Pressure Points and Knockouts.

Hey everyone, today we'll be discussing pressure point and knockouts.



Now people say you can use pressure points to do some pretty amazing things like cause peoples hearts to stop, organs to die, by tapping certain areas a person can fall unconscious and also that if you touch certain areas you can heal people.

A lot of this is based around the ancient practice of acupuncture which is honestly an outdated, pre-scientific form of medicine. There has been some minor correlation that acupuncture can aid in back pain, but as far as healing? I believe that more has to do with the placebo effect and having conditions that will heal on their own anyway. But hey, burden of proof and all that maybe I'm wrong?

With that said though, in regards to knockouts there are places a person can hit that will seriously destroy a persons ability to continue fighting. These may be the true pressure points.

We as humans are pretty tolerant to low and moderate forms of blunt trauma. Our bones are living and flex, our skin and muscles are stretchy, indeed we're mostly water. A stick swung on the skin at most will usually leave a bruise...but..certain places are prime targets for attack.

You can knock someone out in three different ways;

1. Concussion (Making the brain bang against the inside of the skull). You see this a lot in boxing and football. The person is hit so hard and fast that their brain is slammed up into the skull causing a lost of consciousness and possible damage.

2. Pain Knockouts (These are hits on places that cause horrible, crippling pain that lead to unconsciousness or a state of helplessness. The Liver, The Groin, The Kidneys, The Solar Plexus, The Eyes). The liver is a huge network of nerves and chemicals. Hitting it floods your body and hurts horribly. The Groin, well that's easy to understand. The Kidneys are similar to the liver and the Solar Plexus can cause great pain and knock all of the air from a persons body (remember to yell or exhale sharply when struck to avoid this).

3. Spiking the blood pressure (Choking someone unconcious, striking the throat, etc anything that stops the ability for blood to reach the brain quickly and efficiently.) A person struck hard enough in the throat/artery's can experience a spike in blood pressure and lose consciousness. Not as common as 1 or 2.

The Best Targets:

Head:

Side of the Jaw: Run your finger along it, you'll feel a groove right by the back edges. This is home to a Vein/Artery cluster. Hitting here will spike the blood pressure. You can also push your thumb in there to relieve the pain of a headache.

Chin: Ask your dad where to hit someone and he'll likely say "Right on the tip of the chin!" This is a weak point in the facial bones. Hitting here can split/break the jaw and also rocks the head back hard causing a concussion.

Eyes: Enough said.

Temples: A favorite for knockout artists. Feel the side of your head above and a little forward from your ears. You'll feel two little bumps. These are a nice cluster of veins/artery's and nerves. Striking them causes blood spikes, concussions and pain.

Ears: You can cup your hands (like swimming) and clap hard over someones ears. Doing this forces the air into their ear canals and causes massive levels of unbalance, pain and possibly ruptured eardrums. According to my Sensei a 4 year old nearly toppled his dad when asked to demonstrate it.

Side of the Neck: You'll see police hit this target often. Your neck is home to your big artery's, nerves and your spine. Crack a forearm, knife edge hand or fist into this spot and you can cause an instant knockout from a combination of spiked blood and pain. A great place in self defense if you can hit it.

Torso:

Solar Plexus: Find the hard bone of your sternum and go a little down below it. You'll feel a nice soft, squishy area about as big as your fist. Behind the skin is a muscle that helps you breathe. Hitting it causes the air to be knocked out of you and is painful. Search youtube for videos, I saw a petite lady bring a grown man to his back with a proper punch to that spot.

Liver: The liver is on the right side of your body inside and just below your ribs. It wraps slightly around your side. This can be struck with a front, roundhouse, a straight punch or a hook punch. Hitting here causes horrible pain. Go ahead and have a friend slug you there if you don't believe me.

Kidneys: Located on your lower back nestled slightly on the side. They are sensitive bags of nerves. Hitting them is horrible.

Groin: Enough said

Other Spots:

I don't recommend them because they are hard to get too usually but your inner thighs (Right up by the champ) and your armpits have big arterys nestled inside of them. Strong blows to these spots can spike your blood pressure and cause horrible pain.

There are other ways to knock people out I'm sure, but these are the ones I'm aware of.

Thanks for reading, and remember..use this information appropriately. Don't go whacking on your brother or whipping out the ear claps for a school yard fight. Save these for self defense only.

Getting fighting fit

Before you can learn the movements associated with unarmed combat and bladed combat its best that one gets into physical shape. Always ask a doctor before starting a work out regime etc.

It seems with martial arts in general that endurance and speed are more important then raw strength. For the purpose of this article we'll classify raw strength as the maximum weight you can lift.

Strength athletes train with very heavy weights for very low repetitions. Ex: They'll do between 3-5 repetitions with weight nearing their maximum single rep. This gives them explosion, raw strength.

