Just looking for pressure points and defense moves

PaulieMac

Not to sure as to what to go with so if some one could give me some advice.
Regards
Paulie

FruitLover

I'd recommend the five-point palm exploding heart technique.

dudara

Pressure points aren't really a good thing to focus on for self-defence training, in my view. They vary from person to person, and clothing can affect also.

I'm not poo-poohing them entirely, I just wouldn't rely on them.

yomchi

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pma-ire

yomchi wrote: »

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pma-ire

dudara wrote: »

Pressure points aren't really a good thing to focus on for self-defence training, in my view. They vary from person to person, and clothing can affect also.

I'm not poo-poohing them entirely, I just wouldn't rely on them.

being a pressure point instructor, i actually totally agree with you!

any pressure point is best used as part of an already solid technique. this is where people make the mistake of thinking that you can grab here or poke there and get a result.

this is why we in the ADK see that any martial art can use pressue points as cherry on top of already effective techniques.

pma-ire

PaulieMac wrote: »

Not to sure as to what to go with so if some one could give me some advice.
Regards
Paulie

Paulie, are you in a martial art already?

what has sparked your interest in learning about pressure points??

can you expand on your question a bit more, as in what is it you want from them???

subvictory

Pressure points are pure fiction and should have been ditched along with other outdated, unproven beliefs. People aren’t bled to balance the humours anymore so why does this Pseudo fighting science seem to persist in some quarters?

104494431

A punch to the face is fairly incapacitating for most people.

RealJohn

I trained once with an instructor who believed strongly in pressure points. I was already an experienced martial artist at the time and already pretty sceptical about pressure points. The instructor in question only reinforced my belief that pressure points, while probably not complete rubbish, are an idiotic thing to base your self-defense system on.

I told the instructor that I was sceptical about pressure points from the start and he told me that I'd probably never been shown how to use them by anyone who knew how.
He proceded to demonstrate by poking me really hard in the gum. It was really unpleasent but not particularly incapacitating. Seeing it hadn't worked, he tried again. And again. And on the forth attempt, I gave in and let him push me back, just to stop him poking me in the gum.

He then smugly added that it would have been more effective if instead of poking me, he'd punched me in the same place. So essentially, what he taught me was that punching someone in the jaw is an effective way to incapacitate someone.

The instructor in question was (and presumably still is) a high ranking student/instructor of an internationally famous (or infamous?) pressure point guru.

Sorry about my little rant but my point is, pressure points probably have some value but they have far less value than say, learning to box or learning to throw someone. Take up boxing or muay thai or judo or wrestling or mma. Forget pressure points.

yomchi

RealJohn wrote: »

I trained once with an instructor who believed strongly in pressure points. I was already an experienced martial artist at the time and already pretty sceptical about pressure points. The instructor in question only reinforced my belief that pressure points, while probably not complete rubbish, are an idiotic thing to base your self-defense system on.

I told the instructor that I was sceptical about pressure points from the start and he told me that I'd probably never been shown how to use them by anyone who knew how.
He proceded to demonstrate by poking me really hard in the gum. It was really unpleasent but not particularly incapacitating. Seeing it hadn't worked, he tried again. And again. And on the forth attempt, I gave in and let him push me back, just to stop him poking me in the gum.

He then smugly added that it would have been more effective if instead of poking me, he'd punched me in the same place. So essentially, what he taught me was that punching someone in the jaw is an effective way to incapacitate someone.

The instructor in question was (and presumably still is) a high ranking student/instructor of an internationally famous (or infamous?) pressure point guru.

Sorry about my little rant but my point is, pressure points probably have some value but they have far less value than say, learning to box or learning to throw someone. Take up boxing or muay thai or judo or wrestling or mma. Forget pressure points.

While I'm no expert on PP and I don't train them I have done a seminar on them. I'm not sure why people think PP's are about poking and proding. All they are are points where parts of the nervous system either junction or expose. It's about hitting this point as opposed to poking it. The solar plexus for example is a pressure point if I'm not mistaken.

With my mod hat on now. When someone comes on looking for advice on a particular aspect of martial arts they don't need to be told to forget it and go do something else. This forum is about the sharing of ideas not the rubbishing of systems/styles etc.

pma-ire

i've been researching pressure points for about 14 years or so now, and have been training with Prof Rick Clark since 2003.

over this time i have seen many instructors of karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, hap ki do and more show me pressure points.

sometimes the instruction has been good, but many times it has been lacking a real sense of delivery outside poking and grabbing of points. since training in the AoDenkouKai with Rick i have seen that any combat art can apply pressure points to techniques already in their art. In many case the combat arts would have had these points already in the base style.

