Knock out touch, or out of touch? Pressure point fighting - does it work?

As we are back in lockdown, I have plenty of time on my hands, so I have opened up the Q&A forum with my students and boy have they come up with a question for me, that's bound to see me burn in hellfire from certain sections of the martial arts community!

The question came about after one of my students had watched an episode of Cobra Kai 3, which sees Danny Larusso fighting with his old nemesis Chozen in Okinawa. In the fight sequence, Chozen strikes Larusso several times, which renders him temporarily paralysed and unable to attack.

This led to the question about pressure point strikes - do they actually work?

If there's ever been a topic to divide the martial arts world this sure is one of them...this article is based on my experiences as a Self Protection and Combatives instructor and over twenty five years' frontline experience working in the security sector as a frontline Door Supervisor. 

The answer to the question is simply no, pressure point fighting does not work, not in the sense that people exchange specific pressure point strikes in a fight. There are of course, pressure points all over the body, but to say striking a single specific point on the body will cause a knockout is just not true.

I've witnessed hundreds and hundreds of fights in pubs and clubs and not a single one has been finished with a specific strike to Small Intestine 1 pressure point for example.  Many people don't understand what happens to the body in a real fight, physiologically and psychologically; this article will attempt to educate the reader about these processes.

I feel that many of the martial arts are steeped with the mystique of the one inch knock out or death punch, which was very prevalent in the Seventies and with the Bruce Lee movies at the time. The general public have a misconception that an instructor in a martial art style that promotes pressure point fighting systems as possessing super powers and are sucked into the belief that they too can possess the skills to end a live situation by striking certain parts of the body. This is a very dangerous state of mind to be in when out walking the streets, if all you have done is train pressure point striking on what are essentially willing and compliant partners, generally offering little resistance and are in a static position.

This leaves an uphill struggle for the reality based instructors out there, teaching their students the hard and soft skills that are needed to give you an advantage when a situation becomes live.  

 

You only have to go on You Tube and see these knock out demonstrations by the likes of George Dillman and Systema instructors; they are generally with the instructor's own students who are standing there passively awaiting a strike to their body. Of course, a knock out is going to occur in this situation, there is no resistance being offered, the strike has not been performed by the striker under pressure. 

On most occasions, when outsiders offer themselves to be struck, nothing of any consequence happens. There is no knock out and the instructor says that their Chi wasn't flowing correctly or that their tongue was in their mouth incorrectly, thus stifling the knock out energy of the strike.

There are also videos of Aikido instructors challenging MMA fighters, which never end well for the Aikido instructors; the MMA guy isn't attacking specific pressure points per se, but he IS applying pressure through the energy of his glove onto the head of his opponent and gets the job done.

Working the doors in my home town in the North of England, the winters can be very cold and unforgiving (as well the Summer); working at this time, many people will be wearing multiple layers of clothing, together with a thick jacket for example. It is nigh on impossible to knock this person out with a pin point strike to the spleen; there are other obvious targets available to strike, primarily the head and neck.

What happens to the body in a live situation will impact immensely on your response to the threat; we all hear about the adrenaline dump, but how many people have really felt this happen to them? 

A person up in your face screaming obscenities at you; someone waving a broken bottle in your face; a knife pulled on you; an individual with a crowbar in their hand as you get out of your car at home; face to face with a shotgun; attacked with a locking knife in a front room; attacked on the Underground; being grabbed from the front; grabbed from behind; ambushed; a large group ten, twenty strong; knocking someone down with your biggest shot, only for them to stand up again; people high on stimulants AND adrenaline, oblivious to pain?

Sadly, I've experienced all the above scenarios and I am not ashamed to say that on every occasion I was inwardly scared; the knees start to knock, you shake involuntarily, your mouth goes desert dry, the  heart pounds, the vision narrows, you feel sick, you want to urinate. 

You're dealing with all of the above, all these conflicting reactions, so do you really think you're going to hit a pressure point or Chi point the size of a five pence piece on a very specific point on the body with a one knuckle strike?

I think we all know the answer.

In my Self Protection classes, I teach easy to use strikes that can be put into your arsenal after just a few classes and comprise of palm strikes; elbows, hammer fists and knees. Keep the options available as low as possible.

Hick's Law states the more choices you present your users with, the longer it will take them to reach a decision; the reaction time is the time interval between the presentation of the stimulus and the beginning of the response to it.  Pressure testing helps to reduce the time interval as much a s possible; when some one grabs you by the throat and desmans your phone or wallet, you don't have the luxury of choosing from your fifty or more techniques to escape this position, you need something to use instantly!

What is sadly lacking in a lot of martial arts training is the use of aliveness and stress testing of techniques; placing your body under pressure so you can feel an adrenaline dump will make you aware of how hard it is to effectively execute fancy multi-layered techniques. Your body reverts to gross motor movements, you become almost robotic like, you have tunnel vision and it feels like you are not in control of your own body.

The only way to recognise the signs of an adrenaline dump, to become comfortable in this state, to apply your techniques in this altered body state is by repeated pressure testing across as many different scenarios as possible.  It's all good training your techniques in a well lit dojo, so hit the lights and see how you react; do some outdoor training at night, running through common assault scenarios for example.  Do your pressure testing at the end of class, when you are physically and mentally exhausted.

Use your imagination!

Is your technique effective enough to work under extreme pressure against a live and resisting opponent? It's very hard to simulate people high on drugs for example, so if you want that level of feedback to your training, then I suggest you get you SIA licence or join the Police.

So to recap, does pressure point fighting work?

No it does not in the sense of striking a specific energy point for example but yes it does by applying certain strikes to a wide surface area, mainly the head and neck targets; working on the doors, you don't have the time to soften them up with a body shot, the aggressor will be high on adrenaline/alcohol/drugs and you have to get your body up there in a flash to begin to nullify the attack. This also applies to the individual out on the street, coming home from work for example, or out in pubs, clubs, takeaway shops, taxi ranks, etc.

If any readers disagree with me, then feel free to go out and experience all the live situations I've listed above and see how well you do with a precision pressure point strike.

Thanks for reading and stay safe.

Website links:-

www.pspcombatives.com

www.wimbledonbjj.com