Sounds kind of seductive, but many strength athletes neglect to train their hearts and bodies for long periods of physical exertion. Their bodies are geared for short periods of extreme energy where as a cyclist, distant runner etc has a body geared for long periods of light to moderate energy usage. Being able to lift 500 pounds from the ground is impressive but is unnecessary in a fight. Being able to strike hard repeatedly and to have the physical ability to hit just as hard at the beginning as at the end is very important for a fighter. To quote Randy Couture "Yeah its not unheard of for a fight to end in a single punch, but the more likely result is that it will take multiple punches. You should train for the more likely result." (not a perfect quote but im going from memory)

With all that said a martial artist's goal is to be somewhere in between the strength trainer and the cardio/long distance athlete.

Here is a proposed workout plan:

(Required equipment, 45 pound Olympic weight bar, a place to do push ups/sit ups and a place to run. Use google to find what each exercise looks like).

Tu/Thur: do 3 sets of 10 of the following exercises

10 bent over rows, 10 overhead presses, 10 squats, 10 standing rows and 10 stiff legged deadlifts. I'd also recommend getting some good grippers to work your hand/forearm muscles.

After completing the weight section, take a short one or two minute break then try and do as many push ups as you can. If you can't do a single push up then try them from your knees and work your way up to a normal push up. Perform as many push ups as possible (your max rep) then rest a few minutes and repeat..trying your best to reach the same amount. Repeat one more time and try to reach your max rep again.

Also take a look at the 100push up challenge ( http://hundredpushups.com/index.html ) you can use this instead of my method. Works great.

For the finale (feeling tired yet?) perform your max sit ups, repeat, repeat. Done.

After a workout like this I really recommend you go and take a multivitamin, drink a protein shake and drink 2 or 3 glasses of water (you can drink this slowly over time). Have a nice protein rich /lunch/dinner like chicken breast, steak, a hamburger, boca burger etc. Try and maximize your protein intake. Try and eat 75% of your body weight in protein (If you weight 100 pounds, eat 75 grams of protein for example).

As you get more advanced with this try adding weight. 5 extra pounds a week is a great goal, but if you can't do it then don't stress. You should eventually get up to 100 pounds of weight. Feel free to go higher if your body can handle it.

M/W/F: Your Cardio days

You don't need to be a marathon runner or Lance Armstrong to be an excellent martial artist. Fights last anywhere from seconds to 30 minutes or more. Being able to perform intense action for 15 minutes seems to be the golden mean.

-Run 1 mile (Goal is 8 minutes). If you can't run this far (I sure couldn't when I started) then check out http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml 3 miles is a great goal for the future.
-Walk a quarter mile, run a quarter mile, walk a quarter mile then Run a quarter mile as fast as possible (goal is 1 minute).

After this its a good idea to work on some pull ups. They're a great exercise and really work out the back muscles. You'll see a noticeable increase in punching power from doing them. If you can't do a single pull up then do negatives. This involves grabbing the bar and jumping up into the "finished" position. Hang there a second and slowly lower yourself back down to earth. two sets of five for two weeks should see you doing your first real pull up. From there work doing 3 sets of your max pull ups like we do with push ups/sit ups above.


Remember, do as much as you can. if you're out of shape it'll take time to build up to this. Don't get hurt and end up putting yourself way behind while you heal a bad injury.

Sat/Sun: Eat lots of protein, drink lots of water (your muscles are mostly water), Take a multivitamin and relax. Maybe do some light stretching; but your goal is to just relax, heal and enjoy the day.

Doing these exercises gives you a full body exercise. Every muscle is worked a little bit. You'll gain muscle mass slowly over your entire frame. The compound weight lifting exercises you do makes sure that joints and supporting muscles are strengthened. Just say no to the exercise machines that only work a single muscle. Compound is where its at because that's what you use in nature. A lunge is not just a tricep extension its a combination of wrist, forearm, tricep, shoulder, back, hip and leg etc.

Thanks for reading, please add any ideas, opinions, critiques or post your own exercise plan here.

Introduction

Hey there nice to meet you. Thanks for stopping by this blog.

If you have any interest in martial arts involving unarmed techniques, bladed weapons and the like then you'll hopefully find this place interesting.

My name is Ryan, I'm a college student and hopefully a Police Officer soon. Since I was very young I've had an interested with bladed weapons and martial arts in general. I was always fascinated by kung-fu movies, boxing, and fighting. The stories of the ancient Knights, Samurai and battles from long ago are inspiring and shaped my interests to this day.

Martial Arts wise, I've taken a year of Ninkyohen-Do with Sensei Kerwin Rodriguez in Florida, Am a current student of Shito-Ryu Karate with Sensei Green and have spent the last 5 years in and out of the SCA. The SCA shaped my interested in bladed weapons both with its high-impact baton fighting and its more historical rapier, knife and cut and thrust fighting with blunted steel with my teacher Ursus Falkegrimm. Continually pouring through western and eastern manuals along with hundreds of sparring matches have given me some good experience and I'd love to learn more. Perhaps together we can enrich eachother with further knowledge upon these subjects.

Well, now that introductions are out of the way lets progress into the meat and potatos of this blog.

Thanks again for stopping by.