Martial Arts Pressure Points
There is no area of the fighting arts that is more misunderstood or mythologized than martial arts pressure points. There are many people who claim that they know a certain kind of death touch. These martial arts masters believe that they can cause someone to die simply by tapping a point lightly. Often they believe that this point will disrupt the flow of chi or ki, causing the opponent to quickly die or to slowly suffer and linger on for days.
In reality, there is nothing that mysterious about pressure points in martial arts. Some debates still continue about what precisely can be done with martial arts pressure points, but almost every agrees that they exist. There are, of course, submission points that can be used to fight with someone. For example, you can grab someone’s knuckle and twist it just right so that, without breaking it, you still have completely neutralized them. They will be in too much pain to move. Martial arts pressure points are a little bit more tricky than this, however. They are spots in the body ? usually connected to nerve plexuses, arteries and veins ? which can disrupt blood flow or nerve signals, or cause enough pain to disable an opponent.
There are some so-called pressure point martial arts that almost completely revolve around these points. The people who practice these arts train at striking them precisely so that they can hit their opponent hard in just the right place. Martial arts pressure points are nothing to mess around with. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing can seriously injure or even kill an opponent by striking too hard or incorrectly. The purpose of the martial arts pressure point is not to kill or even wound, but to disable without injuring. You need to know what you’re doing to be able to achieve this effect.
Whether or not death touch martial arts pressure points exist is subject to considerable debate. The problem is that you can’t very well publicly demonstrate your ability to kill someone with a single touch. Some of the demonstrations come pretty close, however. I have seen several videos with martial arts masters striking an opponent and causing him to fall to the ground almost instantly with what looks like a very light touch. At the very least, it was impressive and a little bit scary. I certainly wouldn’t want to go up against someone who knew how to do that!
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