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I don't think we are that far apart in how we view things.

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Seek therapy... there are people out there that can help you...

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What I was getting at is that I often find a lack of consistant effect when using DM/Kyusho techniques.
Not talking about the percussive stuff--I'm talking about the more "light" touch/PP stuff here.

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That may have more to do with experience in the technique than effectiveness. Also, there are people out there that PP techniques simply don't work on the way they do on "ordinary people". One of my jujutsu students is so pliable that I can twist his wrist almost twice as far as any other student's before it actually affects his movement or balance. He's just flexible... and some people simply aren't "reactive" to PP techniques. That's why the angles, etc. have to be correct... if they're not... you're going to have that same problem all the time.

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Don't get me wrong---interesting area of study--just not sure of its ultility outside of the hands of an expert.

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Well... you have that right... it's definitely an art requiring expertise and precise technique. That's why it's taught through kata... developing the fighting skills to open up the opportunities for the DM strikes. Where kyusho principally occupies itself with process and location... DM is a very precise art using combinations of techniques to execute strikes to exact locations, depths, at specific angles, and to cause a specific "problem".

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One his masters warnings about DM was that there are very few points that will cause instant death or incapaction----most take some time to take effect. And a guy dying 3-5 days after being DM is really scary---but does you little good if he already beat you death during the fight itself.

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DM was never designed to be a "self defense"... it' was designed to be an art of assasination. More often than not, the person delivering the strike was killed or imprisoned... for it was a political tool, and used to eliminate "troublesome" people who caused problems. They were the original kamikazes... for they were often killed before the person they killed had died. Most uses of DM were suicide missions.

I can believe the story about your friends teacher being the only one that could make PP techniques work reliably... I've seen it many times over the years.

Let me make this simple... not everyone is good at math... not everyone is a mechanic... not everyone is a singer... but they can learn those skills if they apply themselves. How good they are at them later on depends on how much and how well they practice them. I'm good at jujutsu and Aikido because I understand force dynamics and redirection. I'm good at karate because I understand force delivery and body mechanics. I wasn't born that way... I had to train to learn all I know, and I had to look for the best instruction I could find... which I did.

I'll pray for you over having "my view" of things...

Wrist

"seek therapy"

That is kinda the problem---I can't remember if I'm thinking like you because I have taken my meds---or because I forgot to take them

I'll take all the prayers I can get----I'm already paying off my karma at vastly accelerated rate.

Stay off the meds mate....you'll smile more!

Ed, I won't give you my sources, because they were given to me and not to you. They are published works that were sometimes comical translations of Chinese texts, but the information was accurate, and contains not only the location of the DM points, but the information to make it work.

The summary is written in my private notes as:

Chang San Feng, was born in the Lung Hu Shan of Hiangsi Province in 1247, during the period of the Emperor of Li Chung of the Southern Dynasty. He was asked to be commanding general of the country to conquer a powerful tribe that was causing trouble, but he declined. Instead, he passed the exam to become an officer in the royal court and to continue his work on his particular style of hitting points.

A dedicated Daoist, he regularly practiced his particular style of Tai Chi and hitting points, and studied the hitting points style of someone who had come before him named Feng Tao Yi. The study of his book developed into what we know today as the 36 vital points, but he continued to work on the hitting points based on the medical information developed by Dr. Pin Chuh (300 BC) and Dr. Hua Tao (born 190 AD).

The hitting points information was passed on to only his own students, for he feared the information falling into the wrong hands and jeopardizing his or the Emperor’s life. Being an excellent military man, he realized the opportunity it presented to execute military operations using one skilled fighter rather than sending in hundreds of troops.

The process was to send in one emissary to negotiate with the other side and to send as his bodyguard, a fighter skilled in the hitting points. Once the main point was hit by the skilled fighter, the opponent would be badly injured resulting in death or being crippled. Once hit, there was no sign of apparent wound outside the body, but internally, he was seriously wounded or dying from having his internal organs damaged or smashing a major blood vessel, causing internal bleeding.

The art was so effective, that the legends of Dim Hsueh grew to the proportions that people feared that simply the waving of the hand of the practitioner could cause people to die. For that reason alone, there was a reluctance of teachers later on to pass the information on to anyone other than exceptional students, usually family members, who could be trusted not to misuse the skills.


I don't ask you to believe anything any more Ed... it always just becomes the next point of you arguing that it's not true... so go ahead and call this rubbish, but your google-fu skills don't work on my room full of books and private notes. You seem to think you're the only one that is capable of smelling out a faker or doing research, but having been around MA since 1962, I've seen them all... both the ones that actually had something, and the ones that were trying to be larger than life.

It's just a suggestion, but you might actually learn more by absorbing some information rather than trying to prove everybody that makes a statement is lying. That's really tiresome.

Thanks Grady, I know of some of the sources you are alluding to. many are found here, for those interested:
http://www.egreenway.com/taichichuan/chang1.htm

I'll just leave it at that. Thanks again.

*words*

There are about 7 different major schools of Tai Chi, and umpteen different "Wushus"... but the lineage of hitting points goes past the legends of Chang San Feng. Many of the references in your article link was the author quoting himself and listing it as a reference. I stopped counting at 6 different times...

Like everything else in martial arts, I'm sure that somebody is claiming credit for inventing Chen style, Yang Style, Wu/Hao style, Wu style, Sun style, and Cheng Man style... and all of them invented Tai Chi...

Did each one of them invent DM too? I'm curious, because my notes are pretty clear about the lineage of the information and basis of Chang San Feng's system of hitting points. The article from your link seems to be circular attempts to discredit him.

The question was about DM, not the origins of Tai Chi... and while there are legends aplenty out there, the consistency of the 36 hitting points is found all the way through almost every fighting system I've seen in my 45 years of study. There are more points than that, but the central basis of DM is found in those points... and those defined in the acupuncture needling techniques and angles.

The reasons the angles are so important is that they "connect" different combinations of tissue and nerves to cause the DM effect. That's why the medical basis of Dr Pin Chuh and Dr. Hua Tao's information was important. Chang San Feng correlated all that information... so while he didn't "invent" anything, he "understood" what he discovered and converted the knowledge into DM fighting skills.

that's the nature of ledgends that are declared immortal - they have done everything depending on whatever point of view the person is writing from.

If accupuncture is proof of DM theory, then what I'd really like to see is an unbiased study proving accupuncture. not 1000 year old lore proving legends. The ancient Chinese were obsessed with longevity and it's ironic they found it when embracing the methods of the west in the past 100 or so years.