Lunatic,
The Gunther article mentioned a study where "scientific wackos" wired up judokas to monitor them when they were choked out. That study is apparently the second article you posted above; thanks--I've been wanting to lay hands on it for some time.
No problem.
Well, Jason, you said you'd be open to any new evidence that substantiates the article's claim that it was not a choke that did Arrichion in, but rather a congenital heart condition, and I've come across just such evidence. Before I cite it though, I'd like to review the issue.
A man is choked at point A, supposedly expires from the choke at point C, but somehow manages to forcefully submit his opponent at point B by wrenching his ankle out of its socket (at which point an Olympic pankration ref would have made sure both men released their holds on one another).
Although literature has been cited that documents fatalities from forearm chokes, none of those accounts involves the victim's succumbing after successfully countering the choke as was the case with Arrichion, and this is precisely what needs to be accounted for. You specifically referred me back to case 2 in Reay and Eisele. Why? A violent, homicidal, manic depressive psychotic on lithium was forced face down onto a jail bunk by several jailers, one applying a forearm choke while the others put flex cuffs on him, until he ceased to struggle and was later found not to be breathing. How does the fact that a raving psychotic gets choked to death by jailers explain how Arrichion managed to submit his opponent at point B before expiring at point C? That is the question that still needs to be answered.
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As a Greek pankratiast going up for his third Olympic victor's wreath, Arrichion would have been one of the finest, most experienced fighters on the face of the planet at that time. He would have been familiar with all kinds of naked chokes and how to counter them. I really have a problem with the notion that a grappler of that caliber would just up and get himself choked to death like a dumb ass.
Do a search on "sudden death in athletes" and you'll come up with all kinds of material on athletes young and old, beginner and world class, who have dropped dead from congenital heart conditions triggered by the exertion of practicing their sport. It doesn't have to be particularly strenuous exertion either--it can be something the athlete has routinely done a thousand times before: A collegiate basketball player, for example, got into a post-season pickup game and had his aortic arch blow out on him when he went up for a slam dunk; a 28 year old Olympic skating champion dropped dead from arteriosclerotic complications when rehearsing for a professional skating show; a 40 year old retired pro basketball superstar dropped dead in a pickup game because of a coronary artery anomaly. There is an ineluctable statistical certitude that these episodes will occur among a certain percentage of those who harbor congenital heart defects as they practice their sports. Since choking is a regular part of certain grappling sports, there is therefore the chance that a grappler who is destined to have a fatal congenital heart defect episode just might have it when defending against a choke.
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The specific evidence I mentioned was alluded to in Koiwai's article "Deaths Allegedly Caused by the Use of 'Choke Holds' (Shime-Waza)," linked above by Lunatic under "How safe is choking in Judo?" Dr. Koiwai, a professor of pathology and a big wheel in international judo medical association circles, mentioned that he had documented at least 19 fatalities associated with the sport of judo and that none were due to chokes. Odd, is it not, that in a sport that practices not only naked chokes but gi chokes as well, a sport practiced for over a century, that there was not a single fatal mishap associated with the potentially deadly act of choking, but 19 fatalities from other causes. What were those other causes? Although I thought I might need to contact Dr. Koiwai to find out, it turns out that his study had been published: "Fatalities Associated With Judo," The Physician and Sportsmedicine, Vol. 9, No. 4, April 1981. (The online Koiwai article linked by Lunatic is an abridgment with footnotes omitted; in the complete article, which I obtained through interlibrary loan, the fatalities article is documented in a footnote, and I was able to find that article in a local university library.)
