 We've seen the karate chop in countless movies and shows over the years, typically in satirical fashion or an exaggeration to sell the deadliness of our heroes. Now while it's easy to understand that using a karate chop on fictional characters is done for dramatic effect, the question does remain, does the technique work in real life? Let's start off with addressing the exaggeration. In the early days of television and film, we did not see the diversity of martial arts on screen as we see today. Martial arts were exotic and dramatic. During a time when most characters resorted to fisticuffs, the karate chop, also sometimes called the judo chop, were reserved for the most elite of heroes. Whether they were as distinguished as James Bond or as comical as Inspector Clouseau, the karate chop was sold to us as a quick and effective way to neutralize the enemy. But does it work? The short answer is yes, it works, or at least it can be an effective technique. The more appropriate question would be why and how it works and when to use it. The karate chop exists in some form or another in many different fighting disciplines. It may simply be referred to as karate judo chop, or knife hand, or sword hand, shuto, or a number of other translations. It can obviously be done as a clear and direct chop, or it can be hidden amongst other techniques, and once we have a very general understanding of what's happening anatomically, we'll see that the application can be deployed in a number of ways. Before we continue, I just want to say that there is an obscene number of videos across YouTube of people performing some version of this chop on each other, and this is not an endorsement for that behavior to experiment and play around with. Striking someone in the neck can be incredibly dangerous, even when taking precautions, so please don't play around with this one. The mechanics of the chop are pretty basic and straightforward. Anyone who's trained has probably already been exposed to it of some form or another. As a strike, it offers a lot of advantages, such as a wide margin of error. The striking surface could range from the muscular part of the hand down to the elbow, so you don't always have to be as precise as the punch may need to be. Ideally, you'll try to land with the outer blade edge of the hand and the outer arm, but if you're not directly on target, the strike can still deliver an effective impact. Utilizing body rotation, it can generate an exceptional amount of force behind it too. Using twerk and rotating through the hips, you can employ a lot of energy into the mass of your arm. The chop also lends itself to being able to use gravitational energy as well. The sword hand, or chopping motion, serves well as a fitted weapon, countering and slicing quite nicely through the diagonal lines of the body. Targets on the body are typically the collar area, which includes the carotid arteries, mastoids and throat, the back of the neck, the base of the neck, ribs, chest, and if you reverse the path and travel upwards, it's great for growing strikes too. We actually see quite a few versions of the sword hand strikes in Kempo applied on several different paths and targets, and it can really be quite effective. Even more so if you wanted to open up the boundaries a little bit and include similar techniques such as the ridge hand or forearm strikes. But as we've seen in the media, the chops tend to be portrayed as a cross collar or neck strike. So why is it so effective? Well, for one, it hurts. A lot. Even though we have some strong muscles in the neck, there's a lot of soft tissue in there as well. The trachea, nerves, blood vessels, a lot of sensitive body parts that really don't like being struck. Many tactical training programs in law enforcement will utilize chopping or forearm strikes to the neck to stun an assailant quickly in order to be able to subdue them. This application is often called the brachial stun. Without diving too deep into the anatomy, the neck has a pretty important network of nerves and blood supply. The brachial plexus is a branch of nerves that run down the vertebrae and a branch off through the collar, shoulder, and down your arms. These nerves are high functioning, and they control your ability to move your wrist, hands, and arms. They have sensory functions as well, helping us detect hot and cold temperatures. It's pretty reasonable to understand that delivering a heavy blow through these nerves could cause a motor disruption in the body. Now, even though this can be an effective way to submit someone, it still has a lot of risks, and it can be incredibly dangerous. You have crotted arteries on either side of your neck and a sensitive spot right in front called the crotted sinus. Pressure to this area while in a hypertension state could cause some cardio and functional disruption. Additionally, back behind both ears and jawline runs another nerve called the vagus nerve, and this nerve serves a very important function which transitions into our next talking point. I've had the base with people on whether or not you could actually knock someone out with a judo chop or a strike through the neck in general. I believe the answer is yes because I have seen it, and there is also countless evidence of it occurring on the street, in the ring, and in demonstration. We can understand why a blow to the head can knock you out. Any violent acceleration and deceleration of the brain can cause damage, but why would a strike to the neck achieve a similar result? It comes back to that vagus nerve. This nerve, in addition to contributing to the motor functions seen by the brachial plexus, also helps regulate blood pressure in the body. It's a neural pathway to the brain to monitor potentially dangerous blood pressure levels. If your blood pressure gets too high, this nerve sends a signal to the brain to lower it back down to safe levels. Now, imagine a violent swordhand chop to the side of the neck. Not only are you shocking all the nerve clusters, but a sudden impact to the crowded artery could quickly increase your blood pressure for just a moment, triggering the vagus nerve in an attempt to regulate it, so you now have your brain sending an additional message to lower your blood pressure while it's already normalizing in the aftermath of the strike, and that sudden dip in pressure can cause the person to dip out of consciousness momentarily. Is it as easy and simple as they make it out in the movies? Well, no. I mean, it's one thing to apply to somebody who's just standing there for a demonstration, but it's another thing to try to land it on an resistant opponent, one who's already consciously already likely protecting their head. But with that being said, there are still ways to sneak it in there. You know, the chopping action can be done with either side of the arm, so there are many opportunities that you might be able to deliver a solid forearm strike. So for example, a redirected punch or any jiu-jitsu throw that evolves reaching around the back of the head. It doesn't take a lot to kind of hammer that arm in place and then possibly achieve a brachial stun. A variation of this can also be seen when striking someone on the chin. Why does the person get knocked out from being struck on the chin? Well, for one, we refer back to the trauma of the brain dramatically shifting in the skull. A solid strike on the chin can turn the head suddenly and that violent rotation causes the brain to shake around. Alternatively, even a lighter strike can do something similar. If the jaw is loose when it's struck, it can shift back and apply pressure to the area behind the hinge, which affects the vagus nerve, and the right contact could result in a flash talk out similar to when we do the brachial stun. I actually did this by accident during my third degree black belt test. I was sparring a much larger guy and trying to stay out of the range of his swings. At one point, I felt he was closing the distance, so I went in on the offense and I moved in trying to jam him up. I ducked my head down and I delivered a quick pop to his head, but I got him right on the button on the jaw and he dropped instantly. He was confused and disoriented and struggled to pull his gloves off and later said he blacked out for a second and just remembered being on the ground. It didn't take much at all, it was just the right contact on the right spot. So is the karate chop a real effective technique? Yes, of course it is. TV and film romanticize it and they make it look a lot easier than it is, but just with any other strike or technique, it has to be applied the right way at the right time. And with all that being said, I just want to repeat caution that this is not something that should be practiced and tested. Striking a person in the neck can be a serious risk and the last thing we want to do is hurt each other in the studio. It's also important to understand that if you ever have to use it for real, that it's not just a quick and safe solution that we see in the media. There are real consequences to using it. If the person stays knocked out for a while and gets up later like we see in the movies, then they have suffered major trauma and they're not going to just randomly spring back into action. In the best case scenario, a person is going to be confused and disoriented, but in worse scenarios, you could seriously hurt a person. So please, only resort to this in the most necessary of situations. I'd love to hear your thoughts, theories and experiences with this technique. What do you guys think? Is the karate chop legit or not? Let us know in the comments down below.