Yeah, but that’s to learn the whole, not master it. And the statement doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with precision. If you count all of the internal arts as having definite and sophisticated methods of Dim-Mak, then there are the big 3, plus several lesser known internal arts, each with a different approach, and many of them with substyles with different approaches anyway. To completely master one art and its approach to point striking requires a great deal of time, and to master several in order to learn and master every approach to point striking would indeed require several lifetimes.
However, to become fairly proficient and accurate (as opposed to precise), does not require that much time. Years, yes, but not lifetimes.
In all likelihood, though I myself like to think he may have, Chang San-feng probably never existed. Therefore it doesn’t matter what the different histories say. However, it IS interesting to note that a lot of people try to take what they learn from acupuncture manuals and apply it to the martial arts. While Dim-Mak and acupuncture use the same points, that’s as far as the similarities go. Many things in Dim-Mak theory, such as directions of “energy flow” and strikes, are opposite to those in acupuncture theory. (I would assume that acupressure theory and Dim-Mak theory would be closer.)
Since many of the more dangerous points actually require fa-jing, something 99.9% of people are unlikely to have naturally IMO, there is little chance that some irresponsible or “evil” person might attain real skill without at least a bit of training. The simpler points will work if you hit them hard enough, and you can even get a few combos to work that way, but anyone can do that without learning about actual points, you just have to sit down with an anatomy book and look up vulnerable points. People “get lucky” and cause damage through dangerous points all the time, and some people pay attention to what happens when they hit certain points and get the same effect all the time, and eventually start “hunting” for a certain point to get that known effect.
Think about this: If people were passing this knowledge on in secret, or just letting out the more sensational bits as was the case a few years ago, without letting people know about the inherent dangers and without letting them in on the whole picture, would things be better or worse? Imagine a young man going to a seminar, learning to strike to a certain point to get a KO, but not being told about the after effects like possible kidney failure, urine in the blood, etc, and not being told how to repair the damage, which was never discussed in the first place. This young man, in fact, is told that this point is safe to strike, and does not realize that the instructor is leaving out information he heeds to know, or else the instructor has picked a participant who will play his game and pretend to be KO’d. Now, to continue our scenario, this young man goes home, and strikes a member of his family to show them that what he went to learn actually works and to show how good he is becoming at it with only a few hours training. This member of his family begins to feel rather ill a bit later on, and begins to pass blood in her urine. By the time they connect the strike with the bloody urine and get her to a hospital, she is dying of kidney failure.
This was a real situation. Had he been told the point was dangerous, he might not have tried it out when he got home to show off. Had he had the resources available to him before the seminar to question the instructor when he was told the point was not dangerous, he might not have stuck around to learn from such an irresponsible ass. Had the resources been available to him, he might have gone a completely different route and learned from an instructor who would show a little care for his students, and train him properly to strike these points, as well as train him in healing methods to repair damage he might do if it is reparable.
Erle and some others have made such resources available now, so that people know these things are dangerous, and so they can learn how to heal the damage, and so they know they are being lied to when people tell them striking these points is safe. It was a lesser of two evils scenario here; either give a little information to people so they went away with a powerful tool they didn’t completely understand and yet thought they did, or else give everyone all the information so they knew the points were dangerous and would know they didn’t know everything.
Traditionally, the points were given, as many have said, far into training, after the master has made sure his now-skilled student has the moral character not to abuse what he is being given. However, the points were also given along with “antidote” points, massage techniques, and other healing therapies so the student got both sides of the coin, healing and destructive. Balance was maintained that way.
In the end, yes, he makes money off of the books and tapes, though he isn’t getting anywhere near rich off of them. But the knowledge is his, and he deserves to be compensated for it. If a master wants to keep teaching this stuff in secret, he is more than welcome to do so. Erle chose to publish it for the whole world to see, and you can’t fault him for that. It was his, and he could’ve done anything he wanted to do with it. I can’t fault a bass player who won’t tell how he knows what he knows or teach his methods to others, but neither do I fault those who decide to publish their methods for the world to learn or imitate. It’s the same kind of decision.
