How Many 5 Year-Olds Could You Take On At Once?

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

As discussed here….

How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?

The specifics:

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.

So, under those circumstances, how many 5 year olds could you take on?

Me?  I’m going to say, oh, 30 of the little bastards.  I’m not worried about all 30 swarming me, because only a certain finite number will be able to get to me (the others will block their way).  Accordingly, I can systematically knock out the ones in my immediate vicinity.  The thing that will eventually do me in is fatigue, and at some point, they will be able to overpower me.  So I say thirty.