In another thread, it was expressed that a prominent karate researcher in Hawaii was skeptical about the use of pressure points in karate. I responded with the following and was curious about starting a new thread about it.
Does your style of karate use pressure points? How? If your style does not, why?
Pressure points are included in the Bubishi and were included in many of the old texts written by past masters. No one in Hawaii teaches the way that Oyata teaches, to my knowledge, but on the mainland, when I lived in Minnesota, one of his top students (Mike Cline) lived in my state and many of his students filtered out from there.
I had a good discussion with a former member of this board (Robert Rousselot - a long time student of Oyata sensei) that concurred with I have learned about the matter. A lot of what we see as pressure point techniques are charlatanry. The real stuff is simple and direct and it works.
Here's an interesting video that shows that it's more then just Oyata Sensei teaching it in the karate world.
Higaonna Sensei teaches this as part of Goju-ryu. From what I've been able to gather from other Goju practitioners it's similar to what Oyata does. It's another area that I'd like to know a lot more about.
Does your style of karate use pressure points? How? If your style does not, why?
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