By Barry Bilnick
USCCA Inner Circle

It makes no difference which expert you ask, all of them agree on one thing when it comes to violent street confrontations: There are no rules.

Those who have experienced one are usually shocked by their misconceptions about street fights. Well choreographed movie and television fight scenes have conditioned most people into being unprepared for the harsh reality they encounter the first time an assailant attacks them. As with all confrontations, the best thing to do-and your first choice-should always be to avoid them.

Should this fail and you find yourself facing an impending attack, your priority should be to distract, disable or disarm your assailant and then to get away as soon as possible. The key to your success and possibly your survival, will be your ability to do this quickly and effectively.

In the past, experts have talked about a concept called Simple Force. Basically, Simple Force is a system for quickly disabling an attacker by attacking vital areas of his body. Simple Force relies upon striking areas of the body such as the eyes, neck and throat. Striking a vital area will cause severe pain and is likely to also cause serious, possibly permanent injury, maybe even death.

In this article we will discuss the use of pressure points. We will discuss primary points that can be used to disrupt balance, cause acute pain, temporarily paralyze a limb, and even cause unconsciousness.

What are Pressure Points?

A good analogy is to think of the body as an electrical system. The arteries and nerves are the wires that connect it all together and keep it running. If there is an interruption in that system, if one of the “wires�?is cut or damaged, a short-circuit results and the system sends off warning signals (pain) or shuts down all together.

Pressure Points are those spots where such “wiring�?is most vulnerable and easily accessed with strikes, grabs, thrusts, or kicks. Some experts tell us the body has over 350 pressure points. Attacking these points can cause extreme pain and/or loss of motor control. These are certainly the kind of results you are looking for if you want to be able to immobilize an attacker long enough for you to get away.

Generally, pressure points work best when you want to gain compliance from someone, or you want to break free from a choke hold, or get someone to release a knife or weapon from their hand.

For example, If you need to have a person stand up and they refuse, placing your index finger under their nose will easily lift them to their feet. A wrist hold or choke hold can easily be broken by applying pressure to the inside of the attacker’s wrist.

Before listing some specific pressure points, first consider the body in terms of general areas: Head, Neck, Upper Body, Lower Body, Arms, and Legs. Pressure points can be found in each of these areas.

The key in a fight is to have good access to the point you intend to target. Therefore, you need to be aware of when any of these general areas are open.

The Head:

Pressure points in the head area include the eyes, ears, nose, jaw and temple. Results of attacking these can be as follows:

o Eyes - Striking the eyes with an object, a finger or knuckle, with sufficient force can cause a partial or total loss of vision. The vision loss can be temporary or permanent. Although the eyes can be considered as pressure points, we consider them as vital areas and, therefore, should only be used if the use of force is fully justified.

o Ears - The eardrum is a sensitive thin-skin membrane. Using a cupped hand to slap the ear can cause extreme pain, but it can also affect the attacker’s balance via the inner ear. A word of caution, although it cannot cause death, a ruptured eardrum is permanent damage and, therefore, this point should only be used if force is fully justified.

o Nose - The nose is actually cartilage and not bone. It is also rich with blood vessels. Striking it horizontally usually ruptures the nasal portion of the angular vein. This can interfere with breathing, not to mention the pain and shock of losing prodigious amounts of blood. The upper lip, just under the nose, is a pressure point. One finger is all you need to actually stop a man from advancing or, in turn, cause him to retreat. The same finger, applying upward pressure to the nose, is all you need to lift him right off his chair or the floor. Here you are using pain, but without the threat of serious or permanent damage.

o Jaw - There are a couple of target areas on the jaw worth noting. One is on the jaw line just below the hinge. The other is the tip of the chin. A sufficiently hard “clean shot�?to either area can interrupt nerve signals and send shock waves through the skull, rendering the attacker unconscious.

o Temple - A high-impact blow to the temple could be lethal if the weapon’s striking surface is small and its impact is not dispersed by the tempa-fossil. The small skull bones in this area could break off into the brain causing death, or could rupture the meningeal artery.

