How many 5 year-olds.....
Wandering through Ace's site, I ran across this little number. Ace links to an interesting theoretical exercise, to wit, how many five year olds could you take in a fight?
This gendanken experiment has some ground rules:
- You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.
- You are not allowed to touch a wall.
- When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is "out."
- I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans.
- The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of "counter-tactics" training.
- There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.
- The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.
This is a tough one. While we can assume for the sake of argument that most adults could defeat any given five-year-old with little difficulty, facing hordes of the little booger eaters is a different ball of snot. According to this government chart, the average weight of a five-year-old boy is about 40lbs. You get ten of those, and you're talking 400 aggregate pounds of booger eater. If, as the scenario stipulates, these kids get training from a Navy Seal or Green Beret or DC meter maid, they are going to have at least some idea of how to use their numbers against you.
And that's the crux of the matter. If you could somehow trick or fool the kiddies into attacking one on one like the evil minions in a kung fu movie, you could probably win against even an arbitrarily large number of kindergartners. But if they can mob you and get you on the ground, it's all over. Instead of Bruce Lee, you'll be like the grasshopper in one of those old national geographic flicks, being devoured by hungry, hungry ants.
I think even against well trained and thoroughly briefed muchkins, I could take twenty. My reach and strength would allow me (I hope) to keep them from swarming effectively. I could maintain my footing and triumph. Much more than that, and the half-pints would always have a sufficient numbers to saturate my defenses, and take me down.
[wik]Johno, lest you think I am completely inconsistent, I am aware of the implied contradiction between this post and the email I sent you this am. I can only offer this: on Allah's post, Dr. Rusty Shackleford said in a comment, "I guess these things are funny up until the time you have a kid in kindergarten." My boy's only two. Allah also links this Decadent Westpost, which I didn't find as amusing, especially since it personalized the fight. Anonymous opponents somehow are fine, hey, they might be evil or something: Chinese Communists or mutants or Norwegians.
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But remember Johno, how Mrs.
But remember Johno, how Mrs. B gets when she gets hungry and therefore crancky. Add in her experience as an elementary school teacher, and she could probably destroy all of us and thirty five year olds if she hadn't eaten in six hours.
Miz B,
Miz B,
That's a neat story. At what point in the study of your martial art did your sensei cover the "go for the balls" form?
Lady Lethal and I saw a troupe of touring Shao Lin monks do their thang once. They ranged in age from adult to tiny children, maybe 5 years old. I don't have the adjectives to describe what they did; if I even tried I would be accused of hyperbole.
But I'll just say this: any one of the children on that stage could have done his Crazy-Assed Monkey Style thing and put me in the hospital, if not on painkillers for life.
I wouldn't be a very good
I wouldn't be a very good ninja if I went around telling people that I was a ninja. Ninja are secretive, cunning folk.
In fact, you can learn a lot about ninja here. Among the useful facts you can find there are these:
1. Ninjas are mammals.
2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.
Right now, under my blue oxford contractor disguise, I am wearing a tshirt that has that very information on the back.
Miz B., your tae kwan do
Miz B., your tae kwan do stories are the GREATEST. In an all-spouse battle royale, I suspect you and B would prevail between a combination of his size and your kickassitude. Though, if I made sure Ms. Johno was hungry and cranky before we began the odds fall to 2:1 that she will be the only person left standing at the end.
And Mr. B is right; what kind of ninja would advertise their ninjatude. All I'm saying is that I'm not wearing one of those t-shirts right now.
J,
J,
Hmmm. 40 pounds is not that heavy, but how long could you throw 40lbs around before you get tired?
What concerns me in this contest is that mobility on the part of the adult would seem to be an advantage. He has a basketball court to maneuver in, and long legs to take him wherever he needs to go, and a huge speed advantage. Problem is, the little monsters have boundless energy, and I fear being tired out before I incapacitated more than a handful. I'm thinking kicks here; a solid kick at 40 pounds of flesh is gonna do alot of damage.
My other concern is that they have an Ender Wiggins-style ringer on the team, in which case you're just screwed however many of them there are.
"throw 40lbs around before
"throw 40lbs around before you get tired?"
Swing, GL. Swing.
You could make it really fun
You could make it really fun and make the adult dress up in a ninja costume. Once dressed in that constume, the adult is dead.
I say that because at the martial arts school I used to work at we had "Ninja Night" every year around Halloween. It was basically a sleepover for all of the kids that went to that school. We had lots of adult black belts to supervise and the rest of us lower belts would mix the punch and do the dirty work, etc. The capper for the night (to get all the little tigers sleepy and wore out) was for the owner of the school (a 4th-dan black belt) to dress up in a ninja costume and sneak into the school.
Let's just say that it's a good thing there are lots of adult black belts around.
Granted, the owner was at a disadvantage since he couldn't actually hurt the kids, but the kids were out for blood. Blood, and hair, and kidneys, and (dare I say it?) balls. There's nothing that makes your average red-blooded American kid happier than killing a ninja.
In other words, 20 might be a stretch, but no matter how many you're facing, never ever mention that you're a ninja.
I shall restrict my comments
I shall restrict my comments to Kindergarteners... Norskie Communist Zombie kindergarteners.
I think you are drastically overrating your abilities, B. Not that you aren't a really big guy with a long reach, but.... twenty? All it takes is three of them to jump on your back while you're dealing with the ones in front. Two more grab your waistline and haul your pants down, effectively immobilizing you. The ones on your back get bitey on your neck, gouge your eyes and rip off an ear, and while you're howling in agony they take out your knees with a tackle from behind. Once you're down they kick you in the solar plexus and face until you succumb. If they're smart, they strangle you while they're at it so you have to use your arms either to protect your soft bits or to pry the little arms from around your neck. Game over, man!
I am about half the size of Buckethead (5'10'' versus 6'4'' 165 versus well north of two bills) and completely untrained in hand combat before my hour of prefight briefing. That being said, I have some rage. Given all that, my best guess is that a dozen determined kindergarteners is probably my upper limit. I think I'd rather not get into tactics, but let's just say that 40 pounds is not too heavy.
Oh man. We'd all just have to
Oh man. We'd all just have to stand aside and watch the spectacle.