Grrl Power #826 – Pop and lock
When I watch action movies, I always wonder why people bother throwing their opponents. Or I guess I should say, when people get thrown in movies, it doesn’t look like an effective move because it’s one stuntman throwing another, and the guy throwing knows how to throw and the guy being thrown knows how to fall, and it just looks… maybe not gentle, but like no one could possibly be injured or knocked out by it unless they had already recently already suffered a dozen other concussions. Which to be fair, the average thug in any given action show probably has taken a few knocks, but it still bugs me when I see a thug get tossed over the hero’s shoulder and land “correctly” and somehow gets knocked out.
Really, the hero should throw someone, then yank their hair back or kick them in the chin as they go over so the thug lands wrong on their neck. Or the point of the throw is to launch them down an elevator shaft or over a balcony, or to throw them so the middle of their back connects with a jutting mantle piece or the corner of a piano. It would make the thug not getting up believable certainly, but obviously for stunt performers and TV shows under pretty severe time crunches to get scenes wrapped, it’s too much work to show them do that every time, so I get why they don’t show it. It just bugs me when a guy lands flat on his back and doesn’t get up.
Of course, I would also love to see a scene in an actiony type TV show like Buffy or something, where the hero gets into a fight with let’s say 8 thugs, and knocks them all out by punching them, only to learn later that 3 of them died from concussion related trauma.
If I had been thinking about that when I wrote the next page, it would be key point in Jabberwokky’s lesson, but this is actually the final page in Sydney’s training montage this time around. Maybe I’ll revisit it next time I show her sparring.
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@DaveB
as someone who’s taken judo, throws hurt…A LOT if done right, even on a highly padded surface if I don’t do a proper breakfall it’ll knock the wind out of me for a while. seriously, I land on my back and I felt it in my solar plexis. And all of this was on a padded surface…imagine if it was concrete, ribs would be shattered, spines fractured if not broken.
Now imagine you landed on your front, while wearing 45 pounds of armor ;)
I don’t think the armor changes much – at most it means that you’re falling on the armor, instead of falling on whatever’s outside the armor.
Armor adds weight which in turn adds to momentum, but on the other hand it also redistributes the force of impact over a wider area reducing the likelihood of punctures and some armors limit range of motion which can reduce sprains and dislocations.
Put another way, you don’t get as hurt wearing armor, but you get a more full body ache instead
inertia surely, but heavy things don’t fall faster than lighter things. at lest up to a point, at extremes air resistance is important. acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s²
Inertia was the point. Another negative I skipped was that heavier weight and limited range of movement makes it harder to keep from falling.
Forgive me, I read momentum and assumed acceleration. and yes, I know what happens when you assume.
Ukemi saved my life once. I was riding home one night and hit a silent copper in an intersection. The copper kangaroo’d my front wheel, compressed the rear monoshock and launched me. Around the apex of the flight I’m looking down on a tree and decide not to ride the crash in, stepping off and trying to aim down the road. I did a, probably 99% perfect, Ushiro when I landed, bounced and went into a Zenpo Kaiten when I came back down and then rolled out sideways until I stopped, laid there for a while then got up and picked up the bike.
I’m a firm believer that learning how to fall is the most valuable life skill learned from martial arts, particularly as you get older. Most of us will get through our entire life without a fight where we have to worry about our life, but all of us will fall at some point.
Slipped and fell while crossing pipes in a refinery. No thought just readjusted angle tossed body into forward shoulder roll between two pipes and popped up just before the hanging rack…
Back when I was in college, the campus was on one side of a highway, the dorms on the other, and students had to wait on a break in traffic and run across. (It was the 70’s, life was cheap. There’s a pedestrian bridge now.)
I slipped on the ice, with cars approaching from both sides, and ended up in a hand stand on the yellow line as the crossed on either side of me, horns blaring.
It’s probably not incidental that I was on my way to my PE class: Gymnastics…
Back in ’07 I was a cartpusher at a w*lm*rt. Needless to say, I was nearly ran over by inattentive idiots se eral times a week. One day, there was a teenaged male who had just gotten his liscense and was jabbering with the two gals in the car with him insteead of paying attention. I had already spotted this and was in the process of reversing the line of 20 carts I had (manually w/o a mule) and getting them off to the side. The teen gal in the backseat saw me before the two in the front did and hollered “LOOK OUT!” He hit the front of the carts anyways and I got knocked backwards.
