Tai Chi and Traditional Chinese Medicine have a long history together. Combat Tai Chi applies Traditional Chinese Medicine to the martial arts. In addition to their damaging effects,Tai Chi pressure point strikes are designed for strategic use in hand-to-hand combat situations.

An attacker who is hit with a pressure point strike will be stopped mid-course and be forced to deal with the strike while the martial artist has the opportunity to land more and more devastating blows. Certain pressure point strikes make it hard for someone who is grabbing you to close their arms around you or else makes it so painful for them to do so that they are almost forced to let go.

When you see people practicing Tai Chi, most likely they are practicing the basic forms of the discipline. These slow movements help Tai Chi martial artists develop the kind of movement and body quality necessary for the power of the discipline. Though it might not be apparent from watching, these movements are also designed with martial applications, specifically pressure point applications in mind.

Pressure point strikes can be used for even more damaging purposes. Dim Mak translates into English as death touch. Some kinds of pressure point strikes are actually Dim Mak strikes because they can actually kill an opponent. However, there are many different kinds of Dim Mak. While they can be very useful, pressure points are not always available in every fight situation. In some settings, they can be hard to reach.

However, some forms of Dim Mak can get around this problem. One type of Dim Mak hit involves striking so that the force of the strike will go up meridians and affect the spine, brain, or other portions of the nervous system. For even more advanced practitioners, it is possible to learn to strike so that the energy of the strike goes to anywhere the striker chooses for it to go from anywhere on the body. In this way, a strike can affect the internal organs such as the heart or the lungs. This kind of Dim Mak requires an understanding of the other types of Dim Mak plus training in internal sensitivity so that it is possible to feel inside the opponent\’s body.

Another form of Dim Mak is called Dian Xue. This is sometimes translated as Delayed Death Touch. In this form of attack, the effects of a strike are not immediately obvious but rather appear over the course of time. One example of how Delayed Death Touch can work is if a strike were to close off the intestines so that over time, food would build up and clog the person\’s system. But also, for advanced students, strikes can be made such that the damage of the strike continues to build up over time well after the initial contact. In this way, the full effect of the strike would not be seen until well after the initial hit.

Author Bio: Sigung Richard Clear has over 30 years of continuous study in Combat Tai Chi and Chi Kung both in the U.S. and China. http://www.clearstaichi.com

Category: Recreation
Keywords: Combat tai chi, tai chi chuan