The effectiveness of pressure points in the martial arts is a hotly contested topic. Many books and films show very unrealistic scenarios where the master touches a few points on his opponent who is then paralysed or dies soon thereafter. At the other end of the scale are the martial arts who say this is pure bunkum and that pressure points don’t work at all.
As is usually the case the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Over the last 40 years I have trained with several hundred people and in my experience I would say that pressure points work well on around 50% of them. They work fairly well on around another 30% and not at all on the other 20%.
I suspect that most of those who vehemently deny their use have either not experienced one being applied by an expert or are part of the 20% who don’t feel them. Many people on the internet merely parrot the opinions of others.
Pressure points can work very well but not so well that you should rely on them
Pressure points are a useful addition to other techniques. For example you could grab someone in a wrist or elbow lock then apply pressure to a point and see how they react. If they don’t react you still have them locked up.
The use of pressure points can be challenging at first as you need to know the location of the pressure point and sometimes the angle in which to apply pressure. Sometimes the joint has to be held in a certain way to expose the point. More than a hundred points have been identified all over the body and some of these are extremely useful in self defence or combat.
A good example that’s easy to find is a point that lies just on the inside of the shin bone half way between knee and ankle. Stick a thumb in there between the muscle and the bone and you will probably feel a jolt of pain straightaway. This would be a very useful point for grapplers of all kinds to be familiar with as it will prevent a range of ground fighting holds being applied.
Don’t dismiss pressure points. They should be a part of every martial artists arsenal. I will be showing many of them in future videos and posts.