I didn’t even have to think. I just rolled and landed in a standing position with the only injury being a sprained ankle. Light duty for a week working janitorial. (That made me a firm believer in removing shoes was coming inside.)
I have to ask. “silent copper”???
Sounds akin to the old “sleeping policeman” nickname for speedbumps in the UK.
It’s a metal cylinder that sticks up in the road to stop people cutting corners, up to a foot across and maybe 5 inches high (usually a little shorter tho).
They are to ‘encourage’ people not to cut corners, and some have a cone on top the point of which will do damage if you do decide to go over them.
Exhibit A: https://www.flickr.com/photos/davemurchie/8382718563
Even when throws don’t hurt a lot, you can get the wind knocked out of you and a mild concussion, which would certainly be enough to slow a fighter down a bit. I think I got caught that solidly only once while learning Judo as a kid.
And, yes, some fighters do learn to tumble out of the throw and back onto their feet. I’d be really impressed to see someone do that and go straight into throwing their attacker in turn; theoretically that kind of counter is possible but in my limited experience I haven’t seen it.
One should also remember that Judo literally translates as “the gentle way”; it was specifically designed as a sport rather than a martial art, and the rules and mindset both limit the amount of actual risk for the participants. A clean throw is worth a point and wins the encounter; a less-than-solid throw is a half-point but is often followed up with grappling the opponent once they’re down and holding them under control until the end of the 3-minute period (or until they concede) is also a win.
Side note: The 3-minute time was also chosen specifically to limit risk. Once you get beyond beginner level, some of the holds involve cutting off bloodflow to the brain, which can quickly cause unconsciousness — but some people have their reflexes trained to the point that they continue struggling, using appropriate counters, even after they’re no longer aware of what they’re doing. Three minutes was considered to have sufficient safety margin to prevent permanent damage.
(Part of learning Judo is learning the history of the form; any active judoka can give you a capsule summary when you hit their “playback” button.)
At one time, I was riding my bicycle, I flipped forward of of the bike, landed on my head, bounced flipped over and landed on my head, at the same spot on my head ! I remember it as if it was yesterday!
C̶̈́ͭ̎ͥa̺͑͠n̸͚̻̦̫̘ͦ̃̓ ̢̹͈̤̾ͭ͆ͭ̃͆̚ẙ̯̙͇̏o̷̹͙͗̾͊̽ͧ͐ͯu̲̻̦̓ͪ̀̋ ̘̫̞͉͚̳ͧ̍̅͒r̢̞̽͂̂ͯͨe̜͈̲̾̄ͯͨͮ̎͘m͐͘ẻ̖̮̪ͅm̌͂ͨ̄͌ͤ͜bͥͫ̒ḙ̬͓̟̳́̊̚͠r̶̙̝͕̭̜̟͛̇̑ͯ̊ͧ̂ ̝̺̭̻̓̇ẃ̱̳̹͍̗̻̍̈h̻̲̣̣̣̑o̞̠̠̻̹̓̀̂͘ ͚̙ͅi̛͍̳̝̺̤̳͔̅̎ͯͨ̐ͤ̍s̨̖̼̳̬͍̠͐͊̈́̋̿ ͖̼̼͎ͣͭ͂̇ͣͧ́P̉̇̾ͦ̆̾͏̣͎̜̹r̪̮̞ͪ̾̓ͧͨe͉̎̐̔̚s̠͈ͬ̿ͬ͘ȋ͕̻̜͐́̔́d̲̲̼̝̣͖̥ͬ̿̆̏̍̽͠e̶͒ͧ̋͐̆n̴̹̘ͮͦͨͯ̂̄̈́t̮̲̪̯͍͕̯ ̫͖͕̰̘̂ͣ͑ͦ̚̕t̼͚̦̱̬̮̺ͥ͛͘h̵̦͍́ͅò̘̝̺̤̩͎u̠̫ͮͣ͝g̞̥̩͉̺͓̰̅͐̑h͋̌ͬͭͩͅ?̭͇̣̤͐ͩ̈́͒ͦ
* holds up paw *
H̤̍͂ͤ̌́o̮͓͖̫ͦ̂w̹̫̓̾̈ͪ͆͗ ͙̭͊̽ͅm͎͙̹͇̫̣ͪ̓͋ă̘͖̪͎̘ṇ̌ͪ̿̒͒ͨy̨͎̬̳̤̮͈͙̌̃ ̇̏̓f̤͓̟̺̙̀͑͑ͥ̎̋ͬi̡̝̯̺̣̊̚n̿ͥ͜g͚̥ͧ͋̍̒ͣͧ̑e̩̯͓͎̲ͣͩ͑͡r̟̜̟͚s̶̪̭̜̝͕͌̿̇̊̈̉ ̟ͥa̔͑̔̀͏m͎̰̟̮̭̜͙̎͐͋̏̇ͮ͢ ͎̭͗ͮ͘Ī͈̳̫̰͉͒͑̀ ̙͕̩́̀ͧ̓̋̍̈́ḧ̘͎͖̖͈͙̑o̬͋́͗̅ͣĺ̲̰̯̤̹͗d̫̫̩̪̦͓̞̃̽ͨ̈́́i̝̤͔̺ͦͯ͢n͙͘ģ̭̹͓͓̭̦̀̾ ̝̤͖̹̝û̱̜̭͕̼̝̓̄p̞̻̼͙̖͎͛̊͑̓ ͉̳̥̩̬̰͓̈́͝¿̭̘̗͎̍ͮ
Hillary!
All of them!
( dammit for a moment i thought i was back in the real universe )
