Reducing the Risk of Brain Damage During Faceslapping

In my recent class on the "Anatomy of Impact Play" someone asked how one could minimize the possibility of sloshing someone's brains around in their head's via slapping the face. I said there really wasn't and there was some back and forth about supporting the head/neck vs. no or little support and how that affected the amount of sloshing inside the head.

After talking with a few people with experience with mild brain injuries, I learned that the more stable the head, the less sloshing of the brain upon impact, then the less that delicate grey matter gets banged up. The amount of force transmitted through the head when the head/neck are firmly supported is much less than the force on the brain banging against the inside of the skull from the head whipping around and stopping fast.

End result: firmly supporting the head and neck not only decreases the possibility of injury to the jaw and neck during face-slapping, it also decreases the trauma to the brain.

There is still risk of damage, mind you. Have fun and be as safe as you can.