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Koiwai's breakdown is quite instructive. Five of the 19 fatalities were due to brain injuries associated with throws. Four were due to neck injuries associated with throws. Five were due to miscellaneous causes that included such ailments as a ruptured liver tumor. And most interesting is that 5 fatalities were due to heart problems. Two men went into cardiac arrest when exercising during training. A 34 year old brown belt became ill while practicing judo, collapsed, and went into cardiac arrest. A competitor collapsed and died of cardiac arrest during a match. And finally, a 31 year old black belt went into cardiac arrest and died while having a youngster demonstrate a scarf hold on him as he taught a children's class. Now this man had undoubtedly undergone intense training that included being choked by adults while working towards his black belt, and none of this had precipitated a fatal heart attack. Totally unexpectedly, the fatal episode was triggered during the relatively minor exertion of teaching a children's class and demonstrating a hold. Had this occurred during an adult class, there's no doubt that it would have appeared that he'd been choked to death. What if the judo competitor who died of cardiac arrest during his match had been defending against a choke at the time? Wouldn't it appear that he'd been choked to death? What if the brown belt practicing judo had been practicing defending against a choke before going into cardiac arrest? Again, wouldn't it appear that he'd been choked to death?
So, Jason, according to Koiwai's study, if you're going to succumb to a judo fatality, there's a zero chance that you'll be choked to death, but a 26% chance that you'll go into cardiac arrest, and a 5% chance that the fatality will be a cardiac arrest that occurs when someone is demonstrating a scarf hold on you.
I also see that you take the business about the sleep of death creeping over Arrichion's senses at face value and as an indication that Arrichion was choked to death. But there's a contradiction there--if he were succumbing to the "sleep of death" brought on by a choke, how in the hell could he have been strong enough to pop his opponent's ankle out of its socket? Here's what I think might have gone down: Arrichion forcefully tucked his chin to defend against the choke, grimacing, eyes scrunched shut--nothing unusual about that. But after he submitted his opponent and then keeled over dead, his closed-eyed grimace was posthumously interpreted in retrospect as evidence that the sleep of death was creeping over his senses from the choke.
I feel like I'm starting to repeat myself, but here goes anyway:
First, I think what you are still missing is that my disagreement is as
much philosophical as medical. Let's look at the scenario you
propose-
"A man is choked at point A, supposedly expires from the choke at
point C, but somehow manages to forcefully submit his opponent at point B by wrenching his ankle out of its socket (at which point an Olympic pankration ref would have made sure both men released their holds on one another)."
First, let's not color our perceptions of what an Olympic pankration
ref would do based on today's UFC. A more honest scenario is that a man, being choked at point A, causes his opponent to surrender by doing something (likely to his opponent's ankle), but the man who was being choked does not survive the match. The man could have been choked during points A, B, and C for all we know, and indeed, this could just as easily be the scenario that is being described by commentators.
From that scenario, you are positing that the man being choked likely
died from a congenital heart defect. I think that is an extraordinary
claim and requires some kind of evidence to accept it as a valid theory of what happened.
Every year, hundreds of people are killed by being strangled by others. Are these people dying of strangulation because they don't know they should be dying of heart defects?
none of those accounts involves the victim's succumbing after successfully countering the choke as was the case with Arrichion, and this is precisely what needs to be accounted for.
I disagree with the terminology that Arrichion "countered" the choke, implying that he blocked or escaped the choke and then went for the ankle. I don't recall any accounts saying that.
You specifically referred me back to case 2 in Reay and Eisele. Why? A violent, homicidal, manic depressive psychotic on lithium was forced face down onto a jail bunk by several jailers, one applying a forearm choke while the others put flex cuffs on him, until he ceased to struggle and was later found not to be breathing. How does the fact that a raving psychotic gets choked to death by jailers explain how Arrichion managed to submit his opponent at point B before expiring at point C?
Because, as they put it, "the neck hold was viewed as the primary cause of death and there were no additional contributory factors identified." You have a motivated, struggling man who was choked and ceased struggling, later dying from a neck hold put on him. What does that illustrate? 1. Chokes are dangerous. 2. You can die from a choke after the hold has been released and the damage has already been done.
As a Greek pankratiast going up for his third Olympic victor's wreath, Arrichion would have been one of the finest, most experienced fighters on the face of the planet at that time. He would have been familiar with all kinds of naked chokes and how to counter them. I really have a problem with the notion that a grappler of that caliber would just up and get himself choked to death like a dumb ass.
