chop a seemingly solid block of ice over a foot thick.
I suspect that, while there might be "a trick" behind these things, extreme achievements in that field are still rare and accomplished acts, as they are in any. The wonderment need not be fully extinguished.
You see similar things with e.g. juggling where entertainers will do a lot of things that make it look harder. This doesn't mean that it's not difficult to juggle 7 objects.
Sometimes wooden boards are baked to make them weaker.
Only sometimes though.
There's a "trick" to legitimate breaking in that the practitioner is choosing materials and techniques that lend themselves to breaking, but that doesn't mean that the actual break is faked.
On the other hand, it's also possible to fake a break. For example, you can cut a piece of ice in half, put some water on each end of the cut, and stick them back together in the freezer so that the ice appears to be solid but actually has a weak spot.
There can also be an element of showmanship. Even if a martial artist has done a break dozens of times, during a demo they might make a show of having to hype themselves up for the break, tensing their muscles with a dramatic hiss of their breath, etc.
You won't see a piece of plywood being broken this way.
I would say, kinda but not entirely. IME as a practitioner in my youth, I would say that breaking the mental barrier to throw a good punch is a thing that needs to be broken as part of the martial arts training. Another thing that a good training gives you and not many people understand is the preparation to receive a punch, not cower in fear and still keep a sound mind to try to recover and react.
note that almost any fighters knuckles will be more solid as the lattice structure of the bone gradually fills in. that doesn’t cause as many mobility issues, it’s when you get new growth on the outside that problems start.
I watched closely and his hands didn't seem to be much use for anything else.
Can you point to a solid source on this? Googling tibia fibula synostosis muay thai, and similar, doesn't turn up anything relevant to conditioning.
So maybe all karate isn't equal.
Take one of your boards and hold it with the grain horizontally instead of vertically. Try not to break your hand.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/16-in-x-8-in-x-1-75-in-Pewter-Co...
There is a lot of variance in bricks. And honestly a lot of the cheap ones would break if you dropped them, or loading and loading them in the van...
Not to mention people would accuse us of baking them, or freezing them, leaving them outside for months or years, all kinds of stuff. But honestly we would buy a bunch of them from the home improvement store on the way to the demo at the mall or a school. You'd be surprised at how easily you can break one with the simple tap of a claw hammer.
It's just physics. The longer the brick, the easier it will break. Some demo rocks are much longer. The trick is to hit it fast, use the smallest impact point you can, and follow through. If you don't follow through you won't even be able to break a pine board. Theres some kind of psychological thing prevent most people from punching through a target, whether it's a brick, punching bag, or a board.
Drywall, however, is an exception to this rule.
Don't ever believe anyone claiming they "got so mad they punched a hole in the wall"; they would not have punched a wall if it was solid.
Notable exception is a friend of mine who punched a wall in a rage and broke his hand, lol.
Just felt like doing the math on that one.
That would depend on the wall length, no?
For example, a 1.5"-3" wall has 100% of points on a stud. Also many (most?) traditional residential constructed walls have end plates, at least one top plate, a bottom plate, fire blocking, support, kings, sisters, cripples, jacks, headers, etc.
Anyway, I think its probably safe to say more than 10% of the surface has wood or some other object behind it on many walls, and unlikely that you could "do the math on this" without surveying data.
Yeah that's not true man. You can get lucky and not hit a 2x4, it's not like it's impossible to punch a hole in drywall without advance prep.
Yes, "martial arts" is a fun way to get some exercise and build a little confidence, but never make the mistake of thinking that you actually know how to fight.
There's an entire universe of difference between someone who takes martial arts classes a few times a week, and an actual trained fighter. I trained in boxing for a few years, and got to the point where I can trivially defeat an untrained fighter who's bigger than me, and easily defeat a less experienced fighter. But even then, against a professional fighter who trains all day every day, I'd never stand a chance. I once watched in disbelief as my coach defeated our star pupil (who was getting too big for his britches) with BOTH hands behind his back (basically just dodged and smashed him with his shoulder until he fell down). You simply could not hit him or even touch him, while he could pick any spot he wanted on you.
Fighting, like any skill, takes a long time to master. And there are no "mystical" routes or special ways or short cuts. Only hard work and regular practice in real combat.
