Shadowing Practice: I Tested the Deadliest Ancient Weapons - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Can a 10,000 year old weapon generate more destructive energy than a modern firearm?
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Can a 10,000 year old weapon generate more destructive energy than a modern firearm?
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And what about a 700,000 year old knife?
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Can that be as sharp as a razor sharp steel blade?
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This hot stuff I think about being your average unemployed friend on a Tuesday morning.
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Nonetheless, I wanna find out.
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So I'm gonna test three weapons that get progressively older and measure how effective and powerful they are.
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And the first one is the sling.
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These things are fascinating.
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You can kill giants with it.
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Allegedly.
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And so I want to find out how it works,
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what kind of energy generates,
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and then test the damage against the few targets.
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A sling is one of the oldest known projectile weapons,
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and Sumerian, Greek and Roman armies all had specialized slingers.
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So what do you do for a living?
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Why just throw little rocks at people?
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It's pretty fun.
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Anyway, a sling is basically a pouch attached to two cords and the projectiles you load into the pouch can be stones,
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lead bullets, which are actually pretty nice because they spin in the air,
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stabilizing the shot, soda cans,
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tape, All right, let's test it.
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To shoot I gotta place the loop on one end of the sling in the middle of the middle finger,
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load the projectile and hold the other end of the sling.
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Now there are many techniques you can use to shoot a sling based on the position of your arm
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and I'm not great at any of them.
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It takes a lot of practice especially to get accurate with it.
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And since I used one just once before I'm basically just improvising.
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But then after practicing for a while I'm now starting to get the timing down.
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And even though this camera angle doesn't give you the idea of how fast the rocks are actually flying,
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it's pretty clear that the energy generates.
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Well it's a lot!
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To measure it I place two sticks 1.3 meters apart from each other's
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and by shooting a projectile in between them
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and filming in slow motion I can find the velocity of the projectile and also the energy from there.
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First I'm throwing a 107 grams rock by hand
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and following my calculations the rock is flying at about 23 meters a second carrying an energy of 27.7 Joules.
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Then I throw a similar sized rock,
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but this time using the sling.
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With that I get a speed of about 32 meters a second with an energy of 60.1 Joules.
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That's more than double the energy I got by just throwing the rock by hand.
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Now the reason why a sling is able to generate
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so much more power compared to just throwing a rock is because of centripetal force.
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When you swing a sling,
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the tension in the cords and the speed of rotation generate kinetic energy
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and when the sling is released all this energy is transferred to the projectile, increasing the speed.
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Moreover, since the sling basically becomes an extension of your arm,
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it also gives you a mechanical advantage,
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and that's why longer slings are generally more powerful than the short ones.
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Lastly, I tried another test with a much heavier rock,
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and the sling still managed to throw the rock at about 24 meters a second,
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which converts to 95 juice.
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For comparison, that's almost 20% more energy than what I could get with the lethal slingshot I built a while ago.
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And I believe that with a better technique and aerodynamic projectiles,
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it could probably get into small firearm territory.
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Now, what happens when you hit stuff with it?
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I started with a watermelon and of course I missed a bunch of times.
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Damaged the sawhorse, which I actually find quite impressive,
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But after a few more tries, I got it.
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Can this kill giants though?
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Well I couldn't find any giant willing to test that.
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Come on man, I'm sure you'll be fine.
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But I found this one.
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This is a ballistic dummy,
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so the gelatin should simulate muscle tissue and the bones...
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bones.
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In short, the damage on this thing should be a pretty accurate representation of what would happen to someone
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if they got hit by a sling.
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First, I need to hear it though.
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Spoiler, it's gonna take a while,
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so I'm gonna just skip this process for you and while I throw rocks at nothing for the next few hours,
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I wanna shout out this plate for supporting this video.
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three in the shop for a while and I think they still look great
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and so I got a few ones for my house too.
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I love watching movies so this time they're basically all about that.
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The first one is from Lord of the Rings.
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For me one of the coolest shots in movie history.
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The second one is A Dark Knight.
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I posted a picture of Harvey Dent in one of my previous videos and nobody got the reference.
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You gotta watch it, it's a masterpiece.
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And then the last one is from Dune,
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one of my favorite movies in recent years.
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The posters feel sturdy and the clarity on the images is really good.
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Displate also recently launched this new product called Displate Textra,
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which gives extra clarity to the images by having a sort of 3D texture on the posters.
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Hanging the posters is also super intuitive and you find everything you need to do it inside the box.
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You just stick the protective leaf,
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stick the magnet to the leaf and hang the displate.
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And this way you can also adjust it or move it however you like it.
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My shop has pre-roof was,
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but the posters are still hanging there so I guess it works.
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There are millions of artworks available in the Displate catalog
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that you can pick from original art or licensed designs such as Marvel,
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Star Wars or Elden Ring.
