Microgravity Martial Art?

[RainDreamer]

Put enough people in space and eventually one of them will want to punch another. Now, how would that fight happen though? 

From an article I found: http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/2014/10/how-do-you-fight-in-zero-gravity-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/

Quote

When you punch something on Earth, gravity is holding it, and you, in place so you can serve that knuckle sandwich. Take that away and essentially, any sort of punch is throwing your opponent away from you while shoving you away from your opponent. So, to hit somebody, you need to apply two forces: One that keeps your opponent in place or forces them towards your attack, and the attack force itself. This might sound familiar if you’ve ever seen a hockey fight; hockey enforcers need to hold onto each other to land a solid punch.

However, there are new vistas of incapacitating your opponent if you get creative. For example, the old Superman trick of throwing somebody off the planet would actually work in zero-g; a good hard shove with your legs would send them flying off into space. Alternatively, mess with their balance; grab them and spin them as fast as possible until they’re disoriented. Or until they’re barfing, either works. Or if you wanted to get really nasty, put their center of mass in a spin, and then grab an arm or a leg and keep it from going with them. A dislocated limb tends to take the fight out of people.

And not just that, we also have to think about other aspects, such as how to transfer the maximum amount of force to your punches and kick - would a spin kick be more effective due to centrifugal force? Would simply increasing your total mass deliver more forces behind your punches, making an obese fighter as effective as a muscular fighter?

For this thought experiment, let us assume we are having a space fight club in some frontier asteroid colony, no artificial gravity, and using a spherical cage arena. What kind of fighters and fighting style would be the most effective?

[kerbiloid]

If we are having a fight club, this goes much better.

To spin your limb against a target you would spin your body contrariwise, so without a reaction force this would look pathetically.
Probably you would take underwater fighting as a starting point, and only a knife and nelson would make you happy.

[p1t1o]

Apparently techniques associated with MMA, other hold based fighting systems and the grappling techniques of other styles are quite well suited to microgravity combat as they do not require you to be braced against the ground/something massy. In a grapple/hold/lock, you can apply force (strikes/locks/breaks) to your opponent by the leverage and connection between you, even if floating in free space.

This will enable you to use the hardened steel point affixed to the heel of your spacesuit glove to break your opponents faceplate.

Its might be also worth noting that a decent spacesuit probably has the qualities of a light bullet-proof vest, what with its micrometeorite shielding (IIRC there's a few layers of a kevlar-like material sandwiched in there) and will probably be quite hard to stab through or cut/tear. Unless someone else knows otherwise?

It would also be quite difficult to hit someone with an object/weapon, your best bet would be a (blunt force) stabbing motion, though this will impart momentum on yourself as well, though hopefully with less trauma. Again, aim for the faceplate, apart from the obvious threat, you will impart a spin to your opponent (by hitting him off-centre) and if you strike from your waist region/centre-of-gravity, you will destabilise less/acquire less spin. Your spinning opponent will now find it harder to fight back.

The option of attacking from above/the threat of being attacked from above will be a more prevalent factor as well. As is from below although I see that vector as less threatening with your legs in the way.

 

**edit**

"Spin kicks" would probably be almost impossible, doing this on Earth requires connection to the ground, provided by gravity. In microgravity, it would require considerable effort to impart enough spin, and you risk not being able to stop. I'm not sure what the motion of your body would be like if the strike connects either.

 

Edited February 2, 2016 by p1t1o

[RainDreamer]

Hah, I imagine hand to hand combat space suit would have a lot of RCS ports for boosting damage and moving around then. Would be interesting to think about. Great idea for a story too! Though I was thinking more of just fight alone, barehand, no suit inside a caged arena in a colony/space station with life support.

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, RainDreamer said:

Hah, I imagine hand to hand combat space suit would have a lot of RCS ports for boosting damage and moving around then. 

Using RCS to provide the force with which to hurt your opponent is in effect, using RCS to turn yourself into a projectile - much safer to impart force on another object and have that object transmit the force, ie: a projectile weapon. A dedicated "combat suit" may have extra RCS but I would imagine that in suits, in vacuum, your faceplate and associated life support systems are so vulnerable and vital, that it would be used more for keeping away from your opponent, and as you say, manouvre for advantage. An RCS-aided strike or charge into an opponent will impart exactly as much force to you as it does your opponent, and could easily impart more force than your bones could handle, and may cause problems if the strike does not connect.

