PP newby here.

Tek9,
I'm well acquainted with pressure points, and their applications. What many instructors fail to teach, simply because they don't know, is that whatever damage you start with striking a pressure point doesn't necessarily heal itself just because you resucitate the victim.

When I'm teaching them, I relate them to being like an "unopened e-mail" in the organs. Eventually, they cause the damage they were designed to do, and unless someone uses curatives (acupuncture, potions, healing herbs) it just continues to cause and allow the organ to degenerate.

One of the pressure points that is used most of the time for demonstration knockouts is directly over the vagus nerve, which connects to every organ in the body. A strike there, can cause non-repairable injuries to any number of the organs in the body. If you question that, ask a surgeon about hitting the vagus nerve and its results during surgery.

While Kyusho Jitsu is the current "title" of pressure point studies, it is actually "methods of hitting the body". There are studies that hit the raised points,some hit the cavities, and others hit specific tsubos that cause reactions that are used in many martial arts as "set up points", so everyone in martial arts uses PP techniques of some sort all the time.

There are "nerve" techniques, "blood" techniques that attack the veins and artery structure, and specific attacks to "balance points" used to disrupt someone's balance.

To think that you are going to be so sophisticated as a newbie as to be able to strike points the size of a quarter "on demand" is pretty ambitious. The right way to study pressure points is to develop your martial arts skills and add that knowledge as you progress, so you know what's available when an opening occurs. It adds a lot to your karate and jujitsu training, and it's something that you will want to learn as your skills develop.

One of my grips in jujitsu has been developed so that I grab a series of nerve points when I do the same technique as the aikido class... the difference (from talking to the students) is that they are in pain as soon as I touch them and all the way through the technique.

I don't discourage PP study, just understand that the "pop version" of it is dangerous, and these cumquats that are going around punching tsubos on "sitting ducks" can be killing them without knowing it by failing to provide their victims with proper aftercare. I don't think anybody that has truly studied dim mak claims all the "legendary" stuff about it, but it is a real art and it does contain dangerous techniques that are "delayed time bombs" if they are done correctly. Like explosives, "it's not the dynamite that causes the problem... its the explosion that comes along with it."

Man oh man, last week we decided to pay the extra $10 bucks for an extra 60 channels to our 520 satellite channels. ONe of the new channels is the national geographic on 194. Anyways what luck I had this morning when I got up and saw this documentory titled "Superhuman" what luck, Mr. Dillman was on a bunch of his followers/associates deomonstrating pressure point and their concepts of chi/ki. According to this documentory chi/ki does not exist and soe xperiments where done to prove that it can not be scene using the tools of science.

What got me thinking was here wa a man (Dillman) who is respected by many whenit comes to kata deciphering and pressure point fighting and now here he is doing a seminar with what looks like Wally Jay's son, Lean Jay. And they are supposevely knokcing people out with CHI BLASTS. Invisible CHI BLASTS none the less. Did I miss something?
Dill man however, was doing it from behind a curtain which his students would hold up to seperate Dillman from his students whom which he was performing his no touch knock out technique.

Well a psychologist and a scientist got together and just thought this was completely rediculous and they decided to let these chi master test out thier technique on them.

Um did I mention all these guys where wearing gi's with huge Lean Jays.com and Dillman.com patches on their backs.

Anyway suffice to say that the no contact chi attack technique did not work on the willing scientist and when Mr. Dillman was asked to give a respose as to why it did not work. He said this "the guy was a complete non believer", "I don't like to say this a lot on t.v. but if the guys tounge was positioned in a certain way, the technique wont work, also if the guy had one big toe pinned to the ground and the other big toe pointed up it, my chi techniques wont work, because he will block the chi"

This is mind boggleing, I am so glad I did not buy his freakin book but instead down loaded that sucker for free from a torrent site.

Don't judge everybody by any one person. Not everybody is running a medicine show.

Pressure Points are for real, and they work. I saw Master Odo knock people silly using them, and he never looked like he weighed 100 pounds on his best day.

Like "small circle jujitsu", and Prof. Wally Jay, Dillman found something that was unusual in the martial arts and capitalized on it. As time has progressed, however, he has continued to expand on his claims and "mystic powers" demos until very few actually take him seriously any more.

His written material isn't too bad, but you still need a competent instructor to show you what angles to hit the points and to teach you the sequences that do the most damage if you're seriously interested. If not, read a book on Anime'.

Just as your skeptical professors found him "incredible", there are studies that have been done that show properties of ki as measured in electrical energy and thermal photographs that display its effects that are credible. As I said, don't judge everyone by any one person.

Everybody using them doesn't attribute their "power" to magic... they just seem to work that way...

Tek,

Regarding Mr.Dillman. His pp methods do work to an extent the way they are supposed to. He just recently got into this chi-crap and my only guess is that he's a victim of his own success or ego. Maybe he's just lost it?

I believe that episode of National Geographic has been well trashed already on another thread complete with clips for those who haven't seen it. Let it be. There are so many good sources of info posted in this thread, let that one bad example be. To resurect it polutes my tiny piece of the forum.

None the less, Mr. Dilman is still a big figure when it comes to pressure points. And although this NG documentory made his teachings/ideas look foolish. He's still one if not the biggest authority on the subject. I'm a newb and when I look for sources of info, the majority of books published on PP are by Mr. Dillman.

