I was going through a closet the other day and found my old log book from Karate. A sensei from the US put on a semanar and I wrote this down. Someone asked him about street fighting and this was his responce.
Close distance.
React in one second.
Instant pain.
Use technique that works on everyone.
Morally justified.
Legally safe.
This Sensei’s speciality was pressure point combat for lack of a better term. The places that this guy could inflict pain was amazing. I felt bad for the two guys that were his assistants.
I remember he was demonstrating a technique where you applied pressure on a persons forearm just above the wrist. For some reason, if I remember correctly, the bigger the person is the easier it is to make this work and the skinnier you were the harder it was. He said whenever he did a seminar he would always pick out the biggest dude to get the most ohhhs and ahhhs lol.
I was intrested to see what you people thought about his advice. I apologize if this has been covered before.
I don’t mean to sound like a close minded asshole, but I think pressure point pain compliance has little actual merit in a live/dynamic situation. it hurts, but usually the demonstrater is doing it with your 100% compliance and in a live situation, if you grabbed my arm and dug into a pressure point, I’m going to hit you with my free hand in the face while pulling my arm away.
If OP’s avatar is real, it is the legendary 5x5 Fingers of Death, which would ensure the pressure point defense would lead to instant death through sensory overload.
Having only one world title, I would leave this alone FirestormWarrior ;7)
[quote]treco wrote:
If OP’s avatar is real, it is the legendary 5x5 Fingers of Death, which would ensure the pressure point defense would lead to instant death through sensory overload.
Having only one world title, I would leave this alone FirestormWarrior ;7)[/quote]
[quote]bond james bond wrote:
I was going through a closet the other day and found my old log book from Karate. A sensei from the US put on a semanar and I wrote this down. Someone asked him about street fighting and this was his responce.
Close distance.
[/quote]
Ahh… why?
Works as long as you don’t have a few drinks in you or slip.
Does he know how to count? This should be like two steps later, after the technique.
Not really any such thing.
The jury will figure that one out.
What, exactly, about streetfighting, is legally safe and morally justified?
See, the first first part of what this guy said was about fighting- closing distance and inflicting pain.
But then, he says that it will be morally justified and legally safe- so now, he seems like he’s talking about self-defense, which is directly in contrast with #1- closing distance. But if he was talking about streetfighting, then 5 and 6 no longer apply- he should have been teaching you about how to disappear and be in the wind for a while after you seriously hurt someone.
I bet- but they were on awe struck students who were comlying with what he taught. Pressure points can work sometime, but only for very briefly- i.e., using a cross-face to get someone’s head to come up so you can apply a chokehold from the back.
But in the real world, no one is going to stand there and let you do that.
The size of the person doesn’t matter. The thing that does matter is- did he tell you that some people don’t have that pressure point? that you could crank all day on that shit and someone will give you a weird look and then lace in you in face?
Pressure points are good for striking at, but not so good for trying to really manhandle them by.
Sounds like a typical sensei who isn’t really sure what he’s talking about.
Ok, I’ll risk the wrath of the 5x5 Fingers Of Death…
Irish, that’s pretty much what I said in those non-showing posts.
One exception, though: Kicks to the knees, punches to the throat and eye-poking would work on everyone. Just not in any situation, that’s the gist of it.
[quote]I was going through a closet the other day and found my old log book from Karate. A sensei from the US put on a semanar and I wrote this down. Someone asked him about street fighting and this was his responce.
Close distance.[/quote]
Most self defense situations take place at close distance anyways. If you’re free to choose your distance (for whatever reason), choose the distance you can best start your 400 meter sprint (i.e. escape) from.
Too long.
Um, yeah. No time for mumbo jumbo if it’s serious.
As an intelligent person you should always be aware that fighting - in a self defense situation - will lead to injury in one form or another. Cockfights are just below a martial artist, if you ask me. If somebody is threatening your life, morale is no longer an issue.
I’d rather be sued for defending myself effectively than not being sued for being devastated. Also, no plaintiff means no judge. Defend yourself and run for it. Leave the scene. Better yet, run as a measure of defense. But I guess that possibility has been ruled out already.
[quote]This Sensei’s speciality was pressure point combat for lack of a better term. The places that this guy could inflict pain was amazing. I felt bad for the two guys that were his assistants.
I remember he was demonstrating a technique where you applied pressure on a persons forearm just above the wrist. For some reason, if I remember correctly, the bigger the person is the easier it is to make this work and the skinnier you were the harder it was. He said whenever he did a seminar he would always pick out the biggest dude to get the most ohhhs and ahhhs lol.[/quote]
As I said, pain won’t cut in many situations, so pressure point fighting isn’t what I’d train as a means of self defense. Of course, if you define the throat, eyes and carotis as pressure points, then go for it.
It’s just not applicable in a dynamic/live situation. I’ve done pressure point training before in Karate, which i did before I started boxing. The whole time Sensei was running these demonstrations on us, the thought was going through my mind that I could whack him the face with my free hand, while yanking my arm away, as a normal person would do.
