Atemi Points

The human body has many atemi points where hitting or kicking will to maximum damage.

I'm sure you don't realize it, but you know quite a few of them already. Women and girls all know about kicking a guy you-know-where, and men are just as nervous about their "family jewels". So we tend to protect them in a fight.

Other obvious atemi points include the eyes, the nose, the throat, the solar plexus, the kidneys (kidney punch), the tail bone (coccyx), the kneecaps, the knee joints (break easily when kicked correctly), the shins, instep and so on.

Some atemi points are more subtle, like the radial artery on the forearm - used for an Aikido Yonkyo grip, or the nerve in the webbed base of the thumb, which gets squeezed when execiting a Tenkai-Kote-hineri aikido throw in the Shodokan style.

It's fairly important to know the basic atemi points, but they aren't some magic "silver bullet" which magically turns you into some unbeatable martial artist. It takes years of dedicated training to become proficient. Remember that.

Breakfall Safely