I noticed on another thread (http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=69525) a substantial amount of discussion/criticism of the idea of placing a key between ones knucles and punching, as is sometimes advocated by self-defense instructors.
Now, I am generally nice person who doens't get into fistfights on the Mean Streets of Ann Arbor a lot. Thus, I have never personally punched someone with my keys. However, I'm curious as to what the actual effects of it would be. In particular, whether they would end up being a more effective fight-ending technique than punching someone with a naked fist, and thus whether the promotion of punching someone with a key has any place being tought in self defense, or whether it's just a goofy idea that became popular in the SD community.
My first part of this thread is a call for anyone who's ever actually used this method of attacking in a fight, had it used against them in a fight, or seen/heard of it being used in a fight. What were the results? What type of injury resulted from the key-punch? Did it seem effective towards the goal of ending the altercation?
The second part is, if we don't have a substantial body of evidence on the effects of key punching, to help design an experiment to try and simulate it's effect. I'm thinking of those experiments they so dearly love on the History Channel which involve hitting a side of pork with a bronze javelin or somesuch to the extent of the wounding power of the weapon.
I have some steak sitting in the refrigerator, and I'm tossing around the idea of hanging a piece of it up and punching it with a housekey a couple times to see if this method of attacking is capable of actually delivering serious wounds. The housekey would of course be freshly sanitized, and the steak would be eaten (by me) shortly after being experimented on.

If I got in a fight and I had keys, I'd use them all right.

I'd start my car and run them over.

I am intrigued by the premise of this thread. I am also curious to see the results that the side of beef experiment will yield. However, we must agree that slamming some keys into a stationary T-bone is going to be so different from trying to key-punch someone in a fight that we must question the relevance of the experiment.

But if you think about it, in an SD situation, to drop someone or to stop them from attacking, you need to hurt them badly enough to make them feel it, or KTFO them. I don't think keys are going to be doing this unless you get them square in the eye (and if you're trying to do this, you're entering the *poke them in the eye too deadly for the street* realm again).

Personally, if I have keys, and I have to fight, I'm saying **** the keys and punching a ************ in the chin.

Because, remember, in a fight, trust your fists, not some bullshit you read on the internet.


*pushups* 21,22....43,44,45...60*pushups*

Dude, why are you so fucking gay? Seriously? You wear tight leather pants and lip gloss, don't you? GTFO, man, GTFO.

..//.. Personally, if I have keys, and I have to fight, I'm saying **** the keys and punching a ************ in the chin.Unfortunately, as much as it pains me to admit it, but I must agree with the keyboard banging monkey.

I first heard about the key-punching thing from an advertisement for a SD weapon that was supposed to be based on the same premise:

http://store.yahoo.com/urdefense/pushknife.html

It is advocated and apparently can be done. I scared off someone even weirder than me by readying them as described. He then went and complained.

I think it a great idea, but only if your keys are like this:
http://cutlerscove.com/fighting-knives/images/safe-keeper3.jpeg

If you are using car keys, I understand the correct technique is to hold the key between your thumb and knuckle of forefinger. Either way, there seems to be a pretty good potential to hurt yourself.

The potential injuries you could inflict seem pretty small, unless you have the above types of keys.

i would expect that even if it does work well enough to puncture your attacker's skin, it's likely also going to cut your own hand in the process, thus opening a vector for highly efficient disease transmission.

but that's cool, cause your attacker's clean, right?

right?

My guess is that the key thing has been advocated because many women (who often can't punch very hard anyway) will instinctualy use a clawing motion when they fight. At least that is what I have seen from the few catfights I have witnessed. Having a pair of keys in one's hand might be seen as a good way to inflict more pain. Keep in mind that his is a guess and not an expert opinion.

Although I know from personal experience that one can cause a great deal more pain with a can of pepper spray.

I think they were meaning us to aim for the eye and puncture the aqueous humour, but I could be wrong.

When I was teaching self defense full-time (1980s) I tested this against a punching bag. The keys twisted between my fingers, it hurt like hell and my hand reflexively opened so the keys dropped to the floor. I had an interesting set of bruises for a while after that.

Now, if I had hit someone in the face with that fistful of keys, it would likely have hurt them as well, but if the punch had landed anywhere else (accidentally striking their shoulder or whatever) then I doubt that it would have done more that annoy them.

We taught to use the keys braced against the palm between the first and second finger and then used an a sort of downward hacking motion towards the face. The idea was that it's a sharpish, pointyish tool that a physically weaker person could use to potentially distract an attacker long enough to escape, or deliver a more effective attack via a handgun. I would put the reliability factor at somewhere around 30%. Better than an open hand slap, but not as good as pepper spray.
A good pepper spray keychain, tazer, or .22 pistol is obviously a better option. But if you've got no training and no other weapon then gouging with a key is slightly better than nothing.

But if you've got no training and no other weapon then gouging with a key is slightly better than nothing.

Exactly. I think the idea is: for self defense involving people who don't have any developed strikes, keys can be used to cause damage to weak parts of the body, mainly the face and eyes.

I don't expect poking with a key anywhere but the face is going to be useful.

But by all means, if you've got a good punch use it!

[quote=Eric Innis]Exactly. I think the idea is: for self defense involving people who don't have any developed strikes, keys can be used to cause damage to weak parts of the body, mainly the face and eyes. quote]

I agree adding that having the keys might give some poor vic the the courage to fight back, instead of shaking in fear.

As for using them in SD, I use to rattle my key chain to make sure I alert the skunk that lives under the poarch that I was coming. Never got sprayed. Perhaps the perps are also scared off by rattling keys, 'oh no, she took a self- defence course' and wait for the next one.

I think the best a key is going to do is cause injuries which won't alter the outcome of the fight and could cause a significant amount of legal trouble afterward.

If you hit someone and KO them, do you really also need to cut them? If you hit them and don't KO them do you think they are doing to really feel the effects of a small puncture wound/cut during the fight?

As a related anecdote, I actually have a friend who tried this. Granted, it wasn't against a person but against a dog. He was walking to his car when a dog attacked him, so he tried the key thing, as they were out. Apparently it actually broke one or two of his keys, and just made the dog angry.