9. Being choked-out into unconsciousness is a singularly unique experience. I have, to my knowledge, never passed out, blacked out, or lost consciousness (short of sleeping) before in my life. I have taken some pretty solid blows to the head (one resulting in 13 stitches – good fun), but thanks to a thick skull, none of them resulted in me going all cute birdies and shiny lights.
Well, today, we were practicing a variety of choke holds, with the big difference between these and the headlocks some of you put your siblings in when you were younger being that these were designed to cut off blood flow to the brain, but not make breathing particularly difficult. The premise is basically that the person is too busy fighting you off and thinking that you are failing at “choking” them to notice that they are suddenly unconscious. Well, after running through a gamut of the options available for making people pass out, the Master had a few of the more advanced students sit in front of us newbies, and he very carefully choked them until they just started to black out. After that, it was our turn.
The whole thing was very carefully executed and observed, so no worries on that count. I honestly tried to pay attention and see what would happen when… but about the time my brain started making pretty lights appear out of nowhere, I was already too gone to do a damned thing about it. I “woke” up with one of the blackbelts holding me upright, and my head bobbling like a gorramed wobbly-headed geisha doll. I fully recovered in about 30 seconds, but I have no doubt that if you held someone longer, it would be more of a problem.
Either way, damn that was wierd. And it sneaks up on you out of nowhere, that much is for certain.
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