Pressure Point Fighting

I was reading a book on the Bubishi (also known as the “Bible of Karate). The Bubishi is a written collection of various notes on defensive hand to hand strategies, pressure point fighting, traditional Chinese medicines and philosophical assays based on White Crane and Monk Fist boxing.

Pressure point striking caught my eye. The diagrams in this book can be very detailed with all the points listed on the body as to what meridians they correspond to and what damage would be inflicted if it were struck at that point (and at what time). What I find interesting about pressure point fighting is it has one major assumption. It assumes that the attack can reach its intended target.

This, in my opinion, is a huge assumption. If you aren’t able to throw a “normal” punch and connect successfully, how can one even think about hitting such and such point with such and such hand position? It seems that the majority of fighting systems teach how the punch gets from A to B, only that it does get from A to B, hopefully. What I’ve found WT to be great at is to teach how to get from A to B, and if not A to B, then A to Y to B and so on. When I say “how” I don’t mean the pure mechanics of how to throw a punch..but how to ensure that your punch gets to where it wants to go.

If it’s true that most systems only go so far as to how to throw a punch, how then, can it teach applications on pressure point fighting since there’s nothing to assure that your hands will get to the intended target?

So yea, as cool as pressure point fighting may be. Unless you got a teacher who can also punch you at will, you will not know how to apply it.

Until then.

How do you know?

How do you know you're absorbing the material taught in class? What things do we do to reassure ourselves that we can apply what we've learned?

Some schools put the students into tournaments, others free spar, while others just know....and some deep down know or believe that they do not know at all. The obvious way, is simply to test it out on the street or street-like scenario. I think the same advice was given by Grand Master Yip Man. How practical is that nowadays?

In a system that believes that free/tournament/full contact sparring is not good training for street self defense, then what is? what tests can we do to reassure ourselves of this? Would you want your son/daughter to pass through grade school without any exams? maybe you do! What kind of tests can we perform to assure that we can truly apply what we've been exposed to in class?

Thoughts, comments?

Until then.