Viewpoint:
Too Much Ado About Pressure Points

By Stan Hart

Pressure points have been oversold. I don’t mean to suggest that they don’t work or that I don’t teach them. But go to almost any pressure point seminar. How are the points taught? The instructor selects a student and then asks him to do a specific technique, to grab him by the wrist or volunteer an arm. The point is then demonstrated and the victim falls to the ground momentarily stunned or in temporary pain. Very impressive.

But these scenarios are not real life. The situations were set up. Students or their limbs were positioned. This is not at all what happens in a real fight.

Too many are selling the idea of a martial arts shortcut — the idea that by learning pressure points or a theory of pressure point activation (chi or neurological theory, etc.), a student can defeat an opponent by using them. This is incorrect, even dangerous.

It’s true that pressure points if hit (or otherwise manipulated) alone or in combinations can often cause pain, numbs limbs, stun or even cause unconsciousness. But these vulnerable points are small and are often protected by other areas of the body – something difficult to target much less hit when arms and bodies are shifting and moving in a conflict. In addition, emotions and pumping adrenaline can also override the effects of hitting or manipulating these points.

Thus in real conflict situations, just knowing pressure points and how to apply them rarely gives anyone a unique advantage. And don’t depend on them if your opponent outweighs you by a significant amount. This doesn’t mean you can’t stun or distract someone to help set up a technique, but it is the technique itself that is most critical.

In my view the essence of martial arts is not about pressure points, but instead the ability to attain control, then maneuver yourself and/or your opponent into position to do an effective technique – which then may include pressure points. Thus, the real art is the art of controlling your opponent, his or her body and position — to set it up for a throw, a joint technique, a strike, or some combination depending on the techniques in your art.

This ability is what marks the true expert, or the truly experienced. These people may also include their knowledge of pressure points and how to apply them within the arsenal of their techniques. But the pressure points are secondary, used to enhance the effectiveness of other techniques, and/or as finishing techniques. The art, however, must get you to that position first.

Stan Hart
Stan Hart is a karate and self-defense teacher, lecturer and author with over 40 years of experience. He is also the founder of Hakuda. Over the last 25 years he has traveled extensively within the US and Canada giving seminars on his unique methods of self-defense, including the ancient arts of seizing, body control combined with striking vulnerable parts of the body. He is also a specialist in kata applications. Hart began his teaching in association with the Bucyrus, Ohio YMCA in 1972 a program that is still ongoing. He also instructs Karate Classes at the Marion, Ohio YMCA and is the owner/operator of the Richland Karate Center, Mansfield, Ohio. He is president of the International Hakuda Association that began as the Shurite Kempo Technique Association in 1985. His training has included several styles of karate, jujutsu, kempo and boxing under a number of instructors including: Andrew Akens, San Francisco, Ca; Jerry Banks deceased; Victor Louis, Youngstown, Ohio; and Seiyu Oyata, Kansas City, Mo. For more than 30 years Hart has researched karate, karate kata, special technique, pressure points and various obscure arts. His website is www.Hakuda.com. See Hart’s article “Defense Against The Shove” in the Reading Room category “Self-defense.”