Sorry, I can’t give you full anime points unless you did a triple axel spin on your helmet.
Then add into a throw either throwing them into something or landing on them or bringing a foot to stomp on abdomen, chest, or throat (sorry marine Corps Braining washing at its finest)and a throw can lead to some serious damage.
Grab, twist, pull, grab… Make that phonecall….
“Throw to get an advantage, or remove a disadvantage if you are caught in a bad way.” ((Thank you Master Corporal Heisler.) Your teachings have saved my *** many times in the last 30+ years.)
PPCLI for life.
Salute.
As a ex judo practitioner I concur getting thrown hurts.
Was once thrown hard enough to snap my collar bone on landing.
and that’s on a padded surface.
Not only do throws hurt, but I would think the potential for injuring yourself is also lower. Hands (especially knuckles) get torn up when you’re throwing punches but with throws you’re just grabbing and moving.
Also, the person being thrown is often left slightly disoriented, and has to spend time and effort to pick themselves back up, which could leave them off balance for a followup attack.
And remember CTE. The NFL even did a thing on it. It’s accumulative unhealable brain damage, and even punching someone in the chest adds to it because some of that force does transfer to the brain.
Also don’t use subwoofers or motorcyles.
And that author’s note is why that fight scene in the first Black Widow trailer got my attention. Someone’s leg got hooked into a window in a door…and that did NOT look like a safe fall.
I have done one of the above. Or at least held them at the tipping point, where they could see loosening my grip would have them fall all the way down. Head first!
“Going to calm down now?”
Fully justified too. They had been using a weapon to strike a friend of mind, whilst he was on the ground, having been hit by a surprise attack! Further the weapon was attached to the individual, so I could not just do a simple disarm.
Not surprisingly the tactic worked incredibly well, and the situation was defused in seconds. With the fridge (one of those big American football players) going off about his business with no further trouble, after I had put him safely back on his feet.
If I did that with some of the people I have to deal with (as a security guard), they’d end up dead. Some people just aren’t that aware.
Wow, Sydney’s quicker than one might think, she got one over on an accomplished martial artist.
never underestimate the reflexes of an ADHD adept. i’ve impressed trained fencers with mine. is fumbling, then catching, THEN cracking with one hand, a shell egg really that impressive of a 6 seconds?
Well, to be fair, most likely Jabberwokki allowed Sydney to try her throw, in order to see what she was capable of. As can be seen, by the attempt at tongue-fu, she is more than capable of countering the attack, when it does not suit her.
That said though Sydney has managed to take down Math, but then she had the advantage of punching with an orb (that was blocked from his view on approach), which is unconventional enough that even he was taken by surprise! Here it is possible that Halo’s confusion aura may have caught Jabberwokki off guard.
Think it’s more surprise Sydney would do that.
Sydney is very attack prone. It is her go to response at any opportunity.
