Dim Mak

This page is about Dim Mak, the attack. For other uses, see Dim Mak (disambiguation)

Dim Mak, (simplified Chinese: 点脉; traditional Chinese: 點脈; pinyin: diǎnmài; lit. 'press artery'; Jyutping: dim2 mak6), alternatively diǎnxuè (simplified Chinese: 点穴; traditional Chinese: 點穴), also known as the Death Touch is a concept in Wuxia or Chinese martial arts fiction. It is depicted as a technique of Chinese martial arts, consisting in an attack on pressure points and meridians, said to incapacitate or sometimes cause immediate or even "delayed" death to an opponent.

The practice of attacking "pressure-points" in Japanese martial arts is known as Kyusho-jitsu.

Veracity and Origins

Although there are martial artists who claim to practice Dim Mak, diǎnxuè, or other simmilar qi derived techniques the majority of these claims seem to be derived from those of Count Dante.

Though the Chinese roots of the technique are within Chinese Traditional medicine, accounts of diǎnxuè as a deadly fighting technique appear to have come about through exaggeration in Wuxia literature.

The earliest available reference to diǎnxuè appears in a Qing dynasty account of Shaolin Temple which states that Zhang Sanfeng devised a set of 72 "hollow points".

Due to the oral tradition within martial arts there is little documentation as to the nature of these techniques and who, if anyone, received training in them. Many of the Chinese martial arts which survive today claim to have originated in Shaolin Temple so a link to Shaolin in extant records is unsurprising.

See also

• Hokuto Shinken
• Iron Palm
• Kyusho-jitsu
• Ryukyu Kempo
• Touch of Death
• Varma Kalai
• Vulcan nerve pinch

References

• Michael Kelly, Death Touch: The Science Behind the Legend of Dim Mak (2001).