Judo has many pressure points, as do the rest of the arts mentioned. but many times they are not called pressure points.

the other problem is that some martial artists go to one or two seminars with a pressure point instructor and pick up a few "tricks" then go back to their own classes and one night decide to depart these new skills to the students in the "self defence" session they do once every 3 months so that the students can impress at the mext grading.

but the "tricks" don't work because they did'int really learn how to activate the point correctly, or how to use it as part of a bigger effective defence against an attack with back up techniques and escape routes factored in.

i totally understand people's views posted here on kyusho, kupso, pressure points. i can only say that we should'int paint all with the one brush, and if they are not something that really interests you then that's cool too

mark.leonard

Pressure points are fine if you are talking about something like punching a guy on the spot designed to produce the most sever rattling of the skull and most likely to lead to unconsciousness.
Where I start getting wary is when folks talk about certain points in the body affecting some organ they are removed from, say hitting between the metatarsal of the big and second toes halfway towards the ankle crease to affect the liver: if I want to affect someone's liver I tend to kick them on the right side of their body, but I have always been pretty direct that way

pma-ire

mark.leonard wrote: »

Pressure points are fine if you are talking about something like punching a guy on the spot designed to produce the most sever rattling of the skull and most likely to lead to unconsciousness.
Where I start getting wary is when folks talk about certain points in the body affecting some organ they are removed from, say hitting between the metatarsal of the big and second toes halfway towards the ankle crease to affect the liver: if I want to affect someone's liver I tend to kick them on the right side of their body, but I have always been pretty direct that way

this leads to claims of 3 point KO's where they use the cycle of creation (COC) or the cycle of destruction (COD) to effect a tapping KO from 3 points. The ADK looked at this and realised that you can hit any 3 points at random and link them into the COC or COD. So this showed that we don't need to worry about learning these cycles or worry about them when in the middle of a defensive situation.

further to this i have seen these 3 point cycle KO's on Youtube and they mostly seem to finish on the classic stand alone KO points and so the other points should be more concerned with setting up the strike to that big KO point and not worried about following a path or cycle.

but if you think that the cycle thing is complicated then you should see some of the stuff about the increasing effect of hitting certain points at certain times of the day

the majority of pressure point instuctors do use the TCM point names and charts so as to show people the location of the areas being used. but this is more for ease of reference in the ADK.

mark.leonard

pma-ire wrote: »

this leads to claims of 3 point KO's where they use the cycle of creation (COC) or the cycle of destruction (COD) to effect a tapping KO from 3 points. The ADK looked at this and realised that you can hit any 3 points at random and link them into the COC or COD. So this showed that we don't need to worry about learning these cycles or worry about them when in the middle of a defensive situation.

What?

pma-ire wrote: »

further to this i have seen these 3 point cycle KO's on Youtube and they mostly seem to finish on the classic stand alone KO points and so the other points should be more concerned with setting up the strike to that big KO point and not worried about following a path or cycle.

If the big KO point is the part of the jaw that gives the most mechanical leverage to rattling the head I am all about that, I am not sure I understand what you have posted about 3 point cycles though, it sounds more like the stamping on the foot to hit the liver rubbish that makes me wary.

pma-ire wrote: »

but if you think that the cycle thing is complicated then you should see some of the stuff about the increasing effect of hitting certain points at certain times of the day

Don't even get me started

pma-ire wrote: »

the majority of pressure point instuctors do use the TCM point names and charts so as to show people the location of the areas being used. but this is more for ease of reference in the ADK.

I would still like to see a one for one between pressure points and actual mechanical / anatomical weak spots, who do you think would drop first?
There would be parity if folks were hitting one of the sweet spots I am talking about and applying pseudo martial science on top - "It wasn't that I punched him in the jaw that put him down, it was the strategic damming of his qi energy I had already done with the previous two strikes"