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You can get them right now by going to displate.com slash MikeShake
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or use my promo code MikeShake to get a really nice discount.
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It's 22% off if you get two displates and 30% off if you get three or more.
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And I'm also leaving a link in the description if you want to check them out at the end of the video.
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Anyways, after 40 minutes I hit the first shot.
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And at first I thought I did nothing to the dummy,
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but then I checked the slow motion footage.
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My goal is obviously to hit the skull.
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But I feel like this shot is kind of impressive already.
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The dam is pretty heavy and the rock not only flipped it 90 degrees,
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but it also left deep cuts into the gelatin.
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And so I kept trying.
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In all that, I'm not sure if you can hear it,
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but there is a sort of crack when I let the sling go.
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And that is coming from the sling,
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traveling faster than the speed of sound.
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It turns out a sling basically works like a whip.
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When the sling is released the kinetic energy built up during the swing is transferred down the length of the sling.
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The transfer of energy increases in speed as it moves along the sling,
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accelerating the tip of the sling,
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called cracker, till it flies faster than the speed of sound.
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Now the purpose of having a cracker is to dissipate the energy and slow the sling down,
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so it basically doesn't come back whipping you every time you shoot.
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Anyways, the more I'm using it,
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the more I'm becoming a fan of this thing.
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As you can see, even if I still don't know what I'm doing,
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it's pretty insane to me what a simple piece of rope can do.
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And after about one hour I finally managed to hit the skull.
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Oh, it cracked it!
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The rock still had a lot of energy left though,
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and so I shot one more time.
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And this time I got it clean.
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Breaking the bones and cutting the gelatin once again.
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For the next weapon we're gonna go back about 10,000 years.
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I'm talking about spear throwers.
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I found one in carbon fiber,
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but before checking it out I'm mounting the spear,
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which kinda looks more like a long arrow than a spear.
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It got feathers, a pointy tip on one end,
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and a slot on the other end.
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While the spear thrower has this sort of pin that locks into the slot of the spear,
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basically like this.
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I'm very curious to test this but I probably shouldn't do it in my shop.
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So then I went outside.
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You know it's actually quite easy to use, I wasn't expecting it.
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After just a few throws I was already hitting the targets.
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History says this was actually a big step in human evolution because before using this we were just throwing spears by hand.
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A spear thrower works by extending the length of the thrower's arm providing leverage
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that significantly increases the velocity and accuracy of the spears.
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So compared to just using our arms,
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it allowed us to increase the reach,
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hunt larger game, and also be more accurate.
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Or at least that's the theory.
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So let's test that.
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I'm gonna throw one spear by hand and one using this,
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and we're gonna see the difference.
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I hope you can see me.
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Test one, range.
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First shot using my hands.
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Alright, now the spear thrower.
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oh my I got 22 meters by hand
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and 48 meters with a spear thrower you probably didn't even
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see where he landed I'm gonna give you a better angle oh
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that went further away than the last time so
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when it comes to range a spear thrower is definitely a
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big step up 64 right now one of the s penetration
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and damage and well you already know this guy it's just not in great shape right now
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so I'm gonna just use the back of the head shot one using my hands I don't even know
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if I can hit it to be honest nope well after a while I actually hit it though
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I think I got it.
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But the spear did basically nothing to the skull.
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So then I got a little bit closer and I hit it.
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Oh, nice.
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This would have hurt.
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What is happening?
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Anyways, the spear got actually quite deep.
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All right, spear thrower.
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Shot one.
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Jeez, that's definitely different.
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Same exact spot by the way and the penetration was certainly higher than before.
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I also tried to hit the skull,
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it took me a while and I broke a few spears in the process
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but interestingly when I hit it the spear snapped bouncing back towards me a little too fast for comfort
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and most importantly it didn't do significant damage to the skull,
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just a little dent.
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Still though, I find this quite fascinating and very very fun to use.
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It's nice.
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The third weapon I want to test is the oldest one of the list and it's Obsidian.
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Google says it's many times sharper than the sharpest steel blades,
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so I want to test that.
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I got a machine that measures exactly that.
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The plan is to compare Obsidian to three different steel blades,
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a utility razor blade, a shaving blade and a chef's knife.
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I'm gonna sharpen myself.
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As a reference a high-hand kitchen knife should be around 300 on the scale and the utility razor blade scored 235,
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while a shaving razor is one of the sharpest blades you can purchase.
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And with that I got a nice 35,
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also proving that the method I'm using is pretty accurate.
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And now it's time for the chef's knife.
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This is an old knife I bought from Ikea and it's pretty dull,
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so I'm spending a while sharpening it with two different whetstones,
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from a medium grit to basically a polishing one,
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which is so fine that it doesn't even make a noise when I swipe the knife on it.
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It took me about 10 minutes to do it and right now this thing should be very sharp.
