philly

Oh man do I love things like this. It's a summary of a new program set to air on the National Geographic Channel [dammit, I don't get this one anymore] putting various martial arts to scientific tests. I never learned any martial arts aside from a few tae kwon do classes when I was around eight years old or so. I can fake it pretty well though. That, coupled with me being Korean and in fairly good shape, could fool most.

Some of the test revealed some pretty cool stuff. They used a crash test dummy [remember that band?] outfitted with special sensors all over the place. A boxer threw the hardest punch @ 1,000 lbs. of impact force, about the same as swinging a sledgehammer into your face. A Muay Thai kickboxer landed a knee to the chest of the dummy equivalent to a 35mph car crash – into your chest. A wushu practicioner threw a punch clocked at 40fps, that's feet per second, of acceleration. Awesome.

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