The Neck:

Pressure points in the neck area include the larynx, trachea, cervical vertebrae, and carotid arteries.

o Larynx and Trachea - Both of these are in a region known as the anterior neck. The best things about this region are that it is unprotected and extremely sensitive, even to low-impact blows. Damage to either the larynx or the trachea can interrupt breathing, send blood to the lungs, and create noticeable levels of pain, or even death.

o Cervical vertebrae - These are the seven vertebrae that go from the base of the skull to the shoulders. Strikes to the mid-to-upper cervical spine can be lethal. Strikes to the lower cervical spine can cause paralysis and be permanently debilitating.

o Carotid arteries - The carotid arteries run along either side of the neck. Sufficient impact to either of them can result in debilitating pain or loss of consciousness.

Upper Body:

Pressure points in this area include the Brachial Plexus, Suprasternal Notch, Sternum, Heart, Solar Plexus, and Thoracic Spine.

o Brachial Plexus - This nerve bundle runs beneath the trapezius muscle, above the collar bone. A hard blow to, or pinching of this area can cause the nerves to short-circuit creating pain and loss of motor control of the arms.

o Suprasternal Notch - This is the depression at the bottom of the neck where the clavicles and sternum meet. Find this area on yourself and press in on it. It will become apparent what a hard blow there could do in terms of debilitating you.

o Sternum - Known more commonly as the breastbone, the sternum is extremely pain sensitive to hard blows.

o Heart - Just to the left of the sternum (to the right on a facing attacker) is the area to aim for to send a
blow to the heart. With sufficient impact, such blows can create a concussion effect on the heart, possibly causing a heart attack.

o Solar Plexus - This is the piece of bone at the tip of the sternum, normally evidenced by a depression in the chest. It is where the sternum meets the abdomen. Impacting it with a small strike surface can render the attacker unconscious.

o Thoracic Spine - The thoracic spine runs from the base of the neck (where the cervical spine ends), approximately three-fourths the way down the back. Blows to this area can produce partial or total paralysis which can be either temporary or permanent, depending on the force used.

Lower Body:

Pressure points on the lower body include the Coccyx or Tailbone, and the Testicles.

o Tailbone - A hard blow to the tailbone can cause partial permanent paralysis to the lower extremities.

o Testicles - This one should be self-explanatory. The one caveat is that it is the one target that most experienced street fighters will expect you to go for, so expect them to counter your move.

Arms:

Pressure points on the arms include the Median and Radial Nerve, and the Elbow.

o Median and Radial Nerves - The median nerve runs under the bicep area of the upper arm. The radial nerve runs across the top of the forearm in the natural crease lined up with the elbow. Striking either one of these nerves can temporarily disable the attacker’s arm.

o Elbow - The elbow can be a formidable weapon, but it is also a fragile target. When it is struck properly you can take an attacker’s arm out completely.

Legs:

Pressure points on the legs include the Knees, Ankles and Shins.

o Knees, Ankles, Shins. Like the elbow, these areas can be used as weapons, but they are also extremely fragile in terms of their ability to take significant blows and keep on functioning. Striking them can produce extremely high levels of pain.

Keep in mind that using pressure points to your advantage in a fight requires more than just knowing their location. You must also know how to strike the areas to get the desired results. This is where some kind of general fighting knowledge is needed: how to make a proper hand formation for a fist, a knuckle-punch, a chop, how to use your own legs, feet, elbows, and knees as weapons.

Like any fighting system, pressure point fighting is not a sure thing. There are instances where striking certain pressure points may have little or no effect on the attacker.

For example, if the attacker is wearing thick clothing, is heavily muscled, or is high on drugs or alcohol. This is why you need to be well-trained enough to know not only where to hit and how to hit, but also how to move. If a strike to one area doesn’t work, go for another area quickly and get out of the way.

Most of the pressure points we’ve covered are not lethal. In unarmed combat we want you to be able to inflict temporary neurological damage serious enough to stop an assailant in his tracks.
The most important thing to winning a street fight is to improvise, fight hard, fight dirty and keep going, no matter what. Because that’s what your attacker is going to be doing.

—USCCA Inner Circle �?/P>