Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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71 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, May 20, 2001
By A Customer
I've been a student of the Martial Arts for 20+ years. I bought this book as the title and synopsis suggested it might have information on pressure points and their applications. This is a new publication that I was hoping would build and improve on what has been done before. I was looking for significantly more than "hit someone in the nose and it'll hurt them" type of information.Chapter 1 covers Mr. Clark's Core Principles - easy reading on general concepts, ideas that most martial artists would agree with. Short chapter, no real useful info on pressure points. Chapter 2 covers some info on Eastern & Western medicine and seems to allude to the notion that both are good sources of information, but not necessarily for pressure point fighting. Mr. Clark also elects to use terms such as "Triple Warmer 17" and "Gall bladder 20" instead of common terminology that most would understand. Short chapter, no real useful information on points. Chapter 3 - Analysis: "The intent of this book is [to] help you look at Kata from a different viewpoint...". I would agree with that statement, not that it's evident from the title. Short chapter, no useful info on points. Chapter 4 - Kata Applications: Very long chapter. Mr. Clark, in my opinion, strives to force fit Kata movements into applications, with some (not overly useful) information on points. Mr. Clark repeatedly states that the suggested application fits are not necessarily what was intended by the creators of the kata, just some of his ideas on how they could be interpreted. I found his "out of the box" ideas interesting, but my experience suggests that some of the techniques pictured/explained would work only with a willing victim, specifically some of the throws and entry into some of the locks - my opinion, I could be wrong. This kata application, while interesting, was not the information that I was looking for, nor expecting in this book. Some info on a very few strike points - nothing new or revealing. Chapter 5 - The Points. Finally, but what a disappointment. No references to drawings or pictures, most points had no illustrations throughout the book. No alphabetical (or any sorted) listing, only a couple of lines on location of the points. No info on how hard to strike, muscular coverage, effect, or revival techniques. In fact, earlier in the book, he specifically states that revival techniques are not covered, and that you shouldn't try these points unless you know how to revive - so why would I buy this book if I wasn't planning to try some of it out?? I went to this chapter first, was stunned with how little information there was, and ended up reading the whole book in an unsuccessful attempt to find anything useful on points. Appendix A - Vital Points List. A bunch of lists of point names, with minimal description, if any, from a bunch of other authors. Definitely only useful as a semi-bibliography. A detailed bibliography is presented in Appendix B. My conclusion: There's so much more that this work could have been, judging from the bibliography. Having read the book, I would not recommend it if you want to learn about pressure points to any depth. If you want to have cool discussions on what kata movements could be interpreted as, then you may want to read Mr. Clark's book.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Useful book, April 20, 2004
This is an excellent book by Mr. Clark, although I agree with some of the other reviewers here that the title isn't exclusively a book on pressure-point concepts and their application. The book's real strength is in illustrating some of the bunkai implicit in the katas, and in clarifying some applications that might otherwise seem mystifying. This is certainly valuable as the bunkai aren't practiced enough in many schools (and even in my own school), and this book goes over a number of these in detail. My only criticism is that the connection between the actual bunkai and the pressure point information isn't as clear or relevant as it could be. For an experienced instructor like myself this isn't a problem, as I can extrapolate, for example, in the case of a throw or takedown, several pressure points that might be useful to apply along with the throw or takedown. But a beginner or intermediate student might not be able to easily make that connection. Also, Clark had some applications I hadn't thought of myself and I found those vaulable. The author discusses both eastern and western medical theories and concepts and how they relate to pressure points. I noted the author doesn't uncritically subscribe to the Chinese theories, which are best regarded as pre-scientific metaphors for later scientific analysis of the underlying anatomy and physiology, but he discusses these concepts presumably for completeness, and besides, every other book on pressure-point fighting accepts these ideas as received truth, anyway. Even Dr. Yang Jwing Ming, who I consider very knowledgeable and educated in several arts and in Chinese medical theory, ascribes to these ideas in his Eagle Claw kung-fu book and other places. Well, Dr. Ming's doctoral work was in engineering rather than physiology and neurobiology, which was my field, so although an educated man it's not exactly his main scientific strength. The problem is that there are too many martial artists who aren't well grounded either