“Of course, I would also love to see a scene in an actiony type TV show like Buffy or something, where the hero gets into a fight with let’s say 8 thugs, and knocks them all out by punching them, only to learn later that 3 of them died from concussion related trauma.”
Hah, reminds me of my fav quote from a book:
“Instead of punching him in the head, which could potentially result in brain death even if he was only aiming for a knockout, Titan shattered the man’s legs, leaving him to howl in the street. Technically the kid could still use his powers, but without HCP-grade training, it was unlikely he’d be able to focus through the pain. If he did, then Titan would finish the job, but it felt wrong to kill someone who was acting out of grief more than anger. At least, not without giving them a chance.”
****
A knockout blow may look less painful than broken legs but they’re also far less dangerous.
If he truly “shattered” the kid’s legs, then death from internal bleeding would not be an unlikely consequence.
He’s embellishing; It’s a simple break.
I presume your name is also from Super Powereds?
Yup, pretty obscure though.
I’ll agree. If you hadn’t quoted from Corpies, I probably wouldn’t have made the connection.
As someone who’ve dipped a toe or two in koryu (literally ‘old school’ japanese martial arts, predating the sword ban), I have two tidbits about throws:
1) You generally don’t throw the opponent away from you, you throw him straight down. And then follow up. Sometime you retain control of eg. an arm, for a lock. More often you follow up, eg. with a knee strike with your entire body mass behind it.
There’s even a school where part of (AFAIK) every throwing technique includes pulling out your knife to finish your opponent off, with a cut or a stab, depending.
2) I tend to associate throws with schools for fighting in full armor. Meaning that punches and kicks are less effective, but once you’re on the ground, getting back up is a lot of work.
At which point your opponent has time to follow up.
… some koryu schools are very practically minded.
I did traditional karate, but karate doesn’t use a lot of throws compared to many other styles, so this insight was great
I think that Sydney has a LOT of repetitious overlearning in her future. You can train the impulsivity out of a person with ADHD. I wonder how much Jabberwokky trains each day? Even with being a super I would think that it would help to integrate the various styles.
I’ll add my two cents in from a law enforcement point of view. Throwing suspects allows us to create distance so we can go to another tool on our belt (like a gun if the person in 6’8″ and has a club in his hand, or OC spray if I really don’t like them). As a cop (or future cop, I’m working on it) our job isn’t to defeat people, it’s to arrest them, and throws are really good at creating the time and distance we need to make sure that our tool is superior to theirs.
The US Army taught my father to throw an opponent as far as possible, on the theory that he would then shoot them (fatally) while they were trying to get back up.
The army instructor my father knew had taught the primary ability to win a fight is to end it first. If they happen to be americans you don’t follow up with the killing half. If he got in a fight you blink and you might miss the fight.
Moral of the story: Martial Arts can be REALLY F***ING SCARY.
“The most important fights are the ones we never fight” – Jackie Chan
“Yeah, but the_ coolest_ ones are the ones where you use half a hardware store …and a ladder.” – me
Note the other thing Jackie Chan is famous for in his movies is how much he gets his arse kicked while using every object in a 5 mile radius to help turn things around X3.
Do not talk your hand-to-hand teacher else they will make you regret it Sydney
Just going to say that Jabberwokky is looking better and better now that she’s getting more ‘screen-time’ and it makes me want to see a vote incentive of her and Dabbler…
Guns beat karate/judo/krav maga/etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqaj-CGjKmE
Just be sure you stay well out of arms reach.
And this training is for when Sydney cannot stay out of arms reach. For instance when having to restrain somebody or put handcuffs on them!
Shooting shoplifters, whilst it does solve the problem, tends to get politically correct people a bit miffed.
A lot of shooting shoplifters depends on what you shoot them with. Shame we don’t have easy portable gun additions like Dabbler’s which are projectile constraints.
Pedantry: If she wants to arrest someone she should use the lighthook to bind them up.
But, yes. As you say, the training is for when someone attacks from surprise or otherwise manages to get in close when she doesn’t have the shield up, or doesn’t even have the orbs out of tubey. Throws make perfect sense for that; give her just a little distance/time and she’s invulnerable.
Since her kryptonite is having her hands tied up, the chance of her having to physically defend herself with kicks is higher. A toe-spike wasp knife might be good. It would have come in handy in that first encounter with Sciona.
