A mistake you keep making, Exile, is that you continue to reference Japanese experts and Okinawan MAs. This is the TKD board. TKD is a Korean MA developed by Korean MAists, it may have roots in Japanese karate but has become its own distinct fighting system with different philosophies and methods. Once the conversation turns to the merits of various methodologies, it has in fact become a discussion of style.
A killing or incapacitating strike is what it is because of biomechanics, not æsthetics or signature idiosyncrasies or anything else. A backflip doesn't become an effective fighting technique simply because it becomes part of some MA's `style'.
Although the experts you mentioned have impressive credentials, it doses not impress me that none of them advocate the use of head kicks, because non of them come from systems that teach them.
And the systems that do not teach them do not teach them because they are risky and their effect is far better implemented with elbow strikes to the face, forearm strikes to the throat and so on. The logic you're using here, so far as I can tell, is the same as someone who says that automobile engineers who do not advocate use of rubberband powered engines do not impress you, because they do not work for automobile companies which have utilized rubberband driven engines. Well, of course, if they
had good reason to think that such engines were inferior to internal combustion engines, then they
wouldn't advocate the former, right? What you should be asking is,
why do they exclude high kicks from their system?
In regards to the killing techniques you spoke of. I am not familiar with Mr. O'Niel or his article
Yes. I gathered this.
but perhaps he censored himself which MAist often do when dealing with the more gruesome aspects of their system just as the ones you mentioned earlier. It can also be that you simply misunderstood him,
Well, foot2face, you read the following and you tell me if Mr. O'Neil is censoring himself because of squeamishness about the `gruesome' aspects of their system:
Open-hand throat attacks are also extremely common in the [Chang Hon] patterns, generally taking the form of knifehand strikes. A well delivered blow to the fron to the front of the throat will crush the trachea, killing the recipient... a blow to the side of the neck using the edge of the hand can be a knockout technique due to its effect on the vagus nerve and the carotid sinus. A descending attack to the collarbone can easily snap it, leaving the victim in considerable pain and lacking the use of his arms....One of the most effective ways to kill a human being, well used in combat grappling systems all over the world, is to break the neck. This is usually done by twisting it beyond its natural range around the vertical axis, although a sharp rotation around the horizontal axis can also be successful, also leaving the throat open for a strike. There are several techniques in the Chang Hon hyungs in which both hands are raised to head height before sharply changing position. These movements often indicate neck breaks....
A number of secondary techniques are used to support the main methods. These include groin maimers, guaranteed to leave a man incapacitated; eye jabs, at least disconcerting, at best highly traumatics; foot and knee stamps—again either painful or crippling, depending on the contact made; and basic throws, particularly those that dump the recipient on his head.
Self-censoring? :wink1:
BTW, throughout his whole series of essays in the
Combat TKD newletter, and in the article that Mr. O'Neil wrote for a 2005 issue of
Taekwondo Times, he discusses the role of what he calls `simple kicks': front and side kicks aimed at the midbody or lower. In connection with General Choi's curriculum for the ROK infantry and special commando units (the Black Tiger and White Tiger squadrons formed for advanced field operations, aka silent killing and sabotage, in the Korean and Vietnam wars respectively), he comments that
Simple kicks, particularly the front and side kicks, are devastating weapons, particularly with the added weight and hardness of military boots.
In connection with high, tournament-format kicking techniques such as the high kicks you seem to be seriously advocating as tools in the chaotic close-range conditions of a streetfight, O'Neil observes in one of his essays, `Taekwondo as a kicking art', that
One of the ways in which Taekwondo was made to look less like Japanese karate was to take advantage of the wealth of native Korean kicking technique, and to emphasize this aspect within the existing framework. With time, kicking grew in importance in competition Taekwondo and featured more heavily heavily in the hyungs and poomses than in the older patterns. As a result of the growing popularity of the tournament sport in particular, a large part of regular training is taken up by kicking drills and physical conditioning to enhance kicking ability. This tendency has continued in the last 20 year or to to such an extent that Taekwondo—particularly the WTF variety, but also the ITF—could be said to have moved way from its origins as a self-defense system to become closer to Taekyon, the tournament activity in which contestants attempted to knock each other down with kicks. Taekwondo's undeniable progress as an international sporting and artistic phenomenon has meant the inevitable loss of a significant part of its original practical self-defense content. One of COMBAT-TKD's principal goals is the recovery of this lost tradition....
I'm not sure how much plainer this could be stated. But if you like, you're free of course to assume that I've been misinterpeting Mr. O'Neil's fairly constant reminders to avoid any but the most simple low-target kicking techs.
but I met men who were there and they spoke of these techniques. They were done on an already beaten and unconscious opponent, usually one who went down by a kick to the head. This is a morbid detail often omitted due to its unsporting appearance. In a previous post I discussed the merits of eye gouges and groin rips. Though effective their not decisive, as long as a man maintains consciousness he maintains the ability to harm you. In war the terms are far more severe, if a man is still alive he can kill you. You may beat him and knock him unconscious but if you don't finish him, in a few minutes he'll recover, grab a rifle and plug you and your buddy in the chest from 200 meters off. So killing techniques were added to a system that was already adept at knocking opponents unconscious. You would simply role the limp body of your opponent over on its back and deliver a hard knife hand strike to the throat or use various other finishing technique including the neck twist you mentioned.
Please stop speaking down to me as if I were a 12 year old tournament bunny who has no experience beyond what I have seen on the Power Rangers. You can not convince me that head kick do not work.
I think you misunderstand me, foot2face. I am not really interested in convincing you of anything; I'm concerned with the logic and practical content of your arguments, in terms of what people who read this thread will conclude. If in the course of a street assault by somone who's done that sort of thing for a long time on dozens of victims you decide to defend yourself with a high kick to the head, that's your choice entirely, and I really wouldn't attempt to dissuade you—what happens to you doesn't affect me, after all.
I and others I have trained with have used them in very dangerous situations and I have full faith in their effectiveness. You must understand, just because you can't do it dose not mean it can not be done!
As I say, if you want to go ahead and try to use kicks to the head in a bar fight, or a similar altercation, I wouldn't dream of trying to stop you—just as I wouldn't try to dissuade someone who was convinced that backflips, or a 720º flying back kick, or a triple toe loop sans ice skates, was the right thing to do in a CQ encounter with a skinhead brawler.