To echo this, I have professional competitive experience in Muay Thai (and also in some other combat disciplines). My training schedule during this time was 2 x daily, 6 days a week with a 4km run before each session.
With this consistent routine training alongside other young, hungry and often gifted high level fighters, it takes something special for a hobbyist to join in a Pro session and not look ‘out of place’.
If you are training right, every angle, strike, and position is carefully mapped into muscle memory even for when there is nothing left in the tank.
Non competitive Martial arts are superb for confidence, but be very sure, there is (like you said) a universe of difference between an active professionally training fighter and a talented hobbyist.
Edit: Grammar
My 10 year old is a hefty guy, and I'm personally not crazy about him breaking boards too much.
The examiner is just watching to make sure you hit with the correct technique and to hit hard.
She should just focus on that, and not be disappointed if she doesn't break.
A regular punch or knife hand is much more prone to injury because of the more fragile bits being closer to the action.
Ronald McNair, laser physicist and astronaut? Even more impressive.
I did not expect his name to pop here, I need to read up on what other amazing things he did.
https://greensboro.com/news/local/30-things-you-should-know-...
or here:
Yes there are some really strong people out there who can break the boards in a legit way, but most of the time the boards are simply discretely cut before the demonstations. Thanks to those cuts (and orientation of wood) the boards become very easy to break.
That's what my friend used to do. Also he gave the real (=not altered before) boards to people he didnt like and they couldnt break them.
It says that you need 2,500-3,000 newtons to break concrete, which a hand can produce:
> the hand of the karateka, or practitioner of karate, can… exert a force of more than 3,000 newtons
But then fails to explain why this doesn't shatter the hand:
> Human bone is five times stiffer than concrete and fifty times harder to break (successfully karate-chopping a femur would take more than 25,000 newtons’ worth of force). The bones in the hand are easily able to absorb the stress of the impact.
I mean sure, but karate chopping is done with the hand, not the femur. The femur is the largest bone in the body, in the leg!
And if it takes 25,000 newtons to shatter the gigantic femur, it seems entirely reasonable that it would take only, say, a hundredth of that to shatter one of the tiny carpal bones in the hand, for instance. Which would be 250 newtons, far below what it takes to break wood or concrete.
And even if bone is 50 times harder to break than concrete, the bone that absorbs impact first is tiny compared to the piece of concrete.
So even after reading this article, I have no answer whatsoever on why the tiny hand bones don't shatter.
Is it something about the bones' arrangement? Their flexibility? Something about the properties of the ligaments that connect them? Something to do with our skin? The level of compressibility of water?
In the martial arts there are 5 or 6 traditional rules for how to hit for a maximum effect, and all of them can be explained by modern physics. The most important 3 are the following.
To achieve maximum acceleration, you need maximum force. For maximum force, you need as many muscles as possible to participate in striking. The most powerful muscles are those of the legs, so they must also participate when hitting with the hand, by rotating the hips, whose movement must be transmitted through the abdomen and thorax until the hitting hand.
To achieve maximum final velocity of the hand, the hitting arm must not move like a rigid stick, but like a flexible whip (more accurately like an articulated flail), with a wave propagating along it so that the extremity will achieve a maximum speed, much higher than the speed of the extremity of an arm-length stick that would rotate around the shoulder. For this, all the muscles that do not contribute to the acceleration of the hand must be as relaxed as possible.
To achieve a maximum transfer of energy into the hitting target, it is necessary for the body part used for hitting to have a maximum equivalent mass. For maximum equivalent mass, the ideal is for the entire body to behave as a rigid body. This can be achieved by a contraction of most muscles. So in contrast with the time before the hand reaches the target, when most muscles should be relaxed, during the very short time of the impact most muscles must be contracted. In many Japanese martial arts this is somewhat confusingly explained by some mumbo-jumbo about "kime".
Unfortunately later when I became much busier with my profession I have never found again some place close enough to my home to be able to go there regularly within the little available time.
Nowadays I only practice solo exercices for preserving health, but this is still a very important benefit of what I have learned when young.
Human bone is five times stiffer than concrete and fifty times harder to break
> [The werewolf] gave him a ringing slap and that would have ended it, except that it also pulled itself a little further up the tree and brought itself within the range of the Vimes Elbow.