Just make sure doesn’t do a Jethro Bodine and put the knife in backwards :P
Knowing Sydney, she will do a ‘Jethro’ :D
It would be impractical to rely on the lighthook, otherwise Sydney could only arrest one person, then would, quite literally, be tied to them, until they are processed and locked up in jail!
But, once she has practiced the technique, yea, Halo can bind someone with the lighthook, then place the cuffs on them.
However do note that there are circumstances under which Sydney will not be able to do this. Take for example being under fire and needing to raise her shield around herself (and the person she wishes to arrest).
First off we know that the tentacle cannot work inside the force field. But assuming that there is a setting or upgrade, which will allow her to overcome this, there is still the problem of running out of hands. One will be holding the Forb, to protect them, whilst the other will be holding the Molestation Orb, to restrain the villain. Sadly though that would leave no hands free to slap the cuffs on them.
So unless a way can be found to put the handcuffs on using the tentacle (entirely plausible, it is extremely flexible), Sydney will still face instances where She will have to slap them on by hand. Using appropriate restraining techniques.
Also, Sydney will have to practice cuffing someone with just one hand
That is a normal part of police training and modern handcuff design.
So I’ve been wondering. Throws are fairly advanced martial arts, more so than punches and kicks. What self defense class did Sydney take to learn a proper throw yet she still punches like a middle schooler?
The answer is probably bad/exceptional followed PE, a personal top down teacher or a bragging friend.
Scrolling through the comments, I would say a bragging friend or a personal top-down style teacher are the more realistic, since long distance throwing seems to be law enforcement specific and a PE teacher would’ve had some non-law enforcement specific martial arts lessons.
Judo classes don’t teach punches. Throws are NOT “more advanced” than punches if that is all that are taught. Jujitsu (the less sporting variant of judo) teaches throws plus more painful holds (nerve strikes, arm bars and such)….and still doesn’t teach “punches” per se.
Knowing Sydney, she could have picked it up anywhere. YouTube, a movie, even a comic book. I’d be more curious about who let her practice on them!
As others said, throws are not always more advanced. It depends on the style. For karate, throws come later, for boxing they never happen, but wrestling and judo are all about the throws and take downs.
well as other have said proper throws are straight down and to follow up with a strike or lock. what I really wanted to comment on is how you had jabby escape from the throw. while the hand stand is realy funny in the ha the throw failed putting your hand down and halting your fall completely like depecticed would actually cause massive damage to your hand elbows and shoulder. the safe way to get out of a throw is to relax the arm and roll the body like a ball then spring back up.
I agree with FableOwl‘s assessment bellow. Jabberwokky is making use of her super power to pull off a feat that would be dangerous or impossible for normal humans.
It’s a weird throw, so you can’t really tell what’s going on. Posting an arm is perfectly fine to recover from a throw as long as you do it early. The problem is that given the entry and the hip positions, the arm that posts in this case shouldn’t be available…
“the safe way to get out of a throw is to relax the arm and roll the body like a ball then spring back up.” I’ve done that backwards!
I don’t think you are accounting for the fact that Jabber is a super, so likely that did either little or no damage to her. Don’t get me wrong for real people hundred percent you are right, just pointing out.
I think hollywood throws could just… cut out half the landing. Just flip a guy in the air and don’t show the moment of impact on screen, then cut to stuntman doing a… not headstand, but shoulder-stand, and just flopping in a heap from there. Should give the impression they landed bad and maybe broke their neck, without breaking the stunt budget.
Sounds good in theory… but you can always tell when they’ve fudged the action in later. One of the reasons Jackie Chan always did his own stunts, so he could show the real action in continuous takes instead of chopping stuff together.
“I’m just saying, maybe we should find some terminally ill people who REALLY want to be in movies….” Hollywood Movie Producer
Well, the ‘fudged’ ones are Bollywood movies, designed to make Hollywood stunts look professional :P
Yeaaah, that is why I don’t wear piercings. And what jewelry I have is of the more solid variety.
I have acidic skin and metal alergy.
The only adornments I can wear are colorful belts with nice buckles.
So I just wear nerd gear.
