What are these target areas all about?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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collar bone-I´ve heard about it and I´ve got the impression that it is a good target area.Easy to break and makes opponent´s arm go limp if broken.
I´ve also heard that it´s useles against a bigger/stronger opponent,it is also usually covered with clothes and hard to go for (which is my own idea)
ribs-Yeah.I´ve never understood it.
It is used /taught very much.
But as far as I know,ribs are a strong area,that is why they are protecting your lungs and heart (critical organs) so why are they considered a target area? (As there are such unprotected areas as solar plexus and liver near them) I guess it could be used as atemi (a strike to -in this case- " " vulnerable area used to take body off one´s mind)
Sternum-I speak english as a second language of mine,but I have no idea what this area is,where it is located and how it works (if attacked)
spine-As far as I know,there is one weak place in it but in other words…no idea.
Atemi again?
thigh-inside of thigh is good for grabbing/pinching or (in some cases) kicking,but what about using thigh as a target when there are knees and shins?

All responses welcome.

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Ribs - It’s really your floating ribs that are a big target, the one that do not curve around the font of your body and meet in the middle. They are the lowerst set of ribs.

Sternum - Your sternum is the flat bone that sits in front of your heart and connects your upper ribs. It is a point that is connected to many other points, so damaging this area is like damaging the entire upper body.

Thigh - There are long stands of nerve that run up the inside and out side of the thigh. Hard contact with these nerves can cause you legs to become numb and useless.

Collar bone - It’s big and easy to hit. You can hit it with a hammer fist from above, which is a very basic and powerful strike. There are nerve clusters inthe center of your shoulder muscles that can be injured to cause loss of the use of your arms.

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I know from experience that the clavicle (collarbone) ain’t fun to break. It also won’t render the arm useless. Painful? Yes, but not useless.

A phoenix eye to the ribs can be effective. It doesn’t take much force to break a rib or two like that.

Sternum…I always think of as the solar plexis, is the spot in between your chest and your abdomen(in laymen’s terms).
You mean to tell me no one every pined your arms down and hit you there over and over when you were a kid?

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Ribs- I have had busted ribs and man, they don’t feel good, hurts with every breath. As a target zone IMHO their are a lot of better areas to target in a serious altercation, but to answer your question, a more serious complication you can get from a good rib shot, though rare, would include a complete break in the rib with protruding ends that may tear the lungs membrane sac and puncture the lung, which would result in a collapsed lung, which by itself, without treatment could be lethal.

Sternum- By this do you mean the Diaphragm or the Solar Plexus? Both are good body shots if the more serious based target areas are unavailable or not a option to the situation, areas like the throat, eyes, groin, knees.

A hard blow to the Diaphragm may result in a mechanical respiratory paralysis, in other words, unconsciousness, or at least some dry heaves. :smiley:

The Solar Plexus can produce more results than the the Diaphragm, unconsciouness, liver damage, gall bladder damage, rutpure of the stomach, injured pancreas, collasped lung from the percussive jarring, and even internal bleeding into the body cavities which could lead to shock.

Thigh- I like this area, the old “Irish Toothache” is a ***** to deal with, use a low-level thai kick or knee to the nerve on the outside of the thigh, a good spot to aim at is the pants seam, this shot will lead to severe muscle spasms.

Collar Bone- Some people swear by this area, a strong power shot could fracture the clavicle, this would disable the attackers arm on the same side as the fracture, as well as a TON of pain. I have heard through sports medicine that even a collasped lung could occur with a real strong shot to the collar bone, that and even gangrene if there is a pinched subclavian artery, something which MUST be fixed by surgery.

Good weapons to use on the collar bone include a axe-hand, elbow, forearm smash, hammer fist or stomp.

If you want to really learn your target zone you should research sports medicine injuries and a bit of surgicial anatomy.

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After thinking about it a little more, I retract my previous statement. The arm is pretty much useless. When I broke my clavicle I had landed on the back of my shoulder with about 400lbs of football players on top. The bone stuck up almost breaking skin. I was unable to get up off of the ground by myself…literally, I could not get up no matter how hard I tried. In the days that followed my shoulder turned blue-purple to almost a green color. The doctor thought at first it might be gangrene. It was just really bruised. This was from the ground impact, not a downward blow such as a hammerfist.