Besides, in a live situation, you can’t predict a person’s response/actions to that degree, why bother trying to find a pressure point under duress when you can drop a bomb on the point of his chin or jawline? → If you’re elevating the level of violence before he does, that has a much better track record.
Hell I like Geoff Thompson’s approach to those situations (such as bar fights), make him feel secure by being submissive, then wack the fucker in the jaw and don’t stop till he drops. Being active instead of reactive is always a better option, even if being “active” means hightailing it before the level of violence elevates from shoves to punches and glass bottles.
Personally I have trained a fair amount of pressure points (we call them “nerve attacks”) and they do work, on a live fully resisting opponent (if you actually train them that way) no less. But the way that this sensei seems to be talking about using them doesn’t sound like he has actually trained them that way.
I would never, ever just grab someone by the arm and try to squeeze down on a pressure point (and I’ve got a pretty strong “crushing grip” no less) and think that it’s going to render them helpless and end the fight. I might target pressure points on their forearm(s) with strikes though, to momentarily “deaden” that arm, or open up their guard so I could hit them in the face.
It sounds like yet another one dimensional mindset regarding this “arsenal” of techniques.
There are a lot of “smoke and mirrors” pressure point guys out there who make some fantastic claims and thus give pressure point/nerve attacks a bad name. When in reality they can be very effective and useful tools. I hope that maybe the OP’s Sensei wasn’t one of them and he’s just translating his experience poorly, but I fear that’s not the case.
This seminar was twenty years ago and yes maybe I misremembered lol… Fried a few brain cells in that time.
FirestormWarrior point #5- He did mention realistically to expect to absorb a few blows. This ain’t the movies.
Also not to try to kick a guy in the balls as your first shot. He said to give a dude credit and that he will instinctively protect them. Again, it ain’t the movies.
This I positively remember. As he was lecturing us, his assistants would stand at the front facing us akimbo with their hands clasped behind their backs. Every once in awhile he would take his tonfa and hit one of them in the stomach when they wouldn’t expect it…hard. We were trying not to crack up.
A couple of weeks after that we had Bill “Superfoot” Wallace come in for a weekend seminar. What a character lol…Was able to spend the day golfing with him. The rental clubs will never be the same again…bit of a temper. Unfucking believable speed. Sparring with him was one big blurr of hands and feet with pinpoint accuracy. Ate nothing but junk food…period. Greases the joints he said lol. The dude was a freak. No body fat and looked half his age. He was pissed because we didn’t have a white castle in Canada. Great guy and funny as hell.
[quote]bond james bond wrote:
FirestormWarrior point #5- He did mention realistically to expect to absorb a few blows. This ain’t the movies.[/quote]
Point was was about being justified ina moralic sense, no? What exactly are you saying?
Having him protect his balls is not necessarily bad for you. Could be used as set-up for something else, like eye-gouging. Anyhow, this is so down to the situation that a theoric approach doesn’t make sense. I feel comfortable at kicking range, so if I have any chance to do so, I’ll kick.
EDIT: Out of curiosity, just wondering if that still was aimed towards my reply… I somehow fail to find anything about ball-kicking ;).
I think part of the problem is the term “pressure point” gives off a connotation of “my kung-fu is strong” mysticism. If you define pressure point as any area that has more of a reaction than normal when manipulated, then the chin is right on that list. So are the temples, eyes and throat.
It should be a mindset of whats the best ratio of easy to hit target vs. how much it will hurt. Basically, if someones back is turned, you wouldn’t punch somebody in the asscheek, when their kidneys are right there. On the other hand if they’re covering in a boxers high guard, you wouldnt go for the temple, you’d pop a body shot or stomp to the knees because its wide open.
Pressure points, not for me… dont see it as practical unless you have trained YEARS…
This is odd coming from karate, which is usually one hit “kill” mentality of funakoshisan generally by reverse punch etc. The good karatekas ive seen in my day did not and would not use pr3essure points. Size really didnt matter, i knew a dude like 140 who was fast as fuck and would put most people on their ass.
after some personal experience and someone trying to kill me, it really isnt worth it unless someone wants to kill you. Thus, I will fucking stab someone…
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Personally I have trained a fair amount of pressure points (we call them “nerve attacks”) and they do work, on a live fully resisting opponent (if you actually train them that way) no less. But the way that this sensei seems to be talking about using them doesn’t sound like he has actually trained them that way.
I would never, ever just grab someone by the arm and try to squeeze down on a pressure point (and I’ve got a pretty strong “crushing grip” no less) and think that it’s going to render them helpless and end the fight. I might target pressure points on their forearm(s) with strikes though, to momentarily “deaden” that arm, or open up their guard so I could hit them in the face.
It sounds like yet another one dimensional mindset regarding this “arsenal” of techniques.
There are a lot of “smoke and mirrors” pressure point guys out there who make some fantastic claims and thus give pressure point/nerve attacks a bad name. When in reality they can be very effective and useful tools. I hope that maybe the OP’s Sensei wasn’t one of them and he’s just translating his experience poorly, but I fear that’s not the case.[/quote]
Pressure point (and joint locks) don’t work very well if the attacker is drunk (and I suppose if you’re sober its relatively easy to defend yourself. Trouble is I’m not always sober!)