Roseanne,
I think I was more trying to say that good karate instruction will include a lot of the information that is being taught separately as "pressure points". I certainly have no issues with your training or how you practice, and I'm the first one that understands that it takes time to learn things. Sometimes, you don't understand all you know.
The teaching of martial arts has two separate parts... the external, or rote mechanical movements, and the internal, or the instinctive use of that information. Part of that internalization is pressure point information, and developing the capacity to select the target on the way there.
You can't be like these guys...
while you're doing your technique, but need to make it crisp, clean, and accurate... and it DOES take practice and information.
Aikido players always say "you don't block in Aikido"... you blend... and if they don't block with me, they'll get hit. Defensively, I hit whatver is extended to me, and have studied pressure point striking enough to make my blocks painful and debilitating. Lots of times, I blend, and then strike as I'm doing the technique, so nobody ever escapes completely unmolested... but I understand fighting arts with the mind of a fighter. I'm engaged with someone who is trying to hurt me, so I'm going to hurt them... (under control and within limits in training), but you have to have the "fighter's mind" in order to fight. "Hit what you can when you can" isn't a bad philosophy for fighting, even in Aikido.
I was also trained as a mechanical engineer in college, so my understanding of body mechanics and force vectors is pretty good. I did a lot of personal research into anatomy, and combined with my college studies, I have a good understanding of what happens to the body when it encounters force. Action + reaction, movement + anchoring... all those things make sense to me and I make use of them in my martial arts.
A lot of people deliver strikes to pressure points with no concept of what goes on internally to the joint or part of the body struck. They simply know to hit TW-16 and somehow believe that since their teacher told them to hit somebody there that they've done well. A pressure point strike needs more than that... it needs to be hit with the right "weapon", (fist configuration), hit at the right angle, have the force directed in the right direction once engaged. Simply "busting the point" isn't really kyusho jitsu.
I watched an episode of "Deadly Arts" on FIT TV the other night, and the French lady who is on the series was studying to perform her kata for one of the Goju masters. During that episode, she encountered another teacher that was pounding his hands and body against a tree. He was clearly delivering significant force to whatever he was hitting using his body. He wasn't "point striking", but managing his "force delivery"... which is very important in kyusho jitsu.
It's easy to get wrapped up in the "points" of kyusho, and completely neglect the "force delivery" side of the art. Good solid punches, kicks, and the judicious applications of knees, shoulders, elbows, etc. only multiply the effect.
Most "point" attacks (in old karate systems) were used to elicit a specific movement or reaction from someone, and were never intended to be the "end all" of the art itself. I won't even go into the chi applications of the arts, but lets just say that todays "end product" of karate training is much different from 30 or 40 years ago.
Personally, I admire your work in continuing training both in karate and pressure points, and hope that you reach the level where they are all "one". When that happens, the transformation is staggering to your attackers, and calming to you and your teachers.
Follow these rules...
1. When I can, I go to the dojo.
2. When I can't, I train where I am, and go to the dojo when I can.
3. Repeat rule one and two on a daily basis.