Fighting unsuited, in an "arena" (or maybe even...a Thunderdome?) would be much the same but without the protection of a suit, but also without the threat of vacuum exposure.

 

One thing that springs to mind, is that if you are in a combat situation without RCS (say in an "arena, or even a Thunderdome^TM) one must be mindful not to end up in the situation where you are floating out of reach of any handhold or other leverage - leaving you stranded (and probably flailing in an embarrassing manner) in free space just waiting for someone to send a massy projectile your way. This may be challenging, depending on the nature of your surroundings.

 

Imagine a bout in a spherical "ring", sending someone floating off to the centre of the sphere to float aimlessly might be considered the equivalent of a "pin" - on Earth, with gravity, being "pinned" is usually a position of vulnerability because your opponents weight is helping to confine you, even if just as an anchor for a hold/lock/choke etc. In space, being "pinned" in the traditional manner is a very unstable situation, there is no weight to crush or confine, and both people are in a position to extract leverage from the other person. But sending someone floating off, whilst you retain a hold on a wall (or whatever) puts you in a position of maximum advantage and your opponent in one of maximum vulnerability. He may even get a "count" where he has a few seconds to try and reach whatever handhold he can, to try and get back into the fight - but out of reach, floating in free space would be a very tricky situation for a fighter. You can "swim" through air, but very, very slowly (and air resistance is a significant factor).

[kerbiloid]

So far RCS looks like a kind of projectile weapon, just in reverse direction. Does "martial art" include machine gun or chainsaw as well?

Btw, any space construction worker would be carrying a glue pistol or a scotch tape: so, a Spiderman tactics is also not to be neglected.

[wumpus]

concerning "cage match":

No space suits?  Attacking the air supply/pressure is the obvious if they are needed inside the cage.

Smooth cage?  "Rope-a-dope" sounds important to cage fighting.  Having something to push against means long-medium distance strikes are possible.  Grabbing the cage (if possible) would be critical.

When all else fails, grapple.  Note that virtually all Earth [non-ground] grappling becomes useless in null-G (n-th dan judo? too bad*), but the ground stuff gets nasty.  Locks and "hold and pound" become the entire point (obviously, the whole concept of "pin" goes out  the windows).

* no, not really.  I learned that really fast after sparing a [kyu-grade] judoka in karate long ago.  There is a lot more than just the throws.

[fredinno]

43 minutes ago, wumpus said:

 Attacking the air supply/pressure is the obvious if they are needed inside the cage.

Then you'd also kill yourself, so no.

[wumpus]

9 hours ago, fredinno said:

Then you'd also kill yourself, so no.

I was thinking more the space suit.  Why would the "space station" life support be in the cage?

[Hary R]

For hand to hand combat, no martial art will work without gravity, even grappling, all required good ground base to work. A real micro gravity martial art is yet to be created, you best bet will be knife fight.

12 hours ago, wumpus said:

Grabbing the cage (if possible) would be critical.

When all else fails, grapple.  Note that virtually all Earth [non-ground] grappling becomes useless in null-G (n-th dan judo? too bad*), but the ground stuff gets nasty.  Locks and "hold and pound" become the entire point (obviously, the whole concept of "pin" goes out  the windows).

* no, not really.  I learned that really fast after sparing a [kyu-grade] judoka in karate long ago.  There is a lot more than just the throws.

if you watch a BJJ match carefully, many set ups require a lot of taking a good ground position, pull up with leg on the ground, roll, push/pull your opponent to make him fall. The fact is, all the necessary set up in BJJ and other grappling MA's were created with the help of gravity, the only grapple I can think of is to get someone in your guard (close guard), hold tight with the leg and punch, or get his back hold tight and punch or get a rear choke hold.

may be i'm wrong, I'm still a beginner in grappling.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Hary R

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, wumpus said:

I was thinking more the space suit.  Why would the "space station" life support be in the cage?

Exactly. why try to punture the station walls, that threatans you too.

[Cirocco]

Strangely, this is not the first time I've considered martial arts in zero-G. For the sake of argument, I'm assuming that the only factor here that is different from earth-bound martial arts is the gravity. This means the fight is performed indoors, spacesuits are either not worn or sufficiently supple to allow (almost) complete freedom of movement, life support is either not an issue (indoors with the entire room/station under life support) or sufficiently small and fortified to the point that trying to disable it bare-handed is futile and no RCS thrusters or mechanical means of movement are possible/allowed. Everything is done through your own human strength.