Interesting, I personally wouldn't call someone a dumb ass for being caught in a choke they couldn't get out of, because it can happen to anyone. Look at the last UFC, one of the top fighters in the world was choked out and went for an ankle, but couldn't get it before he had to tap. Different cultures, Arrichion chose not to tap.
Do a search on "sudden death in athletes" and you'll come up with all kinds of material on athletes young and old, beginner and world class, who have dropped dead from congenital heart conditions triggered by the exertion of practicing their sport.
If you say so, I'm not going to bother to look again. What I seem to remember is that younger athlestes when dropping dead from no other identifiable cause usually did so from congenital heart defects, while the older athletes who did so were usually b/c of some form of heart disease.
Odd, is it not, that in a sport that practices not only naked chokes but gi chokes as well, a sport practiced for over a century, that there was not a single fatal mishap associated with the potentially deadly act of choking, but 19 fatalities from other causes.
I don't think so, it's a relatively safe sport. In that same time period, there were tens of thousands of fatal strangulations. We know that judoka in at least one study souldn't stand the pain and had to tap before the more dangerous rear naked (air) choke could be applied long enough to render them unconscious. I will pretend you didn't attempt a statistical analysis based on 19 events in judo to save you the embarrassment, I assume you were doing it for general theatrics.
But there's a contradiction there--if he were succumbing to the "sleep of death" brought on by a choke, how in the hell could he have been strong enough to pop his opponent's ankle out of its socket?
Because if the blood supply wasn't shut off, all he had to deal with was the pain. He was a highly motivated athlete in a society that revered the accomplishment of winning. Could it have been a congenital heart defect? Sure. Could it have been an aneurysm or heart attack? Sure. Of course, the odds for any of those are not only infinitesimal, but they go against good sense. A guy dies while being choked, I'm going to look first at the choke. Why? Because they are an inherently dangerous activity, as most medical doctors cited in this thread have mentioned.
Awesome discussion. I don't buy the heart failure idea either. I think he tapped the dude at the last possible moment and then died from having the shit choked out of him. His corpse being given the wreath is major badass.
You ought to be dead, Bludhall. That wrestler choked the shit out of you with that guillotine.
the effectiveness of a guillotine pales in comparison to a rear naked.
I'd like to introduce some new textual material that sheds more light on the story of Arrichion; before doing so, however, I want to set it in an appropriate context. Found throughout Greek combat sport art are representations of robed, stick-wielding referees. Sometimes they are shown flogging competitors for infractions. Olympic refs were known as the Hellanodikai, and since Arrichion's fight was an Olympic match, it would have been officiated by these Hellanodikai. Another scene that repeatedly appears in Greek combat art is that of a competitor raising his hand, forefinger extended. This was the ancient Greek method of "tapping" to acknowledge submission to the ref.
Recall that in the Imagines, Philostratus is describing the exploits of athletes as they are depicted in paintings. A few lines after the description of Arrichion's opponent having his ankle wrenched out of its socket, the text reads:
"The man who did the strangling is painted in the picture to look like a corpse and is the one indicating defeat by his upraised hand; whereas Arrichion is painted as victors always are, for his color is fresh, perspiration is still dripping, and he is smiling just as living men do when they become aware of victory." (Robinson's translation)
So here's evidence that Arrichion's opponent surrendered in the usual way, perhaps having to break the choke in order to raise his hand. At any rate, this signaled the end of the bout, and the Hellanodikai would have made sure both men released their holds on each other. Also, the opponent wouldn't have tapped to an unconscious man who had already released his ankle; Arrichion must have still been cranking the ankle hold and generating pain to get the submission.
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I'd like now to conduct a little thought experiment dealing with human perception. Suppose I show the History Forum a short videoclip in which Grappler A has a rear naked choke on Grappler B, and Grappler B has an ankle lock on Grappler A, a la Arrichion and opponent. They tussle around a while, and then Grappler A releases the choke and taps, and Grappler B releases the ankle lock. That's all we see. We play it over several times. It's pretty clear what happened: Two men have submission holds on each other, and the one with the ankle lock made the one with the choke tap. Did Grappler A have a blood choke or an air choke on Grappler B? Well, since they tussled well beyond the time it would take to choke someone out with a blood choke, it must have been an air choke. Grappler B endured a constricted airway and pain in his throat until he got the submission. If Grappler B hadn't been able to get the submission, he himself probably would have had to tap or end up getting choked out. But then again, Grappler A might not even have had the choke in good to begin with, so Grappler B might have been able to work his ankle lock with relative impunity.
