Girl Uses Knee Strike for Knockout
Here is a video clip of a small stature woman using a knee strike to the face to knock out a man in a gymnasium. I don’t know if she had a reason to knock him out but she really fires the knee effortlessly, she probably had trained it. It really goes to show what a devastating strike a knee strike can be. This is a good strike for women to learn in particular for self defense because they, as a general rule have more lower body strength than upper body strength.
On the first National Geographic Fight Science episode they tested the knee strike on a dummy rigged with sensors, it proved to be a crazy amount of force.
From the National Geographic website:
But martial artists are perhaps best known for being able to deliver devastating kicks.
To test this power, Kelly had the participants use their unique styles to land kicks on the dummy’s chest.
The tae kwon do spinning back kick delivered more than 1,500 pounds (680.4 kilograms) of force, while the kung fu flying double kick produced about 1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms) of force.
But the undisputed winner practices a discipline known for its ability to deliver a knockout: Muay Thai, also known as Thai boxing.
Melchor Menor, a former two-time Muay Thai world champion, uses a simple technique to incapacitate his opponents: a knee to the chest at close quarters.
Menor himself was surprised at how powerful this move can be.
“I wasn’t expecting to have the highest force. When he said the power of the knee [kick] was equal to the power of a 35-mile-an-hour [56.3-kilometer-an-hour] car crash, it was humbling.”
The displacement sensor in the dummy’s chest measured nearly two inches (five centimeters) of chest compression from Menor’s knee strike.
Like the boxer’s punch, the energy from this kick starts from the feet and moves up to the knee. The blow is delivered to the soft tissue below the rib cage while Menor holds his opponent’s head stationary.
The ribs are driven backward through the lungs and solar plexus, a cluster of nerve cells behind the human stomach that controls some organ functions.
Truly a death blow, Menor’s knee kick can cause internal bleeding and even cardiac arrest.
Knee strikes are a level 1 Krav Maga technique; we drill this over and over again on a kicking shield our training partner is holding. We train this holding our “opponents” shoulder and in a traditional Muay Thai clinch. In level 1 we are taught a straight regular knee strike and a round knee strike, which comes in at an angle. We also use the knee a lot in different self defense moves and combatives. For instance in different knife and gun defenses, you control the weapon and counter with a knee simultaneously etc. You’ll see what I mean if you watch this video in this other posts on Krav Maga 411: Krav Maga Choke from the Side Defense
on February 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 am
HI Steve,
I don’t know if the guy stole the ball from her but she took care of business! I have always favored elbows and knees (as well as palms) for self-defense because they pack a lot of force (as you aptly demonstrated) and a person is unlikely to get hurt.
I once had a room-mate ask me what to do if he came up against a guy that he could not hurt. My first reaction was to teach him an elbow strike (we had been sparring a lot). A couple of weeks later when he was bouncing at the bar, a guy came up and took the keg he was bringing up to the bar, away from him and threw it aside like it was nothing… my friend tried to knock him out with a punch and it had no affect on the guy. The guy started coming at him and my friend remembered the elbow strikes we had been practicing and did an elbow to the face with his back arm (along with a full body twist) and knocked the guy out cold!
I have never knocked out a guy with a knee but the toughest fight I have been in I had to use knees to keep a wrestler from getting position on me… if not for the knee’s - he would have climbed up from his kneeling position to gain control of the situation (probably won the fight if not for my knees)!
Anyway - great video clip!
John W. Zimmer
on February 10th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Thanks for the post John, very insightful as usual. I have started reading up on Kempo, it’s not all what I thought it was. Which style is yours? Is it Hawaiian?
on February 13th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hi Steve,
The style is called Chinese Kenpo Karate as originally taught by Parkers studios before they changed the system. Here is a Wikipedia article of the Tracy’s system that I came from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Kenpo and my recent post of my instructor’s Richard “Dick” Willett history in the creation of the American Kenpo Karate Association. As you will discover the style has reinvented itself as it moved from China, Okinawa, Japan, and Hawaii. The part I’ve enjoyed is Tracy’s influence as well as my instructors influence from Joe Lewis.
Here is that post: http://myselfdefenseblog.com/http:/myselfdefenseblog.com/richard-dick-willett-american-kenpo-karate-association/.
Here is more about the Yoshida Clan specifically speaking about Kempo: http://members.tripod.com/hungahungas/Yoshioda.htm
As for what I think about the history and evolution of Kempo/Kenpo - It is good to learn the roots but I’ve always put more stock in what works. I had to learn 240 self-defense techniques and 17 katas in addition to basics as well as sparring to get my first degree black belt… Have I ever used a full technique? No… but I’ve pulled bits an pieces - here and there out of my bag of tricks (an don’t even ask about a kata
).
I’ve often wondered how one would teach a system of fighting effectively but it seems that Krav Maga is successful at just that. I have a friend that has been a brown belt forever and I am going to finally continue his training (just got out of school for my MBA) but he is going to go for the fighting black belt.
Keep up the interesting content Steve - I always enjoy you posts.
John W. Zimmer
MySelfDefenseBlog.com
on July 22nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Please notice that the guy had a well place mat to break his fall - probably staged.