There is an interesting anecdote about a 6th Dan Judoka who had his head handed to him by an Okinawa Karate guy.
The techniques that the karate practitioner used included foot stomps (sounds good), hammer fist (no problem), and the fish hook.
I don’t like the idea of the fish hook.
Sticking your fingers or thumbs into a mouth to pull on a cheek to control an opponent may work, but you might just get a finger bitten.
Off.
And these days, there’s no telling whether penicillin will kill whatever lives in the mouth of the tattoo covered bad guy you just fishhooked. Note that I have friends who are covered with tattoos, who are not bad guys, and one good friend who owns a tattoo parlor. Hey, capitalism is good.
There’s a nice article describing the legendary judo vs. karate slugfest written by Iain Abernethy. In it he mentions the Shotokan version of a kata in which the fish hook is one of the bunkai.
But of the various techniques that I’d like to practice to perfection, the fish hook is low on my favorites list.
Right along with the dreaded finger up the nose trick, which I will discuss further next time.
