Pressure Points, Dim Mak, and more...

[sensei8]

Shindokan utilizes Kyusho jitsu quite a lot within its brand of Tuite. However, pressure points aren't guaranteed because the parameters involved are so different from one person to another.

I'd rather put my attacker in a uncomfortable and painful position through the means of joint manipulations; those indicators are much more difficult to mask.

[boxingking]

Not to sound like an arrogant turd BUT!

Heres the truth! If you dont learn proper contact sparring be it boxing/kickboxing,kyokushin and hell even some street fightng Dim Mak is USELESS!

Why do you ask? Well its simple, when you learn martial arts and sparring, you,me and everyone else will have bad habits such as looking down when you punch,being afriad of getting punched or kicked as well as not having the combat exrpience and calmness that comes with sparring or full contact training.

You cannot just learn couple of moves and think your some bad mofo, fighting/martial arts are a two way street, one must learn to recieve before he gives(learned it from my new boxing coach).

In conclusion: Dim Mak is for those who already have combat/sparring exprience,otherwise a beginner will get lost in the choas of a fight/brawl

[Harkon72]

My Sensei is a Pressure Point fan. He teaches nerve, blood, energy and psychological points all over the body. They can hurt, disable and control. My awake call was trying to apply them on him, he has a very high pain threshold and this makes a lot of the techniques ineffective. Sensei has trained his body and mind for this. He had me in a hold once, I had to tap out, he kept saying "Do something! Your going to pass out soon!" It's not frustrating training in this way, it's just realistic.

[darksoul]

I've been doing research on this because I'm a geek like that but...

Dim Mak is foolish nonsense. I stand firm in this opinion now since everything I've found pertaining to Dim Mak proves its ineffectiveness.

There are also big differences between using pressure points properly and Dim Mak. Pressure Points can work. Dim Mak generally won't.

[Harkon72]

I agree, the mystical Dim Mak is a legend nothing more.

Pressure points work very well though.

[jaypo]

I know this thread is a year old, but I want to share my recent experiences. I'm a Nidan in a Shorin Ryu based system, and my Master Instructor invited a friend to give a few classes on Kyusho. He was trained by Evan Pantazi. He explained Master Pantazi's system as a purely scientific way to apply pressure points into martial arts.

I was pretty skeptical at first as well, but after hitting the ground and making feminine noises repeatedly in my first class, I was a believer. And he isn't teaching something mystical. He's a chiropractor, and he's showing us the science behind it and why it works. He's not focusing on making us learn how to do touch knock outs. He's showing us how to attack certain points on a person that will create openings from either the pain or loss of function created from attacking a certain point. For example, in many of our katas, we do knifehand blocks and strikes. One drill we do in Kyusho is using that same knifehand sequence to block the same part of the arm, but with a slightly downward angle on the 2nd point. The second "block" is actually a strike to a point on the neck. So we've attacked 3 points (2 on the arm, and one on the neck) in a simple sequence from our 2nd basic kata, and regardless if results in a knockout, it will result in pain and will probably create another opening to attack. Best case scenario, the attacker's arm goes numb and the strike to the neck gives him an early nap.

He's not focusing on teaching us the sensationalism that a lot of instructors show. He's showing us the scientific aspect of it and how it applies to our art.

[hammer]

jaypo, did you find that some pressure points didn't work? In my exposure to them there were times when they worked quite well and others where, for some reason, they either didn't or they only worked when demonstrated by the instructor, which meant that the margin for error was tight.

Agree with what sensei8 mentioned, especially for those of us who are only casually exposed to pressure point techniques and don't study them in detail in our MA style(s).

[jaypo]

Some of them didn't hurt as much as others, but I don't think he's approaching it to score a touch KO every time. As a matter of fact, pretty much everything he's showing us is included in what we already do.

He prefaced the 1st class by saying that some people are less sensitive to some points than others, and some won't be affected at all. But he made a good point- if I hit somebody hard enough on a certain point, even if it doesn't activate the pressure point, I've still hit him pretty hard!

Last night, we were shown 4 drills that we immediately incorporated into Heian Nidan (knife hands attacking 2 points on the arm and one on the neck), Heian Godan (double downard block/strke affecting points on the pelvis and ball punch to the eye socket), and Tekki/Naifanchi (grab and pull drill activating point on the wrist, stomp kick to point above the ankle). All of these were demonstrated on us, and all of them worked!

What I like about it is there are a couple of ones that, to me, are very simple that don't take too much effort. And they're coming to me very easily in applications. I mentioned the one on the wrist- I can get pretty much anybody with that one, but I use it as a control technique. I would use it like so: I block an attack and grab the arm, and when I grab it, I activate that point by simply squeezing my grip (my fingers default to that spot). I then use the bony part of my forearm to apply a lever (armbar) while activating the point behind the elbow. So in a technique that I use all the time (armbar takedown), I can activate 2 points just by squeezing a little tighter with my fingers pointing a little differently. I'm not having to master anything much different. Just small tweaks to what I already do that add a different dimension to my skills.

[sensei8]

Pain thresholds can prevent immediate activities when ones manipulated. The other thing is, and this can be the biggest culprit, not fully knowing how to apply. Medicine is medicine and I don't think that can be disputed. Everyone reacts differently to any manipulation, however, if applied correctly, the ratio is increased.

I've heard..."Lucky; that's how pp work", well, I'd say the person that says that or agrees with that, doesn't truly understand Kyusho Jitsu or how to effective apply the most simplest manipulations, imho.

[TheGrim123321]

I agree with mostly everybody. In a real street situation your first priority should be to kill or disable your attacker. You should not be thinking "Ok when he punches, i'll put my finger there" I don't think pressure points are any good they relie to much on thinking, that being said I have seen some people that can "One touch KO people in a second". Also your averaged angry person would ignore the pain. When you fight you should let muscle memory and instinct take over.

(This is my opinion)

Osu