Di Mak

ne one here who knows Di Mak? (pardon if it's misspelled) my Master is learning it

 

Di or Dai Mak, is the Welsh version of the chinese Dim Mak. Bloke down the pub with his Vitals tweaked. Sedochi!

Actually Dim is another Welsh reference, meaning 'nothing' or 'no' in the Welsh language.

Anyway sorry for burning your brain. The truth now.
Dim Mak (Cantonese chinese rendering) is a much hyped and alluded to way of parting you from your money.

Although it does have some basis in reality. It is the striking, pushing etc of 'Vital or 'Pressure' points on the body. 'Spotting'.

It has come back into vogue recently by the efforts of Erle Montague (Bagua/ Tai Chi Chuan teacher) and Dr Michael Kelly and by George Dillman with his Kyushu (Sp) Jitsu stuff The Okinawan equivilant which they managed to nab from the Chinese on the sly, when they weren't looking.

Dim Mak literally means Death Touch and sounds like a Charles Bronson movie from the 70s.

Does it work? Well all the Dillman demos are on co-operative partners and they fall over when touched or struck on a chain of pressure points. piff Paff POFF.

Can you do such against someone trying to take your head off?
Who Nose? Some say they can. I'll try to keep an open mange about that one.

 

It works on the same sort of principles as acupuncture/pressure; that parts of your body are linked by meridians along which chi energy flows, and certain points along these meridians can be manipulated to affect the body. OK it's a bit more in depth then that, but that's the rough idea.

 

Even if you don't get into the whole chi disruption idea, it's clear that many of the points work. The body has a lot of points where the nerves/tendons/arteries etc are just below the surface (e.g. on the neck and throat and behind the jaw or under the arm).

If you strike these points, you will need to hit them with much less force to do serious damage than a normal strike. Some points only require a fairly light tap to knock out or cause severe nausea in the opponent. Like I said, even if you don't believe in chi, it's obvious that if you strike someone's carotid, you'll severely disrupt the flow of blood to their brain...

While it's pretty overconfident to say you can "hit a point the size of a coin on someone who's trying to rip your head off" as many posts have been saying, it's important to realise that many strikes are on where the points 'cluster' (like on the neck). Also, dim mak points tend to be indentations in the body (like under your ear) so are easier to find, and many dim mak attacks are either strikes on five or six dim mak points (playing the odds) or use dim mak points to grab/press an opponent instead of striking.

 

Yes, I 'do' some of the points when i'm Chin Na-ing. Pressure area grabs, holds etc. And some basic 'strikes' to the easier access points.

I'm not so sure about the actual strikes, purely in terms of set-up and delivery under duress, other than the obvious Carotid/ Throat ones etc etc.

Some of them are a bit far-fetched, some less so in my opinion.

None of the Mastoids/ Under the ear stuff work at all on me (Quite thick neckwise), I feel a bit of 'uncomfort' but it's hardly going to ruin my Breakfast and make me wail for Murphy.

In fact everybody in my Ju Jitsu class gets to try to squeeze my vitals (not those, mercy!), just to see if it'll work on me. Quite nice from a social POV 'go on give his Mastoids a squeeze' etc.

Where the whole Dim Mak thing goes up it's own Hosepipe is when you start getting into all that 'hit a certain point at a certain time, place, latitude, longitude' etc stuff that's in texts like the Bubishi.

But as I say, some basis in Reality at least.

 

yeah, like 15% of the people in the world are what is called "non-responders" people that pressure points don't work on (my SiFu included)

 

Unless your George Dillman, I would'nt waist my time with pressure point fighting. On bigger opponents certain pressure points wont work and not many fighters are quick enough to evade a punch and shoot in with a pressure point. Not very effective, thats why not very many have studied pressure point fighting.

 

I think pressure points are mainly effective when used in grappling situations, however what works in training may not necassarily work in a real conflict.

 

train to hit'em, try to hit'em.. maybe i will maybe I won't but ya gotta aim somwhere, why not a convenient pressure point?

 

Exactement!

And like sokklab said, aim for thos points when you grab. You can hold on to one (or more) in one hand and hit at others at your leisure if you're positioned favourably.

