Thursday, April 12, 2007

Self-defence

This is going to be short because I need to go to bed. Today, we did self-defense in our street clothes today. I paired up with Nyles a 1st kyu who’s about the same size as me. When we first paired up, Sensei wasn’t sure about me pairing up with him; but he said that I could hit hard. First, we worked on kicking at the knee with a sidekick. Then, we worked on elbows. While training, he said that he’s sorry for the person if he or she attacks me. That was the coolest complement. Maybe I can defend myself if someone attacks me. However, I need to have a quick mind and be committed because I don’t want them attacking back when I start. I felt the punches and kicks of my fellow karate mates with the body bag. I’ll tell you that if one of them actually hits me hard, that would hurt and stun me. If anyone attacks me, I would use palm heel, knee, and elbow strikes. My palm heel strike is much harder than a regular punch. My elbow strike is one of my most powerful strikes too. I don’t think that I would use any kicks because they would be useless. I would kick them and bounce off because I’m off balance. That wouldn’t be good. The only kick that I would use is to the back of the knee when I get around to their back.

When we were done working with the bags, we got into groups of threes to work on defending another person from an attacker. I was hoping I was going to stay with my group because of Nyles and Andrew; however, Sensei switched me to another group that had a green belt and a white belt. We first worked on our posture when telling a person that we didn’t want any trouble. Then if he attacked, I would grab him in the throat, punch him in the head, knee him a couple times, and elbow him to the base of the skull. While I did this with the green belt whose male, I accidentally kneed him in the groin. He didn’t go down or anything like that, he just stood there with is hands on his knees waiting for the pain to subside. Good thing it wasn’t full power because he would have dropped like a sack of potatoes.

After class, I found out that my nerves are retarded because some of the pressure points in the arm don’t work on me. There’s a spot where one rubs across a tendon. Sensei rubbed there so I can feel it; however, it hurt a little but now enough to where I would jump and squirm. Then, Sensei Jen tried another pressure point just behind the elbow; however, I didn’t feel anything what so ever.

2 comments:

ZenHG said...

Pressure points (Kyusho Jutsu) are tricky little devils.
Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

The thing about Karate is that Accupressure Points are not a central aim of application.
Jintai Kyusho does not imply the study and application of pressure points - it does, however, imply a working knowledge of weak spots in the anatomical structure (human or otherwise) and the ability to apply this knowledge (hence the phrase 'working knowledge').

This could mean anything from torquing the opponents' elbow joint in a direction it is not supposed to go, to striking the jugular vein with a strong Shuto Uchi (cutting off blood-flow to the brain).
This does ENCOMPASS pressure points, but they are not the central aim of Jintai Kyusho - in a fight there are too many variables that could render the majority of them useless.

A person can be drunk, high, psychotic, or simply impervious to pressure points for one.
Not all pressure points are easily accessible in the heat of the moment, thus they are not practical in use (though some are, but again, refer to the above variables).

Also, in my study of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) certain pressure points generally need to be stimulated continuously for long periods of time in order to render the desired effect (and the meridian channels often require activation/stimulation first).
Again, there are certain points which are applicable in heat of the moment confrontations, but do not depend on them as your central mode of defense/offense.
I personally believe pressure points are a great study and when learned CAN be used for both healing and harming.
(Sometimes pressure points don't work simply because a person is not applying them correctly - tricky devils).

So, good reference areas for the study of Jintai Kyusho;
Books on anatomy and physiology, studies of applied technique and human anatomy, ect.
A good understanding of General Physics can also help in this area by understanding how to apply this to your technique, thus making it more effective in accordance with natural physical laws.
Think Velocity.

Also study books on bio-electromagnetic energy from a scientific standpoint and you can understand pressure points better (good book is The Body Electric by Doctor Robert O. Becker).

Anyways, my two cents.

John Vesia said...

Elbows and knee strikes are devastating. What's good about working self defense is that it brings the student closer to the true martial aspects of karate, something that really can't be approached with sparring. Just watch those groin shots, Lizzie!