@Dave:
It’s 5:36pm, & I just finished scrolling thru both pages of comments, & I’m shocked to see that I’m the FIRST one here to notice your “homage” in the last panel …
… so let me just respond with his famous closing-line:
” … & ‘Good Night’, Mrs. Calabash, Wherever You Are … “
I noticed, but wouldn’t have pegged Sydney for a fan of that catch phrase so I didn’t really know what to say.*
* really don’t care about credit for seeing it, just want Dave to know it wasn’t unappreciated
Just wanted to show some appreciation of a really subtle joke, in the way Jabberwokky mispronounces. TH (tongue forward) becomes F (tongue pulled back); same thing with D becoming G, and ING becoming IG. Goog finkig figs frough.
My experience with being pinned is strange. Whenever I was pointed iburst into laughter. The better the pin the harder I laughed it was the strangest thing.
At some point, Maxima is going to order everyone to be trained on not giving Sydney ideas.
LOLZ with the traditional Japanese “ow”
If you are the “thrower” it gains you the chance to not only stun your opponent but if you’re fast enough to follow them and land several blows when they land. (please don’t ask… my sensi wasn’t one to pull his punches during sparing…}
Richards in now female, in the comic!
Panel 4 is evidence of how Halo has the most awesome looking but in arcswat. (I’m still hoping for Halo in bikini pictures)
“Ohh, ohh, I can has weaponize short!”
What I don’t understand is why the big scary monster will grab the hero and have him completely disabled by its incredible grip, and then throws him across the room, allowing him the chance to recover. If you’re the Hulk and once you get your hands on something they can’t break your grip, why would you ever let go of them?
“officially” monsters in films are supposed to be acting like less intelligent animals, so they grab a target and toss him, then go in for the kill while they’re disoriented. Evil hollywood logic though, its because it supposed to be scarier to see the monster do incremental damage that someone can almost escape from and keep coming after someone – makes for a more scared audience.
If it were going for realism it would be the monster would bite down & not ever let go, or would shake them while it had them in what ever monster it was’ grip
Put another way…. monsters gotta drag out the violence to scare the audience more and show off the awesomeness of the monster
In Tai Chi Chuan there are no throws. Blocks and deflections, yes. Kicks and punches, too, although you don’t hear about them in introductory courses. And quite a lot of holds (chin-na – almost always done with two hands, I should mention) which you learn a few years into your training. But no throws.
Tai Chi is a very pragmatic martial art – the start of the form is based on the instinctive flinch that everyone does when someone attacks them. So I’m guessing that the lack of throws is equally pragmatic – if someone is under your control, why the hell would you throw them away when you could actually do them some damage? Especially if they’re a judoka or similar and are trained in how to take a fall.
And you don’t need to be the Hulk to have an unbreakable grip. Holds seem to be viewed as something mystical, but there is one very simple watchword to remember – if you control two adjacent joints (e.g. elbow and wrist, or even just two knuckles) you control the whole limb, and therefore the person. Some practice will be required…
Realism is often either very messy or very short. Hard to build suspense if the fight is over in two seconds, and hard to keep the rating PG13 if the knife thrust doesn’t kill the person but you have to keep stabbing them over and over and over again. It is also harder for the writers to do it realistically, for a number of reasons.
And don’t get me started on how easy it is in movies to knock someone unconscious, or how they seem to stay out for hours then wake up with nary a headache and are good to go again.
Would not surprise me if Sydney hadn’t been dong left-hand punches
And also good to see some of Sydney’s arrogance coming back to KRSK her fingers: the only reason the tongue-toss worked, was because it was against Morph, and he didn’t want to blow his cover: if your hand is small enough to fit inside someone’s mouth to fully grab their slippery tongue, you ain’t big enough to toss them!
It would me, we have only seen her being honest. Plus when Sydney did have a reason for concealing the truth (to protect Joel and her family, and hide details of her power origins), she proved to be an abysmally bad liar!
Tongue Fu is blatantly impossible, which is why it would was comedic gold! So there is no point in over analysing it.
Amorphous had the options to extend his tongue, blowing his cover, or get thrown.
A normal man would have had the options to get thrown or resist, potentially getting his tongue ripped out.
With that in mind, it would have worked against a normal man. Not because Sydney has the strength to throw a man like that, but because pain compliance forces him to assist her.
The plausibility of grabbing a tongue in a fight like that, on the other hand …
It is not possible for a normal person to grab another normal persons tongue like that
Also, for someone who doesn’t know how to punch with their dominant hand, why would they even think to try using their off-hand unless previously told to?