Now I play the videoclip once more, but a little beyond the point where I had previously stopped it. After Grappler B releases the ankle lock, he topples over onto the mat, apparently unconscious. People rush to aid him and try to revive him, but he remains unresponsive. The videoclip then cuts to Grappler B's body being covered with a sheet by an ER physician. Dead!
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What are we to make of our initial assessment in the light of this new footage? First of all, the human mind will try to shoehorn the observed phenomenon into some kind of category that makes sense: Well, people do get choked to death, and it looked like he was getting choked, and after all, he did die....So yeah, that's it--he was choked to death! But in the human mind's eagerness to make sense of the tragedy, it overlooks anomalous details that might tell against the seemingly reasonable explanation it has come up with. For example, don't choked people first pass out before they die, and don't you have to keep the choke on them to make them pass out, and then hold it on them at least a while longer for them to begin to expire? And if you choke someone unconscious and immediately release the choke, don't they revive? So if Grappler B was alive and conscious and strong enough to submit Grappler A and make him release the choke, how could Grappler B have been choked to death?
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One possibility that has already been touched upon is that Arrichion's throat swelled shut from injury suffered during the choke, unconsciousness and death following only after he had submitted his opponent. In her "On Chokes" article, pathologist Wendy Gunther discusses the difficulty of completely collapsing the trachea to effect such a fatal swelling. She said she had heard that it could be done from behind with a night stick, but that she herself was unaware of any cases in which it had been done from behind with hands alone. Furthermore, she stated that the pressure necessary to collapse the trachea to this degree would have pinched off the carotids first, causing unconsciousness.
Now being the open-minded seeker of truth that I am, I'm open to the possiblilty that perhaps there might be a case, or cases, out there of which Gunther is not aware, in which a manual choke resulted in a fatal swelling, but without initially causing unconsciousness. Such would account for Arrichion's being able to submit his opponent before the fatal swelling got him. But are there any such cases out there?
An improper rear naked choke is one which places pressure on the trachea while allowing the blood to flow. This may be why Arrichion did not tap- pain can be worked through while the quick unconciousness brought on by a rear naked cannot. I find this a plausable explanation.
What would be telling (and what we will likely never know for certain) is the elapsed time between the sinking of the choke and the death of Arrichion. Since blood is flowing all the while with this improper choke, he would maintain the ability to exert force on his opponents ankle until the point shortly before death.
Another scene that repeatedly appears in Greek combat art is that of a competitor raising his hand, forefinger extended. This was the ancient Greek method of "tapping" to acknowledge submission to the ref.The Greeks had verbal submissions and a tapping system as well.So here's evidence that Arrichion's opponent surrendered in the usual way, perhaps having to break the choke in order to raise his hand.Not really. It's just an artist's rendition of the end of the match.
"Since blood is still flowing all the while with this improper choke, he would maintain the ability to exert force on his opponent's ankle until the point shortly before death."
But why should he die, jonwell? If he were putting up with pain and restricted breathing because of tracheal compression, but was still conscious when he got the submission--as he would have to be--why shouldn't he have remained conscious, or perhaps only have passed out?
Let's say that someone jumps out of the bushes, sneaks up behind you, slaps a nasty air choke on you, holds it on you for a while as you struggle, releases it while you're still conscious and struggling, and runs off. Would you then drop dead? Or would you simply be huffing and puffing and nursing a bad case of choke throat?
IBI,
Given the nature of the Imagines, there's a good chance that the descriptions of the paintings might simply be literary devices employed by Philostratus; in other words, instead of including the raising of the hand in submission as a part of his narrative, he simply describes a picture showing it.