Attacking Vital Points

The Art and Science of Atemi Waza

The human body has many vulnerable areas, called Vital Points or Pressure points. If you get involved in a fight, then hitting these vulnerable places will hurt and weaken your opponent faster than anywhere else.

Vital Points should only be used for real self defense situations, because they can inflict permanent damage.

In Japanese, the word Atemi refers to attacking these vital points. It can mean a blow or strike, or it can be an attack technique such as one of the first 5 aikido throws from the Randori no Kata of Tomiki-style Aikido.

Sometimes the pressure point is just gripped or squeezed with your finger or thumb, such as applying pressure to the nerve of the arm in Yonkyo Technique to make Uke surrender in traditional Aikido styles, or pressing your thumb into the nerve center of your opponent's base of thumb when applying Tenkai Kote Hineri (Tomiki Aikido's "Number 13") technique.

In Aikido, these pressure points are used as a means to an end - like getting your attacker to loosen his grip, or to distract him. But in serious self defense, where you may not have aikido skills, then these vital points can be used as the end itself.

A strong fast blow to these vulnerable points is quite capable of crippling, blinding or disabling an attacker, even permanently.

So please, be extremely careful not to hurt your training partners when learning these atemi pressure points. (This is another reason you need a proper teacher and a martial arts class in which to learn safely.)

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See Vulnerable Points for Self Defense for detailed descriptions of where to hit.