Pressure Points Techniques: In Dim Mak Self Defense, More is Not Always Better

Dim Mak pressure points is not an art that has a huge physical technique set that has to be mastered. It’s has, as with all sports and martial arts, a core set of components, but while these components are like the trunk of the tree, the branches and leaves of this self defence (or self defense) tree are actually made up of information and knowledge of the non-physical side of Dim Mak; the pressure points, the meridian system, the way the human body responds to being struck in certain places.

In most martial arts, it’s the strength, speed and power of the physical action itself that determines the severity of the effect on an attacker. In Dim Mak the physical techniques, while important, are used to get you access to the pressure points – it’s not so much the kick that matters, but where you land it that counts. The physical components are there to get you access to the point from the right angles, but the actual result is determined by what you know about the point you’re hitting, by choosing the places to strike, and picking techniques that will get you to these points.

If you’re a student of a martial art, you may well have picked up that there is a progression to the physical techniques you use, that for each skill you master there are a number of variations that you can add-on.

Have you noticed that, as you progress, these techniques are also physically harder to do? For example, in Kung Fu you begin training with the three basic kicks, front kick, side kick and roundhouse kick, in fact most martial arts, regardless of where they originate from, have variations of these three as their basic core. Now, as you move through your curriculum you’ll begin to do faint-roundhouses, spinning side-kicks and crescent kicks. Let’s move a little more forward, tiger-tail kicks, sweep kicks (front and back), and the list goes on.

Now, if you’re at your physical peak (early twenties or thirties, fit, no injuries to speak of, and so on) you’ll progress through your martial arts, physically capable of doing these more demanding moves - but what happens when you are not in your physical prime anymore, what happens when your body just isn’t capable of getting nearly horizontal at floor level to perform a great sweep kick, or if you can no longer get your hips to rotate far enough to get your leg up for a crescent kick…let alone an axe kick? What happens when you don’t have the physical strength to deliver the necessary power behind the blow?

Dim Mak not only acknowledges this, Dim Mak was built around this happening. With many martial arts, stronger emphasis is put on being physically capable of performing a wide range of demanding physical moves with speed and power, of having a big repertoire of skills, if you like. Dim Mak, on the other hand, puts it’s emphasis on focusing on a small set of very powerful moves that don’t require you to dislocate a hip joint to perform, or where, while you may get down to the floor to perform a great sweep, you may not get up again!

More techniques do not necessarily make you better at self defence. In fact, Dim Mak’s premise is fewer techniques, performed correctly and coupled with the pressure point knowledge, will end most conflicts before your attacker has a chance to really get started.

The core physical movements in Dim Mak are crucial, but there are not a lot of them, they do not require great physical dexterity, such as legs over the head, or being able to jump three feet in the air and then being able to get to floor level (or up again).

It’s not only that Dim Mak concentrates on a small number of techniques, it’s that these techniques are quite different from most martial arts or self defence skills. The ghost hand stepping technique in Dim Mak is very different from any other technique used to cover ground, and this makes great sense, if you remember that it’s not the physical technique that will save your life…it’s the physical technique that gets you into a position (quickly, with minimal effort) to access the points, which is where you deliver the strike to the pressure points…this is what will save your life.

Now, this doesn’t mean that these techniques aren’t powerful in and of themselves, they are. In fact, some Dim Mak techniques are incredibly powerful, but they are powerful in combination with the way you use them and your point knowledge.

Part of Dim Mak’s potency and uniqueness is in the fact that it’s power comes not from the strike itself, but the knowledge behind that strike, from having an understanding of how the human body reacts to an attack on a certain point.

In the next article, I talk more about How Dim Mak gives you the upper hand in self defense.

Keep up with your dim mak training and study.

Back to Dim Mak Self Defence