What Is The Dim Mak Technique? The Touch Of Death

Dim Mak is an ancient Chinese martial art that is based around pressure points, meridians in the human body, and the theories behind traditional Chinese medicine. Due to the mystery of traditional Chinese medicine in the west, it has been met with both healthy and unhealthy skepticism. The Cantonese translation of Dim Mak is difficult as there is no direct translation, but it is something similar to the “pressure artery”. The idea behind this is that if you compress the artery enough with enough force, this is when it can become the touch of death.

The touch of death does not simply mean that you can kill someone by touching them. Through many years of research, training, and practice you will then be able to strike someone efficiently enough to cause them serious harm, or perhaps even kill them. However, if you are fighting against a trained opponent, they are not going to stand still, thus making the martial art more difficult to deploy. The technique was popularised in the movie “Bloodsport” where Jean-Claude Van Damme is able to crush a brick with a simple palm strike.

Even if your opponent is still, due to the dangerous nature of Dim Mak, it is very difficult to learn and train properly. This is because of the severe consequences of the techniques. If you misplace a strike during drilling, you could severely injure a training partner, therefore it is not really pressure tested and has somewhat lost popularity over the last few decades.

What Is The Dim Mak Technique?

Dim Mak is not just about how to kill someone with a lethal strike. The Dim Mak we will often see portrayed in movies is a strike, often with an open palm or fist to a pressure point usually located in the upper body. To understand Dim Mak fully, you must immerse yourself in traditional Chinese culture and begin to understand the meridians and pressure points.

What Are Meridians?

Meridians are the energy channels that flow through our bodies. Often western science will scorn Chinese traditional medicine and claim that because it cannot be seen or proven – it does not work. If we think back to the time of Christopher Columbus, he was laughed at for saying that the world was round. He did not have satellite images to prove he was correct, so people assumed he was incorrect.

The same can be said for TCM, people think that because it can’t be fully explained yet, then it must not be real.

Dim Mak is relevant to meridians because a strike in the correct area will disrupt the energy flow. If the energy flow is disrupted enough then this will cause the person some serious damage, similar to a knockout punch in boxing. Perhaps the most famous body shot stoppages in MMA are from Bas Rutten kicking people in the liver – this meridian is connected to the eyes.

The science behind Dim Mak is that every organ in the body needs energy and it gets this energy from the meridians. If the meridian is cut off then the organ cannot get energy and is damaged. If we compare a meridian to a water pipe, if someone makes a hole in the pipe, then your house will be without water.

Where Are The Pressure Points Located?

There are pressure points all over the body. These “pressure points” are essentially where all the meridians meet. For example, if 10 meridians meet at a single area, this would be the most powerful pressure point. If there were just 2 meridians crossing, this would also be a pressure point, but a lot less strong.

The Bladder-10 pressure point is considered to be the weakest pressure point in Dim Mak. If you are to precisely strike someone here then your blow could be fatal. Though the pressure point is called “Bladder-10”, it is not located in the bladder. The most fatal pressure point is where the bottom of the skull meets the top of the neck. Here is where the carotid arteries meet one another as well as where a lot of meridians cross paths. Striking here can cause the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) to shut down and cause massive damage to the bladder (hence the name Bladder-10).

This is why striking to the back of the head is illegal in MMA competitions. Although MMA is realistic in terms of fighting, it would be too dangerous if it allowed strikes to the top area of the neck. If these strikes were allowed, you would assume that fighters would die at some point. So, this is an example of MMA promotions implementing sensible rules to protect their fighter’s well-being.

Can Dim Mak Kill Someone?

Based on the above, it’s fair to say that Dim Mak can kill people. Having said this, it is quite rare since Dim Mak is not commonly practiced and has since lost some relevancy in the modern world. For example, if someone were to hit you in the back of the head during a street fight, this could kill you. Even if the person who punched you did not know Dim Mak, they may hit the correct pressure point and severely injure you. The same goes for liver, kidney, and stomach strikes. All are unlikely but still can cause blunt trauma related deaths.

Because of this, you should be very careful how you strike people when fighting. Although you could win a fight by using Dim Mak, you don’t want to go to prison for murder or manslaughter either.

Dim Mak & Acupuncture

Because of Dim Mak’s association with TCM, it is also related to acupuncture. Acupuncture is becoming increasingly used in the west as we realize it has benefits that we didn’t originally understand. The idea behind this is similar to meridians, by piercing the skin, you will increase blood flow to the areas you need. This can help decrease inflammation which is a cause of many illnesses which we once thought were unrelated to one another.

How to throw a Dim Mak punch

There are several ways to throw a Dim Mak punch – so it’s not like there’s one universal technique. As established, the idea is to be able to hit certain meridian spots. However, there are techniques to make your punches hit with greater force. For example, you could punch with your middle two fingers poking out.

The point of this is that these parts of your fingers will make contact first, before the rest of your fist. According to Dim Mak, this should add extra power to your punches due to a concentrated force within those two fingers. Overall, there are quite a few different finger formations to use when punching.

Dim Mak & Healing

If you are a master of Dim Mak then you will already know how to cause a deadly blow by hitting the correct meridian. This can be reverse-engineered into Chinese medicine as you are able to know what will heal a problem in the said area. There are old stories of ancient Dim Mak masters who were able to heal their friends, or even enemies after defeating them by giving them the correct Chinese herbs. For example, if you know where to strike someone in the stomach and have studied this at great length. You will also know what course of treatment is needed to heal this area.

Is Dim Mak Real?

Overall Dim Mak can be a deadly martial art. Its drawbacks are that it is very difficult to train since you don’t know how good you are without actually hurting somebody. It has been shown that it can cause serious damage or even death when used correctly. However, people need to stop thinking of it as the “touch of death” as it is more of a philosophy and closely related to TCM. In modern-day its healing properties are probably a lot more valuable than its deadly properties. In conclusion, it is most certainly real but is often thought about in a strange and illogical manner.

To find out more, check out this book which is literally a Dim Mak encyclopedia.