I'm basically imagining a normal dojo/training room inside a station where the participants wear normal sparring outfits suited to their discipline. Only gravity is different.

 

Alright, now that we have that out of the way: I think that a martial arts contest would consist of the two (I'm assuming 1v1) combatants hopping around the edges of the room, vying for a good position, and at times go in for grappling bouts. Those bouts can then be broken up by one the combatants pushing off hard against the other to send them both flying in opposite direction, after which the whole thing starts over. free-floating grappling bouts may occasionally occur, but fights at the edges of the arena seem like they would occur most commonly.

The main thing to note in zero-g is that newton's third law is very much still in effect: ever action has an equal and opposite reaction. Every punch you throw sends you backwards as well. That also means that your punches hit a whole lot less hard then on earth. On earth, when you throw a punch, the fact that friction and gravity keep you and your opponent in place means that a whole lot of the energy in the punch is translated into deforming the opponent's body rather than pushing it away. In space, that friction and gravity isn't there (assuming you're both floating) so a lot more energy will be put  into moving the opponent and less into deforming (hurting) him. It's kind of comparable to hitting a falling bowling ball with a baseball bat vs hitting a pingpong ball with the same bat. In case of the bowling ball, stuff breaks. In case of the pingpong ball, it flies away relatively intact (this comparison is not ideal by ANY means because the reason behind it is inertia instead of friction/gravity, but it's the best I could come up with).

So how do you punch someone in zero-g? you hold him by an extremity with one hand and hit the center of mass with the other (or another body part, but center of mass seems most efficient at first glance). This way you stop him from moving away and all the energy you put into the punch is translated into trying to deform the opponent's body: one impact on the stomach, the other is a pulling force on his arm.

Spinning someone is a very interesting idea as it uses the opponent's mass and inertia against him. Disorientation and dislocating joints is a great way to exploit zero-g environments, but there is one problem: if you try to spin him, you'll spin in the opposite direction just as fast unless you have something to brace against. So disorienting by spinning only works if you can get him to spin without doing so yourself. And that, again, means bracing.

 

TL;DR:

In conclusion: there's two very important things (according to me. I'm in no way an expert on zero-g fighting, I could be wrong on this):

1) bracing yourself: if you are braced against  something and the opponent is not, you have the advantage. You can push and twist the opponent around, and he can't do the same to you (providing that whatever you are bracing against is heavy enough to slow down your inertia by a whole lot, like the room/station wall). 

2) no straight up punches (unless you want to separate from each other): any punch thrown without holding the opponent will result in both of you flying in opposite directions. Grappling is key when you want to hurt him, getting out of his grapple and punching/kicking off is critical when you are in a bad spot and want to reset the fight.

 

 

There's actually a manga that i've read once that does quite a lot of theorycrafting on martial arts in space and zero-G. I think it's called "battle angel alita" in the english translation. Don't let the title put you off, it's actually quite an interesting read. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

 

whew, lots of text. Hope if was interesting though

 

EDIT: one thing I totally forgot: weight (or rather, inertia) of the fighters is a HUGE deal in zero-G. a lightweight fighter can be as strong as they want, there is no way in hell they'll do much to a sumo-wrestler. The reason for this is, again, every time they try to throw a punch or spin the opponent, they'll spin or be thrown back too. Only, if the inertia of one of the two fighters is significantly lower than the other, that one will spin/fly a whole lot faster. So if they're freefloating, a lightweight and sumowrestler trying to spin and disorient each other will result in a fast-spinning and motion-sick lightweight and a gently rotating sumowrestler. Lightweight MUST try to brace, sumowrestler can just go in without bracing. Strength isn't really a big factor since all movements can be done at a fraction of the effort they would cost on earth.

So yeah, space martial artists would benefit from being heavy. Space sumowrestling is the future ladies and gentlemen.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Cirocco

[fredinno]

I demand that the next star wars movie contains a microgravity lightsaber fight.

DO IT LUCASARTS!