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You’re not breaking the collar bone with a hand technique.

At least, not mine.

I can say from experience that having it dislocated hurts like hell, and certainly incapacitated me. I imagine a break would have the same effect.

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I did not know that you could dislocate the clavicle. It is actually a relatively easy bone to break…if done at the right angle.

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Yup. I dislocated it at where it meets the sternum. Unpleasant.

And I should amend that to say that I don’t think breaking the collar bone is very likely with a hand strike.. anything is possible. :slight_smile:

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As far as puncturing a lung, if the break occurs at a certain area (close to the middle of the chest) it very well could puncture a lung. When I had surgery to repair my clavicle they had to put in a “central line” IV. They poked right in the meaty part above the clavicle-next to the neck and I felt alot of pressure on my lung. They even made me sign a waiver because that procedure had punctured lungs before.

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And I should amend that to say that I don’t think breaking the collar bone is very likely with a hand strike.. anything is possible.

If you are taller than your opponent you will have more luck with that target. You pretty much have to smash down on it to break it. A straight punch to the clavicle will probably hurt the hand more than the collarbone.

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Merry,

A lot of people put a lot of faith in the old collar bone strike, from what I hear is that it is much harder than people think to break, well at least in a duelling format where the guy is on guard and ready.

The best bet in a handstrike breaking somebodies collar bone is by suprise, the first pre-emptive blow, even then I would suggest a bunch of other things besides going for that strike.

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Black Jack,

I kinda figured that. I’m all about high-percentage.

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By high percentage you know you mean twirling spin kicks, reverse punches, one-legged stances, and a pre-planned set of perfect, by the book, hollywood moves.

Oh and don’t forget the spitting, it is not a fight without spitting.:smiley:

14

I think he meant Qi projection.

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Other good targets

Some other good target areas:

Eyes - remove your opponent’s ability to see
Throat - remove your opponent’s ability to breathe
Knees - remove your opponent’s ability to stand
Nose - remove your opponent’s ability ro react

As far as breaks go, they can prove difficult to achieve. And anyway, do we need to break bones?

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I’d consider aiming more generally for the head rather than eyes, throat, nose… not easy targets.

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True!

Strikes to the centre of mass of the head are the best options.
Doesn’t require any great skill in targeting or a particular hand shape. And once you control the head you control the body.

My suggestions were specific due to the topic of conversation.

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Merry,

I am able to hit the eyes with a good amount of success and I do count them as a high percentage move, a philosophy we both seem to have in common.

I can see where you may be coming from as some tools need to be more accurate than others, the eye jab could come to mind, but their is a gross motor eye strike out there called the tiger claw/face smash that is very high percentage in its application.

Basically its a non-telegraphed palm heel smash to the face with the intent of getting any number of your digits into his eyes, something which by its very nature it always does, it may be only one finger, two fingers, or any number of fingers but something will get in there, this move is a stable of WWII close combat techniques, the point is to do it with serious aggression and forward drive.

Another thought to consider in eye strikes that some seem to skip over is the great aspect of adding standup grappling skills into the mix, skills which will heighten the accuracy and damage of the eye strikes, for instance when you tiger claw, you can reach and pull him into the blow by grabbing the front part of his pants with the other hand, another example could be clinching and guiding the attackers head into the eye strikes, eye strikes which are not finishers but IMHO are setups for the beating to follow.

Just my thoughts on eye strikes as they are a stable of my self defense training, and yes, they can be practiced on the living, I use protective eye gear, goggles.

The throat can be tricky as a good fighter will keep his head down, a target zone that I think works better on your pre-emptive opening gambit, or after you have already rattled his brain.

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The clavical is a good spot, but will not render the person defenseless. The nerves in the shoulder are a great place, the ones that can get damage when you reset a dislocated shoulder, it is not so hard to hurt them and it will make teh arm useless. Wrists, although hard to hit, if you get teh chance is a great choice. Nose bone on unexperience fighters is good, the radius in the for arm (teh one connectinhg to the thumb) , then ofcoarse the sternum is great. although it can kill someone easy, which coul dbe a bummer. anywho, aside from obvious ones like teh throat, eyes , ball (unexperienced fighters) that is about all teh major upper body ones. and yes i realise teh balls are not upper body. :slight_smile:

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Thank you very much.