As most of us know here bunkai is not for sparring,it is meant to be an attack ender right from the start.
In some kata there are neck,arm,or other bone breaks. There are strikes to vital areas that would kill too,but isn't it just all hypothetical?
There's no way of testing it,no way of proving it.
Ed has been looking for a way to test these theories through computer animation,but it still would be hypothetical,right?

It might be possible to extrapolate the possible severity of injury based on the rate and amount of injury during controlled training. If someone had statistics they might be able to devise a model even if the injuries were accidental.

Brian,

On the whole there are very few who really want to go all out on most karate technique applications because they don't want to hurt their partner, or suffere those effects themselves.

Rightly techniques that can break and/or dislocate are no fun to experience. In fact most times you're probably talking about types of dislocations, breaks are potentially there but require very specific conditions, imo.

The neck of course is an exception, its susceptable to a very wide range of strikes and other potentially fatal occurances, as if pain and KO's were not enough, or even the manipulation of the carotid sinus stopping the heart beating for the KO, etc.

But proof of the results of impact from technique application isn't really an issue. Almost anually somebody gets hit in the chest by a baseball and dies almost instantly as they can't get the appropriate medical attention soon enough. The mechanism is that they were struck in the chest as their t-wave tops (only 1/50,000 th of a second), and their heart stops beating. Serindipity or not a strike could potentially do the same thing.

These things can't reliabily be modeled, the individual varilables are too great to do more than crudely approximate.

Reasonable people will understand some of the risks behind kata application and train appropriately. And yes, in use extreme results may occur for a wide range or reasons (serindipity, a persons medical condition, or other factors.

But the reason to use the kata technque application should override such occurances.

There is just technique and application potential, imo.

Just an observation but, whatever "deadliness" exists, isn't it sort of irrelevent to bunkai and more related to the more or less basic technique the bunkai sets up?

I'm probably not saying this real well, but bunkai seems (at the bottom line) to take "weird attack situations" and sort of resolve them by teaching you to work your way to the point that you deliver what is pretty much just a basic technique.

At the end... where you deliver the finishing technique... it's still, as an example, just a knife hand strike to the throat, or an elbow strike to the back of the neck. Or a stomp, kick, punch or whatever.

Maybe it would be simpler just to analyze the "deadliness" of certain techniques. If they occur in a bunkai - they are still no more or less deadly.

am I? I think I asked sometime before if there were software that models body dynamics.

but similar subjects you bring up have been talked about before. I think last summer, when we had discussions about how many psi of pressure would it take to break a rib or something.

we came up with you have to punch hard enough to break about 4 x 1/2" pine boards to equal breaking a rib. thats a fair enough test without having to actually break someone's rib.

you could do the same type of test for an elbow break. Find out what diameter dowel is equivalent strength as an elbow. wrap it in padding to simulate flesh and to protect your arm, and attempt to snap it with an elbow break. I haven't tried this, but it would be a good enough test for me.

After you know that, next time you are doing bunkai with a partner, be aware of what force would be needed if it were real.

other than that, it's just faith....and hopefully, you'll never have to actually test it.

btw, medical sources have maximum stress measurements of human bones and joints.

Thanks for all the quick replies.

It is faith,but some things are obvious too. If I hit you between the asophagus and your neck from the side just right with a spear hand do I really need to contemplate what might happen?

If you were the "Myth Buster" crew, you'd probably buy a dressed out pig see what it actually takes to "kill it again".

Interesting post this, whilst its not plesant looking at real situations (ie under stress, admitidly non/little trained people) then its obvious that in some cases extreme levels of violence CAN cause severe injury.

So looking at a conditioned, skilled karateka makes things a little different IMO, the big difference as I see it is expierience, accuracy, conditioning and knowledge of anatomy.

With that in mind im fairly convinced that extreme damage could be caused if we so wished, fairly easily - but our training makes us not to wish this to happen but to resolve things in the most peaceful and appropiate of ways.

but its the application thats the real skill, under fire.....this is where most fail, including me at times

myth busters is one of my favorite shows. I wrote to them a few months ago giving them suggestions on how to go about investigating the myth of 'one punch, one kill'. I suggested they bring an impact pad measuring force to a Kimura Shukokai head instructor and use that reading as their baseline.

suggestions for the show are royalty-free, so if you ever see that episode...know that you heard it here first

btw, I think their results would be inconclusive as in: possible, but unlikely.

Lets be simple on this, the majority of our 'effective' strikes are practised in a dojo under relativly controled circumstances.

Real situations involve a whole load of other dynamics and stress, all against our effectiveness.

As a whole I keep it simple, strike hard, or lock someone up quickly - dependant on situation, with that in mind im fairly sure that a half decent trained karateka could then deliver alot of damage if needed, but its about survival at the front end and escape.

Now I have trained with a few 'deadly' karateka in my time and im under no illusion that they could proberly deliver severe damage from the first movement, however all of these people have over 30 years training and can be considered very special.