So unless Sydney was told off-screen to punch with both hands (and it must have been off-screen she was told to keep practicing her punches on the special machine), then no, she would not have done that on her own initiative
She is only an ‘abysmally bad liar’ with people who know her well enough
I mean, let’s be real here, nobody would even remember that Buffy had killed anybody by the start of next week.
I would. The difference with that series is that there were consequences, and things which happened one week would have an effect some time later. So if you wanted to figure out what was happening, you needed to remember stuff like that.
What is Sydney wearing under her shirt?
Nothing.
Not even a bra? o_O
If you mean the last panel, that’s her knee coming up. Not a center shirt panel of a different color, not an undershirt, not a weird shadow. I was confused at first, too.
Thank you. I thought it was her shirt lifted up with some kind of armor beneath it.
There are a lot of throws in various martial arts, but they tend not be used in “real fights” (aka: two competent fighters facing off, not an typical street altercation- which sounds like the opposite of a “real” fight, but I digress) for a couple of reasons.
1) Most fighters have some training on avoiding throws. If you don’t have any judoka will yeet you pretty hard and that sucks ass. But, if you know how to plant yourself and keep your weight balanced it’s not too hard to avoid the major throws or transition to a grapple to avoid getting chucked.
2) Throwing a person’s weight around is hard and tiring. It’s more energy efficient to beat someone unconscious than to heft the weight of an entire body around long enough to actual KO them.
3) Throws hurt like a bitch, but they do relatively little to take someone out of the fight. Throws are great for “disengage and run away” self-defense, but if you are stuck in a ring with the person they are going to get up and keep punching you.
All this applies to why you don’t see it too much in movies as well
jabberwokky seems really content in her role as trainer. Even when defeated her revenge is to unbuckle a boot. This incident may have actually found her calling
It just proves she was never really a villain
Remember what Heatwave, Morph and Les were doing before Archon ‘found’ them?
Is there a way you could add a “latest” link that always goes to the current comic? I pop open a bunch of book marks for my daily reads, and have to hit “latest”, which is actually a link to the actual latest comic, so when I update my book mark, that’s the one I see until I update it again.
Just bookmark https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/ which will always display the latest comic and also the author’s front page blog.
Personally though I prefer to go to a favourite bookmark (in my case https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-192-touching-star/ ) and then hit “latest”, just the same as you already do. The reason being that this brings up the latest comic and the relevant comments page.
To do the same with the prior link, you have to go back a page then hit latest, which is a longer route to get to the comments.
What throws me about throws in movie fights is more how they’re always used at the wrong time. Basically every time, it’s the character who has the upper hand who throws the other one away from them. It’s usually to show they’re much, much stronger than their opponent and to give the underdog a chance to stop getting punched for a second so the fight doesn’t end.
You can see the basic tactical mistake happening if you think about that last part.
every trained soldier and killer robot knows, when you have the advantage you don’t want the other guy to get away from you. You want to keep hitting them until they stop moving and a while after that.
Yup.
Even worse when it is the other way around. Typical plot scenario:
Terrible person/monster has kidnapped you and/or friends/family and has tortured you and killed most if not all the others. You fight them, you knock them down senseless …
… then drop your weapon and run away, stumbling, so that the villain can regain their senses, pick up the weapon and start stalking you again!!!
This happens in so so many plots and it drives me crazy!
Beat the **** out of the villain until his grey matter is splattered all over the ground. And if it is a monster burn the corpse, for good measure!
No you don’t waste time hitting them. If you have thrown them in a trained and professional manner you still have possession of at least one limb. You transfer your ownership to a leg if you don’t already have it, then break that, preferably at the knee, usually by levering the joint apart with the other leg. Ankles don’t work quite the same way, but will still surrender quite meekly to sufficient sudden rotational force.
NOW you have time to clear their weapon/s…
In all of that, it is essential to remember that Batman we are NOT. The average elite soldier can take care of two non-elite soldiers, but is likely to have his work cut out dealing with an equally trained elite enemy. I would be surprised to see any battle melee that does not involve firearms and/or cutting implements, rendering any form of karate pretty well superfluous.
Fundamentally, karate is for when all other methodology has turned to poo.