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So now, as I did with the previous blades,
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I'm measuring the actual sharpness.
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I wanna double check that, so I'm trying again.
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50. Alright, I think I enjoy sharpening stuff a little too much.
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I'm not sure why.
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Anyways, these are all the results I got with the steel blades.
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Now it's time to test obsidian.
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Actually though, what even is obsidian?
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It turns out it's a type of glass that forms when lava cools down rapidly,
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usually when it comes into contact with water or air.
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This rapid cooling prevents the formation of crystals,
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and in short, that's basically why it looks like that.
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It feels like a chunk of glass,
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and like glass, it's brittle.
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So, To make an eye fire off obsidian,
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I need to start from a larger block and slowly remove material.
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The problem is that all the videos I watched see the same thing.
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You need to make sure to strike the obsidian in the right areas with the correct amount of force.
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And if you are like me and you're using a mouse pad to protect your leg and a hammer to strike obsidian,
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that sentence doesn't make any sense.
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I'm still trying to do that though,
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hitting the right parts with the correct amount of force,
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which in practice turned to hitting random parts with random amount of force
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and after 20 minutes I started to get kind of frustrated.
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Every time I felt I was kind of getting closer then the stones randomly snapped.
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I really thought I was gonna make this work
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but after one hour the only thing I did was turning
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big obsidian rocks into smaller obsidian rocks like a lot of them.
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I even tried grinding it.
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It didn't work.
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Massive respect for all the craftsmen making obsidian blades and all the Neanderthal men out there.
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I seriously underestimated this thing and now that I had no more obsidian to make a knife I thought about buying one.
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The problem is that I couldn't find any store in Europe
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that could ship an obsidian knife in time besides this website that says obsidian scalpels and then it hit me.
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Not the scalpel, but a realization.
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Even though it would be cool to have one of these big obsidian knives are not even
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that sharp because they're pretty thick.
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That is sharp obsidian flakes and luckily I got a lot of them.
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As a reminder these are the results I got with the steel blades
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and now I'm gonna test this which is obviously pretty sharp
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but when I tried to measure it I only got 90
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so then I got the thinnest flake I could find but
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when I measured the sharpness I got a score even higher than before,
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probably because the edge wasn't very clean.
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Then I tried with different flakes with a cleaner edge and things went definitely better.
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Obsidian is very sharp but during my test at least I never managed to get results
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that are 10 times sharper than razor blades or my IKEA knife.
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Even when cutting paper you feel more resistance compared to the steel blades.
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Still though, it's pretty cool and I'd like to make a knife out of this one day.
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Next I'm gonna make a very special sword and then I'm gonna finally test my supersonic nerf blaster.
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So if you like this video,
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leave a like and subscribe to see when they'll come out.
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Thank you for watching!
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Context & Background
In the fascinating video titled "I Tested the Deadliest Ancient Weapons," the speaker delves into the power and effectiveness of ancient weapons, specifically examining their mechanics and potential impact compared to modern firearms. With a humorous tone, the speaker emerges as an engaging figure, challenging the notion of outdated weaponry by conducting tests on a sling, one of the oldest projectile weapons known to civilization. This context serves not only to entertain but also to educate viewers about energy dynamics and historical weaponry. As this topic intrigues many, it offers a great opportunity for English learners to enhance their vocabulary and speaking skills through engaging content and technical dialogue.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “How it works” - A common question used to prompt explanations about a mechanism or process.
- “Test the damage” - Involves assessing the impact or effects of an action.
- “Generate more power” - Used to describe the ability to create or produce greater energy or force.
- “Practice makes perfect” - A motivational phrase emphasizing the importance of regular practice for improvement.
- “Mechanical advantage” - A term often used in physics, highlighting the benefit that enhances efficiency or effectiveness.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To tackle the dialogue in this video effectively using the shadowing technique, follow these steps. Shadow speaking is an excellent method to enhance your pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm in English.
- Listen Actively: Start by watching the video multiple times. Focus on the speaker’s tone, pacing, and pronunciation.
- Repeat Phrases: As you progress through the video, pause after key phrases and repeat them. Utilize a shadowing app to record yourself and compare your pronunciation with that of the speaker.
- Practice with Emotion: Mimic the speaker's enthusiasm and humor to better capture the essence of their message. This will not only improve your speaking skills but also add vitality to your own communication.
- Focus on Vocabulary: Pay attention to specific terms, like "centripetal force" and "energy transfer." Understanding and using these words will enhance your technical vocabulary.
- Encourage Consistency: Make it a habit to engage with similar content regularly, allowing you to refine your speaking style and confidence. Daily english speaking practice through shadowing will significantly reinforce your skills over time.
By following this structured approach, learners can leverage engaging video content to effectively practice their English language skills, making the most of the shadow speech technique to achieve fluency.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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