Rgds,
David

 

Without wanting to come off sounding like The Terminator, I have used some pressure point holds/ squeezes under duress.

I used to work the back door of a biker club/ Bar and whilst I'm not going to bore you all with stories of 'on the door' (Because I was on the backddor and thankfully not that much happened..), I did use them a few times in grappling type scenarios, like dig someone in the armpit (Ji Quan) when the opportunity arose etc.

So they can well work, but the point is why bother?
My answer is 'When the Opportunity Arises and presents itself and it is the best tool for the job', which oftentimes, they are not.

Do I think I could hit Pressure point targets in an exchange of blows, hmmm, probably not unless as David alluded to, I had established a certain amount of control/ grip etc.

Interesting though. Any Volunteers to take part in my survey?
Just stand there a minute-this won't hurt a bit...

 

true on many bigger people "pressure points " often dont work. and as my student posted 15% of the worlds population are non responders. But Dim Mak is not just hit here, aim there, grab there. And it just dosent require the striking and grappling of pressure points because of those who are Non-responders(including myself). and many times pressure points are sensless to use on those people, but Dim Mak also focusses on "reflex points" these are points on the body every one responds to.

 

i read somewhere that george dillman was responsible (not held responsible) for a few deaths, primarilly due to demonstrating the carotoid sinus' sensetivity. the problem was that the carotoid can take 20 years to break down after a fairly weak hit, and when it breaks down, you die

i dont know about the authenticity of this info, but good to be aware of nonetheless

 

And the medical backing for this is?

What a pile of croc... IMHO.

 

Ok, as far as I know there has never been a direct connection between the demos Dillman gives and anyone dying. However, Erle Montaigue published an article in 1989 questioning the safety of the demos that Dillman gave. Here's the article as it reproduced on Erle's website.

http://www.taijiworld.com/Articles/george.htm

While it's a little rambling at times if you scroll towards the end Erle has interviewed a number of medical experts (east and west) about how good an idea it is to make a direct blow to the carotoid artery. I do know that a number of martial artist I respect have publicly and privately stated that they would never let Dillman work on them for exactly the reasons that this article brings up.

- Matt

 

FreeForm, The medical backing of this is over 3 thousand years of oriental medical history....

Also, I think it can work, givin someone having the ability to execute them correctly. I would say, it is almost unreasonable to know 50 and execute them correctly, but imagine you could master 1 or maybe 2 of them, seriously, if you could master 2 rather damaging pressure points, even if thye have temporary effects, it is more than enough to descemate anyhuman in 80% of the worlds population.... I think master a couple that work wouln't hurt anythign.

 

<<<I think pressure points are mainly effective when used in grappling situations, however what works in training may not necassarily work in a real conflict.>>>

I strongly doubt you;ve ever trained real grappling if you believe this....pressure points work mainly on placebo effect in my opinion.....you believe its going to happen and guess what.....it does!!!!!


There was a really poor attempt at a study done to show their effectiveness I read a while back....I could have driven a truck between the reported results of the study and the conclusions reached.

Funny that all the PPKO points are around the jaw area and the base of the brain.....or could that be a coincidence???

Whether or not they exist or not is irrelevant....in practical terms they are not reliable enough. The Dim Mak is a myth

 

Yes, and we all know how well acupuncture works, and aromotherapy. And hey, what about bleeding with leeches? That's something backed by lots of medical history, and its not even oriental.

Yep, I'll take part.

And incidentally, SoKKlab, I owe you a pint. As soon as I've got the money I'll have it mailed to ya.

 

come to think of it, i tmay have been erle montaigue's article that i had read. my memory fails me though so who knows

 

Yes, the Erle Montague article dissected a George Dillman seminar and aftermath in Australia (Late 1980s).

Essentially it was saying that Dillman's methods (kyushu-jitsu-sp?) at the time (they may well of improved greatly since then) were leaden and primitive in comparison to the Chinese Methods.

And that essentially it wasn't a good idea to whack people hard in the Carotid arteries for the sake of a demo etc etc.