Edited February 3, 2016 by fredinno

[sevenperforce]

How about a cage match in a hemispherical pressurized chamber on the surface of an asteroid, so there's gravity, but it's very, very low gravity and you can jump to the top of the chamber easily?

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

I demand that the next star wars movie contains a microgravity lightsaber fight.

DO IT LUCASARTS!

I have this vague memory of watching a movie called "the Phantom Menace" that had a bunch of guys wielding things that looked like light sabers with a complete contempt for gravity.  I'd rather not see a similar movie.

[cantab]

Why don't we find out?

[Nuke]

i think that in friendly fight scenarios, where it is done for entertainment, for sport, competition, as part of training, etc, there are probibly going to be strict rules against depressurization attacks. in those scenarios the intent is not to kill but to get a ko or whatever the win condition is. that is of course unless our society devolves and brings back gladiatorial combat.

then you have actual combat scenarios where one or both opponents mean to neutralize the other or protect themselves. this could be anything from a mugging to military action. thats going to be the anything goes scenario. if you have a technological advantage like a projectile weapon, rcs thrusters, a pressure suit or even a bladed weapon of sorts (worf vs the borg for example), you are going to use it. modern militaries still have the need to train soldiers in hand to hand combat, and the same will apply when those militaries have strong space presence. its good to have a fallback fighting mode for when you dont have a superior weapon. so i have a feeling the earliest space fighting styles will be developed either by or for the military.

and both of these could happen indoors, or outdoors. for example suit fighting might be a thing. in military scenarios you are probibly gonna be suited at all times because the enemy could always compromise the hull if fighting inside a ship or station or something. those suits are likely going to have thrusters. im actually rather surprised that astronauts dont have fan or compressor based thrusters for moving around the station (perhaps the iss isnt big enough for that though). those might take the form of simple thruster on a stick arrangements or computer controlled units, and im sure they might be employed in some fighting styles.

[RainDreamer]

Well it would be a shame to lose space stations because your personnels couldn't fight hand to hand against infiltrators, so I would assume even future military will have melee combat training even if they are mostly doing orbital bombardment or interplanetary artillery.

But in the context of like, space MMA competitions and stuff, I wonder how the new combat environment will be reflected in fighting style. Even lightweight combatant may still utilize the environment to zip around and spin opponents causing them to knock out instead of fighting head on. And imagine an elastic cage, where combatants can easily get bounced around and the one who master the control will has a much larger advantage.

[nobodyhasthis2]

14 hours ago, cantab said:

Why don't we find out?

That is a good idea. We could all chip in together a pay for a flight. Then just get in and shout "mechjeb" at the appropriate moment. 

 

Edited February 4, 2016 by nobodyhasthis2

[fredinno]

10 hours ago, Nuke said:

i think that in friendly fight scenarios, where it is done for entertainment, for sport, competition, as part of training, etc, there are probibly going to be strict rules against depressurization attacks. in those scenarios the intent is not to kill but to get a ko or whatever the win condition is. that is of course unless our society devolves and brings back gladiatorial combat.

then you have actual combat scenarios where one or both opponents mean to neutralize the other or protect themselves. this could be anything from a mugging to military action. thats going to be the anything goes scenario. if you have a technological advantage like a projectile weapon, rcs thrusters, a pressure suit or even a bladed weapon of sorts (worf vs the borg for example), you are going to use it. modern militaries still have the need to train soldiers in hand to hand combat, and the same will apply when those militaries have strong space presence. its good to have a fallback fighting mode for when you dont have a superior weapon. so i have a feeling the earliest space fighting styles will be developed either by or for the military.

and both of these could happen indoors, or outdoors. for example suit fighting might be a thing. in military scenarios you are probibly gonna be suited at all times because the enemy could always compromise the hull if fighting inside a ship or station or something. those suits are likely going to have thrusters. im actually rather surprised that astronauts dont have fan or compressor based thrusters for moving around the station (perhaps the iss isnt big enough for that though). those might take the form of simple thruster on a stick arrangements or computer controlled units, and im sure they might be employed in some fighting styles.

The ISS doesn't give astronauts thrusters because it's not big enough in diameter for that ever to be needed- the astronauts will always be able to hold onto a wall to push themselves. Skylab was a little different, though- they had so much extra space they could test jetpacks in there!

But it's generally not needed.  A similar station today would be filled with equipment, and thrusters would damage precious stuff in there.