Hi my name is Missan Edwards and my husband, Doug Edwards. We are the owners of ETO Martial Arts and Fitness in Kennesaw,Georgia. Today we're going to explain a little bit about pressure points. At ETO we practice Tae Kwon Do and in Tae Kwon Do it's mostly strikes and techniques and kicks. Now pressure points come in more of a self-defense scenario where it can do some deadly harm and now what is a pressure point? A pressure point is impact directed at a very sensitive part of the body that is going to really hurt and take that opponent down just automatically. So I'm going to ask my husband to turn sideways and if I look at his neck up there's pressure points all over his head area and so think about eye sockets, nose, throat, ear, any appendage or any socket that would cause pain. So if I wanted to apply force to his head, a pressure point could be right here at his nose. Another one could be right in the eye socket. I could either jab a finger in that eye or I can add a punch here. Now another pressure point that's quite easy to do is someone's ear. It only takes five pounds of pressure to actually rip an ear off of someone's head and anyone can do that so I could pull easily. Now if I were here and he were to attack me back from behind my hands are still free and I can take that ear and pretty much direct his body wherever I want it to go. Another favorite pressure point is here at the throat. Now the Adam's Apple if you did that to yourself just apply a little bit of pressure there, absolutely, you'll inflict some type of sensation or pain. Underneath the Adam's Apple is just an opening right under the throat area. You can take your thumb and push into the voice box and actually take someone's voice away. You can do that with a thumb but imagine if you were to take a punch and do the same type of damage. Now we're going to move down the body neck down, lots of pressure points here. Now think about this how realistic this one is. I can actually take his chest, the nipple area, apply some pressure and actually twist and pull. It doesn't matter how big the guy is, he is going to go down. I can also right here in the sternum, I can apply my finger here, pushing through or I can even do that fist or a knee, lots of pain here. Another one is underneath the arm. An easy way to do this without even striking or punching, you can just reach up, grab and take that arm pit hair and just pull and then finally we go below the waist and this one everyone should know, the groin area. You can do a strike to the groin area with the knee, you can punch. Another favorite is actually to once again reach, pull, twist, easy one, works every time. In the back area there is several. The spine is a very very sensitive part of the body so I can go here in the low spine. I can take the neck here or I can do top of the glute which is going to pull down any type of strike or even a grab will take the person in a direction that you are in control of. The foot has several pressure points. Think about each individual toe. One stomp of the toe can inflict enough pain to make your opponent jump back or fall forward. You can stomp or you can stomp and then twist. Hands, very sensitive area as well. If you were to try to break someone's finger you would do it in a two step process. You would do a pulling motion and a twisting motion at the same time so if my opponent were to grab me from the back and I needed to struggle out and I chose to use a pressure point I could reach forward, taking one of his pinkies, start twisting and then pulling and then move away as I go.
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