I don't want to upset underdog by bringing the subject up, but as someone who is interested in this subject and before I start spending money on it, by purchasing books or seeking professional instruction, I'd like to find out the validity of Mr. Dillmans response as to why his techniques failed to work.

He mentioned about the scientist not being a "beleiver" and perhaps having his tounge in a certain position. Also he made comment on big toe positions.

Has anyone ever heard of these kind of methods for warning or protecting yourself from chi/ki attacking techniques?

Now he may have been desperte to come up with an answer, but let's give him some credit, he is a reputable authority on this subject matter. Perhaps what he says is true?

I am actually pretty well tied in with Master Dillman. I owned all of his videos, DVDs and books except that I just donated them to my school library. I have seen Master Dillman many times and I have been to his Martial Arts Training Camp in Pa. U.S.A.

His student, Master Evan Pantazi is one of my teachers. My school is affiliated with Kyusho International, which is his organization.

I wasn't intending to sound negative towards Master Dillman, nor towards anyone. Master Dillman, in my opinion,is a genious and many of us wouldn't be studying pressure points if it weren't for his work, and his ability to bring it within reach of the rising martial arts student, and even to me, who will never rise very far.

I just believe that the forums should be a healthy place for exchange of ideas, both negative and positive so that together, we can learn. When the discourse procedes in a productive way, and ideas and opinions continue to be shared, that is a good thing.

When individuals are being trashed in a destructive way, long after their shortcomings have been appropriately exposed, then one has to ask what is the point. I felt pain for Master Dillman in that episode. While I can learn from what went wrong, I do so all the while knowing that I am not fit to dust his bookcases. When last I sat in a seminar where he was presenting and he looked at me and chose to discuss the topic I suggested, while I was not even wearing his D.I. patch anymore, I was honored.

I may have jumped in too soon or preemptively to your post. It must be my martial arts training. I am new at this moderator thing. My interest was to keep the thread productive and comfortable. The tenor right now seems fine and I have no issue. If I anticipated your direction wrongly, then I do publicly apologize. Still, please regard the thread on the NG episode. One would have to have quite an imagination to have an opinion not already posted there.

Ooooo Chi projection again. Most, if not all of you, know my personal opinion of what is going on in the NTKO demo's that come out of the mainstream MA organisations, so I won't rehash those here. There are many aspects to the human mind that we don't understand. Intention and visualisation techniques are used to enhance performance in both in western and eastern sports, medicine, martial arts, etc, where and what do you think the phrase "power of the mind" comes from? How many times have you been told when hitting the pads "hit through the target", some call this intention some will call it Chi projection, either way it works and people using intention based techniques has had a proven track record.

Now my personal opinion on what is happening is neither here nor there, Chi Projection though is one *possible* answer. If you follow this train of thought you'll start thinking, "Ok, if I projecting my Chi and my punch is getting harder....surely I must be channelling my bodys Chi out of my arm!". A fair and logical train of thought. Now the next reasonable thought could be "Perhaps, if I really try I can make my Chi extend out past my arm!"....then you start talking to the rest of your dojo buddies about this and its all a relational train of thought and all start convincing each other that something should happen....bada bing, the power of the mind now makes something happen....trouble is, and I believe this to be the case in a large amount of NTKO demo's that its the power of the receivers mind that makes it happen, not the person supposedly doing the NTKO. I beleive pretty much religously that these literally knock themselves out.

Now don't get me wrong, I've heard some stories (some from very respected guys) about strange stuff happening. I myself have experience some weird stuff through my shiatsu studies.....but the mainstream people who do these demo's don't train like the people who I'm talking about. At best they usually teach some half arsed qi gong exercise that is practiced for 10 minutes at the beginning of a lesson, students get a nice tingly feeling in their hands or body and start using this "energy". The guys I've heard about and experience do a hell of a lot more than 5 minutes of exercise a day, and its not just simple qi gong. And what stuff they can do is only as a result of decades of training.

I'm randomly ranting here.....I shall mod slap myself!!! BAD GAV, BAD BAD GAV!!!!

Gav

PS. Do I get todays award for most pointless post of the day thus far???

Gavin,
for the most part, I agree with you. I'm always seeing people who are supposed to be "throwing ki" at someone, but I've never seen them be able to affect me with their dynamic. That being said, I have "blocked without touching" before, and have no explanation for it.

If I thought I could repeat it at will, I'd be teaching seminars on it, and so would people who have much more knowledge about karate and jujitsu than any of us... which leads me to fall right in line with your thinking. It's one of those "if you can't prove it, it's not provable, so don't boast about it".

Luckily, I've seen people such as Master Odo and know several of his students in this country, and he was (if I remember correctly, Mr. Dillman's teacher). I never saw him do "no touch" anything, but I saw plenty of "dynamic" in his techniques and teaching. The guys I've trained with from his group, are all really good Okinawan karate players, but I haven't seen any of them doing this NT stuff either. They might kick through you or punch through you, but they depend on blunt force trauma, which is what karate is designed to deliver.

Pressure points are simply a "special targets" type of training, and the selection of the points to be struck are clearly creating a calculated objective when struck correctly... but I still have to see the guys who can do this stuff find somebody that has no martial arts knowledge or "resistance" that they can do it on. I guess I just never saw the reason for knocking out somebody that's just going to stand there and let you do it.

I tend to put them in the "terminally stupid" category...

100% agreed!