Is this move actually fatal?

[IronFist]

You always see it in movies... the move where the guy twists the other guy's head and then the other guy dies. Usually it's done from behind. The guy puts one palm on the upper back of his head, and the other hand goes with the palm on the chin and the fingers along the cheeks. Then he pushes each hand in opposite directions and they make a snaping noise and the guy dies.

Is that legit?

IronFist

[Judge Pen]

I couldn't say. I practice a TMA and it's too deadly to do outside of a form.

[Chang Style Novice]

It's probably theoretically possible to snap someones neck by twisting the head sideways, but in practice I'll bet neck muscles tense up awfully fast making it extremely hard to get the head to twist far enough.

Keep in mind that when hanging someone to snap the neck, gallows are usually built considerably off the ground, and a lot of slack is permitted on the noose, so the body drops several feet before motion is stopped and the spinal cord severed by the wieght of the body. This is because if the body didn't drop very far, the force wouldn't be enough to break the neck, and the hangee would spend a minute or more strangling to death - the neck muscles are strong enough to support the entire weight of the body.

[Merryprankster]

Hi!

There is a strong possibility that some people on here will tell you it's easy to snap somebody's neck!

These people are also retards.

That is all.

[SifuAbel]

The way you see it in the movies most times is nowhere near enough. The hands on face at arms length thing wouldn't have enough force. There are ways to hyperextend the neck. But this IS usually a hard feat if the person is expecting it. You'd have to distract with another hit in order to losen the neck enough to do a quick and very powerful twist from a head lock or crank. And, the side head lock is not a candidate. A front or back neck crank is better.

Hey, somebody pass me the cookies I just tossed thinking about this one.

Its possible but NOT easy.

[Raatra]

Whats up ironfist...

I wonder about this alot too. Ive learned a few neck breaks back in my Koppojutsu days. If you arent familiar with the style its basically a subsystem that focuses primarily on the methods bone breaking.
Most of the neck breaks i learned involved striking the chin or side of the face with great force, i.e. with the knee or elbow, once the head was torqued into a very specific position. I cant recall the type of neck snap you are talking of ever being taught, but i dont think it would work. Mostly because of the great force needed to over come the resistance of the neck muscles in order to break the neck. In Koppojutsu, almost everytime we learned a neck break, it was usually the result of locking the neck in place then striking at a very specific angle with the full wieght of the body being used for power, as in a full rotation elbow strike or a knee.

[old jong]

I think a "good" chiro could kill you by snapping your neck easyly if he wanted to!...

[Chang Style Novice]

What does work is punching through the ribcage, grabbing the heart, and tearing it out of the chest to show it to the victim right before he collapses.

We practice this technique live in class at 100% all the time. Then sometimes we go out for a beer together. You do have to take a couple of weeks to recover, though, so it's not on the schedule regularly. The beer, I mean.

[ShifuBinks]

When I was in eighth grade some kid who was a lot smaller than me started messing with me...pushing me around, trying to start something. Next I did two of the dumbest things imaginable...first I grabbed him by his collar and swung him head first into a locker. That was my first mistake. Then, feeling like I had won the fight I turned my back and started walking away...this kid runs up behind me, wraps his hands around my forehead and jerks my head back sharply. Fortunately, I was not hurt but my body followed immediately and this little kid brought me down with no trouble whatsoever. A teacher saw it and broke it up...later on the teacher explained that he had been in the marines or he was a seal or something I don't really remember but they had taught him that it was very easy to kill people this way...and honestly I think me training in ninjutsu might have helped because I instinctively knew to go with this move and not try to resist...

OK OK I know what everyone's thinking this guy probably just got his @$$ beat a lot worse than he is making it sound but just think, if I were going to lie about this fight, wouldnt I say something like "Yeah I was fighting the captain of the wrestling team and was tooling him until his girlfriend jumped on my back, yanked my head back, took me down, then had sex with me..."?

[neigung]

Whatever, dude.

[ShifuBinks]

I was afraid some detective on here might figure out that I was lying...good work "Encyclopedia Nei"...I'm just some loser who has nothing better to do than come on here and make up stories about how some little dude beat me up in 8th grade...

For anyone who is generally interested in this technique the teacher told me this is an easy way to kill people and that he learned it in the marines, I don't know I guess he could have been lying but what does someone who is not a martial arts teacher stand to gain from telling teenagers that a non lethal technique is actually lethal?

[neigung]

You're being overly defensive.

[Ikken Hisatsu]

ill say. calm down man, deep breaths. we are all friends here

*shifts eyes*

[ShifuBinks]

Call me overly defensive, how dare you? Oh no you're right, I guess none of that stuff actually happened I probably just imagined it, because as you know I did a lot of drugs in middle school, being from Sykesville Middle; a big party campus and I was in a fraternity.

I'm just curious as to why you don't believe my story...

[anton]

it was a pretty belieavable story, everyone gets in fights at school... a lot of kids get SERIOUSLY injured in school fights, and its common for teachers to tell kids stuff like that (whether true or not) to discourage them from fighting... Hence there's nothing unbelievable about it... which is why people were confused when you assumed someone was not going to believe you. This was compounded when you got defensive about it... When I read through the actual story i assumed it was true but after reading from "OK OK..." onwards in this thread, I'm starting to wonder myself.