Oh yeah, you are absolutely correct. I momentarily stepped out of my LE forensic find em and catch em persona and was looking at the matter from a strictly technical practitioner's point of view.
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I've tried it a number of times (In practice!). You really need toggles on the ends to apply enough tension, and it's a lot harder than it might seem to get good leverage before the target can drop their hips and turn their shoulders.
In the army, they just taught us to get a tight wrap around the target's mouth and stick a bayonet down between the collar bone and trap, aiming for the aorta, or stick a knife crossways through the middle of the neck and saw forward through the carotid and jugular, simultaneously making it kinda hard to yell, or pushing a knife up under the ribs into the descending aorta. Never tried any of those for real, but have done in practice against resistance, and they seem a lot quicker and more effective than a wire with handles.
This is a different issue, but worth looking at. The issue being optimization in terms of speed and effectiveness
As for the garrote, it's worth taking a look at how the Thugs of India operated. They used a scarf called a rumal and would drive their victim first forward off balance as the scarf encircled the neck and then put a knee into the lower or midback to keep them in place. Hard to turn the hips or shoulders under those conditions and leverages. Kind of like when Clemenza took out Carlo Rizzi from the back seat.
The knife attack you describe is to the subclavian artery located just 2 inches under the collarbone. Out in 2 seconds and dead in 3. OTOH, a thrust behind the mandible and mastoid severs the spinal cord and is near instantaneous in effect. Paddy Mayne of the Desert Rats took out a lot of Afrika Corps sentries with this technique.
In addition, a neck break with one hand cupping the bottom of the jaw and the other hand cupping the opposite side temple area does the job quickly too. But, this takes a lot of practice and unless complete surprise or other form of immobilization is achieved can be tricky to pull off. So to speak.
In the end though, I think we agree, the garrote has it's drawbacks.
Seen today in one of the campus gyms:
Guy psyching up hard for a set of 425 half squats, wearing WL shoes and a belt. He did 2 sets of 10 before I finished up my own workout and left.
I still don't understand the bro split. There were two guys working "shoulders and tris" as I squatted/pressed. I swear, many of these guys have way less muscular development than I do, and I'm still at least 15 lbs from a weight I consider semi-respectable (I'm 5'10" 175 right now).
Is under handed (reverse grip?) bench pressing a thing? I've seen it twice in the last two weeks and both with thumbless grip. Looks an order or magnitude scarier than regular suicide grip.
It's uncommon. In around 50 years of gym-rattery I've only witnessed it being done 2-3 times. But it is a thing. IMO, not a wise thing.
Saw someone do the underhanded bench just the other day with 225 on the bar. It dropped like a missle to his chest as soon as he took the handoff. At least his partner got a curl out of it.
Curling with 100+ kg sounds nice. Hope his back is OK.
Greg Nuckols does then a bunch, I think they work well for him. He keeps the thumb on though: