Pressure-Point Fighting: A Guide to the Secret Heart of Asian Martial Arts - Softcover

Clark, Rick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080483217X ISBN 13: 9780804832175

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

Supplement your martial arts skills with this expert guide to pressure point fighting.

Western students of Asian martial arts have long been haunted by the aching suspicion that something is missing from the arts they love and practice wholeheartedly—something intangible, but something so essential that its absence leaves an unbridgeable void. For many, that missing ingredient is a true and thorough knowledge of the body's vital points: what they are, where they are, how to quickly find them under duress, how to use them, constructively or for destruction—and how to recognize them in the kata, hyung, or forms they thought they knew so well.

In Pressure Point Fighting, martial arts expert Rick Clark offers a systematic introduction to this knowledge and to the tools needed to ferret out more of this information from forms and techniques already in place—knowledge and tools that are not dependent upon acceptance of the tenets of traditional Chinese medicine, or modern Western medicine, for that matter, but which are based solely on open-minded observation and willingness to try new, or old, approaches to martial arts training.

About this title

About the Author

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Rick Clark began teaching martial arts in 1962, at the age of fourteen and has been an enthusiastic student ever since. With ample experience in arts including judo, jiujitsu, karate, and Korean systems, a thorough understanding of physiology, and a knack for digging out gems from obscure sources, he has helped to bring about a quiet revolution in the training regimen of martial artists around the world. When he's not traveling throughout North America and Europe to conduct vital-point and applications seminars, he continues to research diligently at home in Indiana.

From the Inside Flap

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Core Principles

Do not think always in one straight line
- Hozoin School (1600 a.d.)

In this chapter I would like to look at what I consider to be some of the core principles of the martial arts I teach. These core principles can offer you some alternate constructs when analyzing various aspects of the martial arts. In addition, some of these concepts may prove useful in other situations in your life. For example, "out-of-the-box thinking," "fault-tolerant systems," "Ockham's Razor," and "Pareto's 80-20 Law" are concepts found in the business world and philosophy, yet they offer us some insights into the martial arts.

These core principles are not written in stone; they offer some alternate ways of looking at a problem and perhaps a solution not otherwise apparent. Principles can be added to this list at any time, and you may have some principles you feel should be added to this short list. As I become aware of other concepts that offer insight into my teaching and training, I will gladly add them to my core principles. We should always endeavor to increase the body of knowledge and our understanding of the martial arts. I have often found it interesting to discover principles in the strangest places; you could be reading a book on philosophy or business and find a principle that relates to the martial arts. Read and expand your knowledge, not only in the area of martial arts but in other areas as well.

The following concepts are touched on briefly, but entire chapters and books could be written on any one of these concepts. This is beyond the scope of this text and my limits as well. So, let's get to it!

Edition details

• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080483217X
• ISBN 13: 9780804832175
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208