judo chop

[Jonathan Lighter]

Some months ago there was a discussion about "judo chop," whixh is not in the OED.

  I have serendipitously found this ex. from over half a century ago:

  1953 Alastair Mars _Unbroken_ (rpt. Barnsley, S. Yorks.: Pen & Sword Press, 2006) 48: Bill [was] banging the sides of his hands furiously against the control-room ladder. "What on earth is that for?' I asked.
  "He held out both hands. 'Feel,' he invited....'Banging them helps to harden them.'...With one hand he cut the air in a short sharp arc. 'The Judo [_sic_] chop,' he explained. 'You can kill a man that way.'"

  Captain Mars commanded, not a rocketship, but the British submarine _Unbroken_ in 1942 when the conversation allegedly took place.

  Not only do I recall "judo chop" from my youth, I recall it in a comparable context. A classmate was banging the sides of his hands, on the Formica of a lunchroom table, as I recall, to "harden them," so that he too could kill people as necessary.

  JL


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