Niall Keane

The pressure points time of the day lark and the cycle of destruction, 5 point / element to cause death are ridiculous. What happens if I travel to China another time zone, won’t my metabolism be different to the locals as their time of the dragon is my time of the donkey?
But really, this highlights the exact problem with much oriental pseudo martial arts. Some lazy batsrd learnt the relationship between say Daoism and a particular style. Yin-Yang, originally intended to teach for example to faint high to sweep low etc. you know simple direct sound advice on strategy and leverage.
Along comes the lazy student, the genius student, who decides to write a book or better still “find” a manuscript, passed down from father to son in the Chinese version of a family from Joyce Country Mayo, something really remote and inspiring, the style becomes “12 Pin Fist” after the local hills.
Anyway this genius has “proved” the relationship between TCM, Daoist theory and martial arts; Daoism has five elements, and speaks of a constructive and destructive cycle. TCM has meridians and each organ is related to these, and to one of the five elements, so “obviously” it stands to reason that completing the cycle on a meridian will destroy all the chi there and kill the host organ!!! But wait the times of the day are also related to yin-yang theory, so there’s no point hitting a yin point with a yin attack, on a yang part of the day, as the effect won’t be fully in accord with the cosmos!!!
And if that bstrd form Ireland with his “12 Pin fist” ever comes back to Shaolin remember that his time zone is a bit different! That’s why he won last time!!
Hopefully I have highlighted the comedy of such above, that being said real Dim-Mak is a component part of most kung-fu styles. And as afore said the method is the cherry on top of well practiced, tried and tested techniques. I will give some examples from my own style. “Twin Mountain peaks through the ears”. The main body of the technique is about spiralling your jabbing arm down and away from a block / grab, and returning over such with the hips, moving closer and around to the side of an opponent at the same time to deliver an over hand punch with the same hand. I’m sure all styles have something similar?
The technique with pressure points, means that the over hand punch uses the base knuckle of the index finger to strike, to increase pressure – force over area- and we aim at the ear, so we’ll hit either the ear, behind it, or the jaw/ cheek bone depending on how the opponent tries to avoid and ducks, so we maximise our chances of success.
Now that’s a practical approach to pressure point fighting, the pressure maximised, and the point picked that allows for some “slippage”. We don’t expect to be absolutely perfect, we allow for the chaos that is fighting. To further increase our chances, faints or draws are also used to entice the opponent, or make him react in a desired fashion, so we set him up, again this skill of “he starts first but I arrive first” is far more important and critical to successful fighting being based on a thorough understanding of three most important aspects to be learned in sparring – timing, angle and range. And to apply a dim mak strike as mentioned this positioning skill first has to be mastered, so dim mak is simply the cherry.
Dim Mak should be as simple as outlined if you hope to use it under the stress of the immediacy of combat, a lock doesn’t work, or is being resisted, so you simply bend an arm without releasing the opponent, or compromising your guard and use your elbow to attack (press) into a plexus of nerves now exposed by the twist involved in the lock. When you have learned this, you’ll do it anyway, just in case, again maximising the chance of success. To do it though without ridiculously complicated movement that takes time or opens you up, both serious errors requires experience in the standard use of a guard and efficient movement.
So in my opinion you can learn dim mak / pressure point fighting techniques, but if you’re serious you’ll need to also learn all the other more fundamental aspects of fighting, it is not a case of a lazy shortcut, but rather of gung fu..... time and effort spent to become expert.
Anyone tells you otherwise, ask them two questions:
1. How much do they charge? If it’s special secret knowledge for inner students for serious cash, it’s a scam, as secret knowledge cannot be practiced openly with training partners so it cannot be perfected, often cannot be remembered and so it is useless.
2. What’s their personal and clubs fight record? If they don’t have any, because their systems too dangerous, you should know yourself that that is a scam. No matter how pretty a gun looks, you’d probably be wise to fire it a few times before going to war?

pma-ire

mark.leonard wrote: »

What?

Exactly

mark.leonard wrote: »

If the big KO point is the part of the jaw that gives the most mechanical leverage to rattling the head I am all about that, I am not sure I understand what you have posted about 3 point cycles though, it sounds more like the stamping on the foot to hit the liver rubbish that makes me wary.

I think you are not understanding my post. We in the ADK do not use this cycle thing, other groups do. I was just telling you about it to show how needlessly complicated this can get.

mark.leonard wrote: »

Don't even get me started

Exactly!

mark.leonard wrote: »

I would still like to see a one for one between pressure points and actual mechanical / anatomical weak spots, who do you think would drop first?
There would be parity if folks were hitting one of the sweet spots I am talking about and applying pseudo martial science on top - "It wasn't that I punched him in the jaw that put him down, it was the strategic damming of his qi energy I had already done with the previous two strikes"

I would also! Again we don't worry about the energy flow thing in the ADK, we just hit places that give us reactions or the "Just Hit Here" principle.

Personally I'm not worried about hitting Stomach 5 (which is the point on the jaw) when working on defences, I'd just strike with a fist to the jaw and be happy that I hit at all . The points that interest me more are the ones that give you a big reaction and are in areas that people would not expect to be hurt so much and tend not to protect.

This gives you a way to open up a persons guard and distract them enough to land the "sweet shots" that get the job done.