Fight Science On National Geographic

[cranford]

This will probably interest a number of people on this thread.


It strikes four times faster than a snake. It kicks with more than 1,000 pounds (453.59 kg) of force. And it can rival the impact of a 35 mph (56.33 kph) car crash. It's the most complex weapon ever designed?the human body. National Geographic Channel brings together a team of experts and a cross section of champion martial arts masters to analyze the world's greatest fighting techniques and find out which discipline has the hardest hits, the fastest moves, and even the deadliest weapons.



The show is premiering at 9:00 PM August 20th.




http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/channel/fightscience/?source=GC01

[Guard Dog]

Interesting,
? I strongly hope it is not a replica of XMA.

Gruhn

[Guard Dog]

Just watched the preview and I stand impressed.  It looks like it should be an interesting special.

Gruhn

[SB_Mig]

I don't know. XMA was such a disappointment and this seems to be in the same vein. I am interested in the addition of BJJ and FMA this  time around.

Unfortunately, I tend to check out when I see or hear the following:

1) Guys yelling and breaking bricks
2) See the words "Dim Mak, or Ninja Death Punch"

Maybe my years in film production have jaded me 

[Jeff Gentry]

I don't know. XMA was such a disappointment and this seems to be in the same vein. I am interested in the addition of BJJ and FMA this  time around.

Unfortunately, I tend to check out when I see or hear the following:

1) Guys yelling and breaking bricks
2) See the words "Dim Mak, or Ninja Death Punch"

Maybe my years in film production have jaded me 

Oh come on yea gotta love the good love Dim Mak.   

Jeff

[Guard Dog]

Pretty cool special so far; I'm about 20 minutes in.

Gruhn

[SB_Mig]

Eh. Unimpressed.

Lots of effects. Not a lot of content. Once again, a ton of XMA martial artists and not much else. The longest segments were on Ninjas and Power brickbreaking. The shortest: BJJ and FMA.

It was interesting to see how much power a punch could generate, but the basic premise was flawed. The measurement should have been in the amount of power generated by the  punch/kick in relation the size of the individual throwing the punch/kick. Instead you had a 5'6" (?) Wushu practitioner throwing a punch compared to a 6'3", 225lb. boxer throwing a punch.

As expected, the "Death Punch" segment was ridiculous as they had already proven that anyone generating a massive amount of power could kill the person on the receiving end.

Poorly conceived, weakly written, and can we please stop showing TKD guys with their shirts off, shouting, and covered with oil?

[Dog Pound]

It came so very close to being informative.

[Guard Dog]

Did anyone know that Guro I. was going to be in this?

Gruhn

[Dog Pound]

I couldn't believe they gave 30 seconds to Guro Danny, but the No Shirt Wonder was all over the screen.  And then they trotted out Ninja Boy like he was the Grand Master of all things martial.  Two hours of my life that I could have used to watch The Final Fu.

[Michael6343]

I was very disappointed....the shirtless TKD'er was perhaps the most annoying individual I have ever had the displeasure of watching, his usage of the katana was such BS that it doesn't even register on the bunk meter....if they had a true master of the katana there why on earth didn't they let him do all the katana segments....TKD'er simply flipped it and went XMA with it & I am 100% sure that the flipping techniques are of not a part of any Ryu-Ha of traditional kenjutsu. They have Rickson Gracie and Guro Dan on the show and dismiss them with a few snippets here and there but they give the brick breaking duo ample time to strut there junk, as for ninja man, the way he was sporting that moustache you would have thought he was a young Ron Jeremy...go Hedgehog....LOL....anyway I am done with those silly as specials...in that 2 hour span I could have done something constructive like shooing the neighbors cat out of my wife's flower garden....Take care all.

[Sisco T.]

 i liked it alot. i thought it was very cool. it may not be, mma, reality based, etc., but i know seeing alot of those moves those martial artists were doing was what made me get into the martial arts. the kung fu guy, the karate guy, the tkd guy,and the ninjitsu guy were all very cool. of course seeing guro dan, rickson gracie, and melchor menor were my favorite pats, but i liked the whole show.

[pappydog]

First I will say, I think you will find some of the sticks on the show to look familiar. It is a very entertaining show. Anytime you get Guro Dan on your show it is amazing. Also, I will say the martial artists on it are very talented and of course what we have always known is boxers hit damn hard.