> It justified the capital letter. It had triumphed in a number of street fights. Vimes had learned early on in his career that the graveyards were full of people who'd read the Marquis of Fantailler. The whole idea of fighting was to stop the other bloke hitting you as soon as possible. It wasn't to earn marks. Vimes had often fought in circumstances where being able to use the hands freely was a luxury, but it was amazing how a well-placed elbow could make a point, possibly assisted by a knee.
-- The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
A footnote from an earlier reference explains that:
> * The Marquis of Fantailler got into many fights in his youth, most of them as a result of being known as the Marquis of Fantailler, and wrote a set of rules for what he termed ‘the noble art of fisticuffs’, which mostly consisted of a list of places where people weren’t allowed to hit him. Many people were impressed with his work and later stood with noble chest out-thrust and fists balled in a spirit of manly aggression against people who hadn’t read the Marquis’s book but did know how to knock people senseless with a chair.
Using padded gloves allows for hitting the opponent much harder without injury to the hand, so they make it possible to hit with a lot more force. Serious brain injury is caused by accelerational forces, and those are only slightly reduced by the padding, but the padding gives significant protection to the thin bones of the hand. Without the protection the bones in the hand could break when struck against the relatively hardy bones of the skull.
Of course if you did happen to nicely hit the jaw, that's one of the common target spots for a knockout. A hit on the jaw causes a rotational force on the head which can more easily lead to a knockout (as well as injury to the brain).
In the Ancient Greece and then in the Roman Republic and Empire, there were 3 combat sports: wrestling, pugilism (i.e. boxing) and pancratium (i.e. MMA).
Punching was allowed in both pugilism and pancratium, but only the pugilists bandaged their hands with leather straps, to protect them from injuries (analogous to the big boxing gloves and the small MMA gloves of today).
Because of their bandaged hands, the pugilists were using hard strikes to the head much more frequently than the pancratium fighters, so finishing a fight with severe injuries was much more common for pugilists.
Some ancient writers have commented about this and they have mentioned that at big competitions like the Olympic Games it has been decided to schedule the pancratium matches before the pugilism matches, because there were some people who desired to compete in both tournaments. Had pugilism been scheduled the first, there would have been a high risk for them to be injured, preventing them to also compete in pancratium, while with pancratium before, they had good chances to be able to compete in both.
At the same time in Okinawa they preferred to use the fists, but that was right for them only because those using fists practiced daily conditionining of the fists by hitting a maki-wara.
Also today, for anyone who does not punch regularly some training device, hitting either with the open hand (edge or base) or only with the external side of the fist (hammer fist) is the right choice for any purpose.
It took me a few seconds to recover, but when I did it was to check his hand was okay, as we weren't wearing gloves.
He was fine. I had a headache for two days.
Sure, it opens new possibilities for when you really need to be able to crush rocks with your hands, but often people don't realize how much our default equipment--literally nanotechnology beyond human understanding--manages to accomplish when it comes to the total package of features and design-constraints.
Including but not limited to:
1. Supports a very large number of individual movements and articulations
2. Meets certain weight-restrictions (overall system must be near-buoyant in water)
3. Supports a wide variety of automatic self-repair techniques, many of which can occur without ceasing operation
4. Is entirely produced and usually maintained by unskilled (unconscious?) labor from common raw materials
5. Contains a comprehensive suite of sensors
6. Not too brittle, flexes to store and release mechanical energy from certain impacts
7. Selectively reinforces itself when strain is detected
8. Has areas for the storage of long-term energy reserves, which double as an impact cushion
9. Houses small fabricators to replenish some of its own operating fluids
10. Subsystems for thermal management (evaporative cooling, automatic micro-activation)
Instead you're gonna clock-in to the work office and and plug your mostly-meat-body in to a nice comfy chair, and from there you will control one of the MegaCorp's array of metal-twisting asteroid-punching robots out in the field. MegaCorp knows they are much cheaper to manufacture and insure, easier to repair, and they can be seamlessly tasked to some other worker without messy surgery.
At the end if the day you will log out and hand things off to the next shift, and you can you go home and hug your family without accidentally maiming them.