Martial “Skills”?


A few months ago, I did a post on questionable body conditioning practices.  So, for your entertainment, here’s a followup post about questionable martial skills.  Some of them are impressive, but none of them really pass my personal test for general sanity.

Finger strikes through coconuts. Sure, I’d never want to get in a fight with him as he might put a hole in my skull with his conditioned fingers. But take a look at those gnarly fingers.  I think I’d prefer full function and fine motor control of my digits instead of the ability to pierce a coconut.

“Eating” molten lead.  Ok, so there’s a trick to this odd skill.  The saliva buffers the mouth against the heat, and he does spit it out after several seconds.  Despite that knowledge, I don’t see where this skill would ever come in handy.  It’s not like you can carry around molten lead and spit it at your attackers.  And then there’s the inconvenient fact that lead in your body is not considered good for your health.

As I mentioned last time, head conditioning is a questionable practice in my opinion.  Just training the head breaking skill is not the best idea in my opinion.  Demo-ing it for many multiples of boards/bricks just boggles my mind.  My head hurts for them.

Finally, I just thought this video was kind of cool (it’s in no way martial arts related, unless you take the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” to its full logcial conclusion).  Pen spinning is a totally useless skill, but one that every single person who goes to college should gain some proficiency in.  At some point in pursuit higher education, there will be a completely pointless and boring class.  It’s that class in which learning pen twirling becomes essential to staying awake.