The crash dummy is a great idea. However, it really does not replicate a crash unless it is a crash by a car with a fist size extrusion coming out of it. Pounds per square inch. Watch it again and realize the science is not there. People and tv know that the mythology is good for business. The set is amazing and I will watch anything martial arts on tv. I think it needs a different title.

Nick

[Guard Dog]

What I would like to see, and what I think would be considered "fight science" is if they examined "how" people win fights.  The trickery, set ups, etc.

Gruhn

[migo]

It came so very close to being informative.

It was informative. I liked the bit where they had Levy doing the plum poles and then they had the sensors in his shoes showing his centre of balance. The part on the weapons was interesting, while there may be some disagreement (as well as lack of practicality) over the Katana, it was still interesting that they broke down the pros and cons of varyous weapons, which still gives you something to think about. The parts on pressure points were also interesting, that they had some scientific explanations, also the way Levy went for one in a crucifix like position was also interesting, if you compare pressure points to joint locks, joint locks work on the ground with the recipient imobilised, but not standing up, and the main complaint I've seen on pressure points is they're impractical to land in a live situation, but they might be workable if you imobilise first, I figure that's something worth looking into. There were some flaws in there, but just like you can take the good out of a martial art that has flaws, you can also take the good out of a documentary that has flaws.

[Crafty_Dog]

I missed this when it aired.  Any ideas as to how I could see it now?

[Guard Dog]

It will also air Monday, September 4, 9P & Tuesday, September 5, 12A.

Gruhn

[migo]

http://www.eztvefnet.org/?include=show.php&id=33

Since that site only lists TV shows which are aired for free, I assume there's nothing wrong with posting a tracker.

[yenhoi]

Here is an article about the show:

http://news.adcombat.com/article.html?id=11681

I dont think there was any stabbing with knives or any cool stuff like that.

[Dog Pound]

yenhoi,

Good point, where were the knives?  I thought that's where they were going with the whole "prefect blend of warrior and weapon" analysis they were working on.

Pappy,

I agree that PSI is not the only one way to measure a punch.  I was wondering how would they measure a ... some people call it a "vacuum punch" ... I call it a "bell punch" ... it's that fast punch that withdraws almost as soon as it makes contact (leaving a vacuum) and produces a ringing sensation (like a bell).  How would you measure that?

They should have put the Mythbusters on this show.

[mronkain]

I've seen it, and I was ... well, not disappointed, because I didn't expect much, but it left me kind of numb. Very much hype and big words about how each martial art beats the others. I guess they did some scientific measuring, like measuring the force of impact on different strikes and kicks (using crash test dummies with impact sensors). But the methodology (at least based on what was shown) sucked. For example they had this big boxer guy hitting the dummy and a small wushu-guy hitting the dummy. Then they measured the force of impact and voil?: the boxer hit twice as hard as the wushu-guy, ergo: boxing has the ultimate punches. The same thing with the kicks, every guy gave their best kicks to the dummy, then the muay thai guy yanked the dummy from the neck and kneed it to the solar plexus. The winner! Muay Thai has the ultimate kicks. And guess what the ultimate martial art was? Ninjitsu (yes, with and i, not ninjutsu)! They had a guy sneaking on plumb blossom poles and hitting a "dim mak" strike to the dummy's chest.

On the weapons part they used torso dummies molded out of ballistic gel. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is primarily used for measuring the impact of bullets on it? Well, they used edged weapons. I can imagine a torso molded out of gel doesn't quite have the feel of human flesh and bones. Then they had an Aussie taekwondoguy hitting it with a katana. Did I say hitting? I meant hacking. He obviously had no technique at all, he just hacked it to pieces. They did have footage of some iaido people doing tameshigiri, I wonder why they didn't ask them to cut it.

But, they had guro Dan Inosanto as well, doing some nice stickwork (should've had a lot more of him!) which kinda mellowed my reaction.

The show was about 1.5 hours long, they could have easily cut of all "what happened before the break" and "what will appen before the next break" bs and all the other hype and made it about 30-45 minute show with exactly the same content.

I give it 6 our of 10. Nice try, some interesting people. too much bs, too little science.

- Marko

[Jeff Gentry]

Most of the main people the Wushu, TKD, the girl with the staff, were the same people from th XMA show on discovery, so although i found it interesting, I would not trust the "science" behind it.

I consider it about the same as the XMA show, interesting to watch nothing more than a fairly pleasent distraction.

Jeff