Green Hornet. When sometimes a thug would be knocked out face down in water. and nobody did anything for them. Or green hornet when they tried to stop a truck by firing rockets. nobody escaped the cab. Kato and the Hornet stared. then turned and got into the car leaving the cab on fire.
Generally Buffy wants the things she’s fighting to die. They’re usually monsters. Buffy vs humans who aren’t insane demon worshipers or otherwise perfectly justifiable cases for lethal force is pretty rare.
Still, I get what you mean. What’s even worse is when you think of people in TV shows and moves being knocked out by being hit in the head with blunt objects.
Nothing beats the sixties.
Mike Conners as “Joe Mannix” creeping along the rafters of warehouses and jumping down on thugs with revolvers. The empty boxes they always fell into flew everywhere.
when I was a child, I went through a brief phase of reading Hardy Boys books and Doc Savage books. Both followed a strict formula of course, with the heroes regularly getting knocked unconscious by bangs to the head. One did later have to wonder if the same formula would still be used in an era where we know about the long term effects of concussions. Would our intrepid heroes be suffering from debilitating neurological conditions in their 40s?
Almost certainly. Muhammed Ali is a powerful message to the unbelievers, but many of his opponents also suffered.
Even in the elite regiments of the world, perhaps “especially”, concussion is treated very seriously. Alas, unlike sunburn, it cannot be regarded as a self-inflicted wound due to the requirements of combat practice.
It’s worth noting that very few of the old-school bare-knuckle boxers suffered severe concussion, while many lost the functional use of their hands. (BTW, I personally support the return of bare-knuckle boxing for these very reasons. Modern boxing is a barbaric practice totally in keeping with the worst entertainment excesses of the Roman Empire.)
That isn’t an Einstein quote. It’s a saying that was common in Einstein’s time, so he might have said it, but it isn’t his quote. The most likely person to have originated something like that quote is Voltaire, like 100 years earlier and in French.
Alexander Dumas, not Voltaire. And that was only talking about human stupidity.
The first attribution of the FULL quote, that DaveB referenced in his home page blog, was vague, but could have been meant to allude to Einstein. Subsequently though it did get clearly attributed to him.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/
The definitive authority on stupidity was Robert Heinlein who wrote:
Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.
Hence the annual ‘Darwin Awards’. Often awarded posthumously.
Continuity aside, her chest tat kinda makes it look like she spilled oil in her cleavage.
There are those that think aikido is an unarmed art because your hands are usually empty. This is untrue. The aikidoka intends to hit you very hard with the biggest weapon they can find: the planet.
Sydney used her lightwhip ball to try to match Maxima’s punch – and came woefully short.
I’m a little surprised she didn’t bring out her blaster ball to see what that would do – but on second thought, it’s probably a good thing she didn’t.
The whole thing makes me wonder – what if Sydney and Maxima went at it, ‘no holds barred’? The base (let alone the Punch-O-Matic) would hardly survive the contest. And what would everyone else do? Of course, I don’t imagine that would ever happen, unless Sydney or Maxima somehow became possessed…
P.S. – what do you get when you don’t pay your witch doctor? …REPOSSESSED…
“And what would everyone else do?”
Roll the cameras, and place the bets. From a safe-ish distance (which may require a telescope and/or drone cameras).
not super relevant to this since I actually like the way Dave handled showing the throw(Aka: Unless you have very intimate knowledge of how martial arts look show it in a more abstract way cause people who do know WILL point out your mistakes) but its always bugged me in comics when writers who have never thrown a punch start making characters talk about how to fight-I remember one in an xmen comic where a villain did a mini rant about headbutts being stupid since they hurt both fighters equally,Followed by her opponent doing a forehead to forehead headbutt several times in a row(Note if you want to give someone a glasgow kiss the way you do it is forehead to their nose which tends to take the fight out of most people since suddenly their nose is smeared halfway across their face and theyre trying to remember how to breathe).
For a normal person, forehead-to-forehead is a bad idea, if they are a mutant with special abilities (enhanced endurance, thicker bones, heightened healing, etc.) then it’s not a problem… for them anyway
Also, movies, TV and slash or comics (Western or Asian) are not meant to be training manuals on how to fight, so anyone watching or reading those hoping to be the next Chuck Lee deserves to receive a Darwin Award