What do you think?
Rate this book
Pressure-Point Fighting: A Guide to the Secret Heart of Asian Martial Arts
Supplement your martial arts skills with this expert guide to pressure point fighting.
Western students of Asian martial arts have long been haunted by the aching suspicion that something is missing from the arts they love and practice wholeheartedly—something intangible, but something so essential that its absence leaves an unbridgeable void. For many, that missing ingredient is a true and thorough knowledge of the body's vital what they are, where they are, how to quickly find them under duress, how to use them, constructively or for destruction—and how to recognize them in the kata, hyung, or forms they thought they knew so well.
In Pressure Point Fighting , martial arts expert Rick Clark offers a systematic introduction to this knowledge and to the tools needed to ferret out more of this information from forms and techniques already in place—knowledge and tools that are not dependent upon acceptance of the tenets of traditional Chinese medicine, or modern Western medicine, for that matter, but which are based solely on open-minded observation and willingness to try new, or old, approaches to martial arts training.
Western students of Asian martial arts have long been haunted by the aching suspicion that something is missing from the arts they love and practice wholeheartedly—something intangible, but something so essential that its absence leaves an unbridgeable void. For many, that missing ingredient is a true and thorough knowledge of the body's vital what they are, where they are, how to quickly find them under duress, how to use them, constructively or for destruction—and how to recognize them in the kata, hyung, or forms they thought they knew so well.
In Pressure Point Fighting , martial arts expert Rick Clark offers a systematic introduction to this knowledge and to the tools needed to ferret out more of this information from forms and techniques already in place—knowledge and tools that are not dependent upon acceptance of the tenets of traditional Chinese medicine, or modern Western medicine, for that matter, but which are based solely on open-minded observation and willingness to try new, or old, approaches to martial arts training.
- GenresMartial Arts
208 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2000
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 17, 2020
The major criticism I have of this book is that it wants to be a "simple step-by-step instructions" guide, but fails due to the quality of the illustrations. There is a lot of possibly superior information present, but trying to use distant, grainy black and white photos to determine the precise nature of the locks and holds is, at best, difficult.
March 6, 2021
A fascinating look into the practical applications of karate kata. Many of us who practice traditional Asian martial arts use kata (forms) as part of our training.
But through much of the 20th Century when arts such as karate and kung fu spread throughout the world, the meanings behind these fancy movements were never fully understood, as the meanings were thought to have been lost. Author Rick Clark provides insight into practical applications of the techniques within these forms, getting the traditional practitioner to think "out of the box" regarding these movements that don't seem practical in and of themselves.
This is not a "cookbook" to spell out what the meaning (bunkai) behind your kata should be, rather it is a launchpad for you to start thinking about how you might apply practicality to your own kata. Though it mentions pressure points and how those might be effective, Clark doesn't attempt to try and sell the reader on any "magic powers" that hitting these points are "guaranteed" to have.
The author does map out pressure points according to traditional Chinese medicine, but that is mainly for reference. The intention of the book is to give you insight into your own art and how you might explore it deeper.
But through much of the 20th Century when arts such as karate and kung fu spread throughout the world, the meanings behind these fancy movements were never fully understood, as the meanings were thought to have been lost. Author Rick Clark provides insight into practical applications of the techniques within these forms, getting the traditional practitioner to think "out of the box" regarding these movements that don't seem practical in and of themselves.
This is not a "cookbook" to spell out what the meaning (bunkai) behind your kata should be, rather it is a launchpad for you to start thinking about how you might apply practicality to your own kata. Though it mentions pressure points and how those might be effective, Clark doesn't attempt to try and sell the reader on any "magic powers" that hitting these points are "guaranteed" to have.
The author does map out pressure points according to traditional Chinese medicine, but that is mainly for reference. The intention of the book is to give you insight into your own art and how you might explore it deeper.
July 3, 2015
Extremely Good - the Author really knows his stuff.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews