Jiu-Jitsu and Weapons in TV/Movies

Note: this one may be a bit long.

Was watching Hawaii Five-O on Netflix earlier today, and absolutely tripped towards the end of the episode. Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly, one of the main characters, is thrown into a street-guard situation, and “night-night”s his attacker using a triangle choke armbar.

I swear, I jumped up and down and screamed and tripped like crazy. My mom and sister were like calm the hell down, (my name). Anyway, here’s a video for that scene. It’s a complicated episode, and if you watch the whole thing you’ll see why the cop’s in prison. The choke starts at 2:48; the fight @ 2:40.

Now, as soon as I saw the bad guy’s shank arm (the one with the improvised stabbing device; a shank in prison) in the situation it was, my jiu-jitsu conscience was yelling, i mean  YELLING almost to the point of escaping through my hyperventilating mouth, “ARMBAR! ARMBAR! ARMBAR! ARMBAR!….” You get the idea. But the character on the bottom puts his right foot on the bad guys left arm, traps the shank arm, and shoves the right leg over the shoulder and around the neck, cuts the angle, keeps shank arm across, and puts the bad guy to sleep while also breaking his arm (I think i heard a cracking sound in the episode; could’ve been bad guy’s neck being crunched, too, to a certain extent) with a textbook triangle choke.

This is one of my jiu-jitsu dreams: put an opponent to sleep with my legs. Sounds gay as hell, but watch the video and you’ll see. The triangle choke is one done with the legs–at least the basic one. There are some other variants and many other ways of doing them (flying triangle, arm triangle, kick-through, etc.), but the plain Jane, old fashioned triangle from a modified closed guard (BJJers will know the modifications, ask if you need specifics) is what happens in this scene. Now that I think about it, it’s sort of similar to the rear naked choke. The choker is effectively jamming both carotid arteries, the same ones blocked in the said choke. This means you’re out in about 10 seconds; hold longer, and maybe out for longer. Hold longer still, and you’ll kill the guy.

Actually, I’ve almost put some of my sparring partners and one tournament opponent to the point of “hearing the bees”. This is a term that we use at Katy BJJ for the state of almost-blacked-out-ness before blacking out in a choke. If you don’t tape, you’re going limp for a while.

Two of these guys are about 1.5 times me (skinny, scrawny, 5’7″ & ~115lb). One of them is almost 2.5 times bigger than me. No, math’s not my thing, but they all had a hella advantage over me. Plus, the 2.5x guy is pretty fat.

My God, they heard the bees. Their eyes were red. I could almost feel their suffocation–Hell, I was causing it. Satisfying like crazy.

Onto weapons. In almost all of the TV and Movies I’ve seen, I’ve always noticed Sig Sauer pistols and Heckler & Koch sub-machine guns. Namely, the P226 and MP5, respectively. Both of these are huge in the military/law enforcement community. The P226 is official side arm of the US Navy (the MK25 variant is for SEALs), Texas Highway Patrol and Texas Rangers, and it’s compact version, the P229, is used by US Secret Service. The MP5 is used by elite military around the world; some of them being SEALs, SAS, and Army Nightstalkers.

Also, the most common rifle I’ve seen would have to be the Remington Model 700. This is probably the world’s most widespread firearm. I believe that it has been the most sold as well. The Army’s M40 sniper rifle is based off of this and in all of the sniper school documentaries I’ve seen, this is one of the guns they use to qualify with.

Sure, I’ve seen some other guns too, like the occasional M1911 variant, Barrett sniper rifle, Beretta M9 pistol, S&W Revolver, or Ruger LCP/LC9 sub-compact pistols. But for some reason, the most seen pistol would have to be the P226, then the M9. And no, I’m not just saying this from watching Five-O. The Taylor Lautner movie Abduction has a brief passover scene of the contents of a drawer. In it, with some documents, lies a Sig P228, a sister of the P226. Also, in Avengers, I am positive that, although for most of the movie he has a S&W M&P, he shoots a Sig .22-cal pistol with big, target-style adjustable sights. I guess whence you’ve heard enough .22, you know how it sounds, and that was right on the money.

I wouldn’t be surprised that they he used it for that scene or two. .22 blanks seem easier to come by, and he was shooting at someone.

Then again, I know nothing about movie making, so back to topic.

Speaking of Avengers reminds me of the numerous Glocks in that movie. Great, simple, work horse of an Austrian pistol. Nikita, the CW tv series, also shows numerous Sig Sauer, Glock, and Beretta Pistols. I remember seeing some M4s as well, since some military were involved.

Okay, this is turning pointless. Sigs, Glocks, HKs, and M9s are numerous on the screens, both big and small. And jiu-jitsu is as well. I didn’t touch on that enough, so you know what my next post is going to be about!

Sorry. Blegh. Out.