in western anatomy and physiology (let alone the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, which can get quite technical), and so they naively accept lock, stock, and barrel the Chinese theories for which there is no scientific basis whatsoever. Of course, people can say, "Well, science doesn't know everything." That's true. However, the fact that science doesn't know all of the truths out there doesn't mean we don't know that certain things are simply false and are nonsense, and the Chinese theory of meridians and chi and how pressure points work (especially how certain pressure points are more vulnerable at certain points of the day) is an example of this. Not to beat a dead horse, but my kung-fu instructor would occasionally say that a certain point was vulnerable in the afternoon. Well, being a polite student (and his senior student) I never contradicted him on this, but this is now 25 years later and now I'm the teacher. The simple fact is that almost any pressure point strike could have a greater effect later in the afternoon than in the morning since that's when many people reach their physiological low during the day, and things like blood sugar and circulating catecholamines (such as epinephrine and norepinephrine) reach their lowest points and people just don't have as much energy. Furthermore, neuroactive chemicals that can cause drowsiness build up in certain areas of the brain. Furthermore, the brain, which can only digest glucose, is sensitive to a drop in blood levels. But the ancients who devised these theories had no knowledge of blood chemistry, neurobiology, or any other modern medical science area. One interesting aspect of the book that I really liked is Clark's drawing from writers as diverse as Klauswitz, the 19th-century German military strategist, William of Ockham, the medieval philosopher and logician, and economist Wilfredo Pareto (the "80/20" rule) for concepts to illustrate different concepts in the martial arts. Since the only military stratetgist that most martial artists seem to be familiar with is Sun Tzu (who gets too much press in my opinion), I was pleased to see something a little different in that regard and I give Mr. Clark points for that. I found this quite useful and shows Mr. Clark to be educated beyond the boundaries of the martial arts as well. The author illustrates and discusses about 30 different techniques specifically drawn from Okinawan and Japanese katas. These include attack combinations, self-defense, takedowns, and throws. There is some excellent material here on the application of some otherwise obscure and hard to understand movements. For example, Clark shows how the double mountain blocks in the kata Jutte (which is spelled "Jitte" in the book) could be used as a striking and throwing combination, which had never made much sense to me before except as a double blocking movement. The author uses mainly Heian (or Pinan) 4 and 5 Naihanchi 2 (or Tekki in Japanese karate), Bassai Dai, and Kwanku (or Kusanku in Okinawan karate) as the main source of examples, but a couple of throws from Jutte and Empi are also shown. Finally, there is an appendix listing the pressure points and systems of about a dozen different writers, some out of print, and an appendix on the pressure points with a brief description and definition of each. All in all, I found this a good book although as I said, it might only be useful to someone with enough experience to connect the pressure point information with some of the alternative applications. But the book would still be useful to beginners for its useful illustrations of how to apply many of the bunkai.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not exactly a guide to pressure point fighting, May 31, 2001
Personally, I find this book is good only for beginner Karatekas or martial artists who are sport oriented and wanted to have a glimse of how to approach the martial art training for real and practical self-defense. Serious martial artists who wanted to gather more information on the direct application and result of pressure point fighting will be disappointed. In its entirety, Sinsei Rick Clark provided a very useful and practical advise of how one should approach practice of forms or kata with pressure point in mind and that's all. Pressure point cativities are poorly described and illustrated. Most of the pressure points been discussed are common to season and experienced martial artists (I am refering to people who train for martial value and not sport). If you are looking for a book that directly points to the location of each pressure point, where to hit, what is the result of hitting specific points and ways of recovery, you are looking at the wrong book. However, if you feel practising forms or kata has little meaning in helping your martial skill and looking for advise or guidance how to benefit from the same practise, you are looking at the right place.Though I gave a low rating to this book, it is in no way to imply that the book is not informative. In this book, Sinsei Rick Clark successfully widened my perspective in forms or kata training, which I am very grateful. However, the contain of this book does not relate directly to its title Pressure Point Fighting-a guide to the secret heart of Asian martial art. Merely by looking at the title, a would be buyer will pressume the book is a no nonsence direct approach to pressure point fighting guide that emphasize on where to hit and when to hit.
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