The Ancient Art of Life and Death: The Complete Book of Dim-Mak

"An exellent book, giving back ground information on the ancient history of dim-mak and covering in detail practically all the pressure pionts on the body, on their medical uses aswell as there use for dim-mak and the affects that will be caused by striking these points. a good component to this book is by Erle Montaigue's extra meridians."
~ Written on 2004-09-22

"First off, let me preface this review and recuse myself to a degree. My name is Rick Bauer, and I am the co-author of this particular book. After much consideration, I decided to post something to Amazon.co.uk, to help give the reader a general idea of the scope and content of this book, since none is currently included with this listing. The Ancient Art of Life and Death: The Book of Dim-Mak, took a considerable amount of time to write. Conservatively, Mr. Walker and I spent almost four years writing the text; roughly equating to 15,000 man-hours of highly specialized research, review, and work. As part of the review process, we submitted large portions of the text to a number of Doctors in the medical community. The intent of this project was to provide the advanced martial arts reader with a host of important facts and information, concerning the effects of martial applications to the acupoint centers of the human body. The major chapter areas of the book include:

1. Historical Overview of Traditional Chinese Medicine
2. The development of Dim-Mak, Dim Hsueh and Dim Ching
3. The Mechanism of Acupoint Strikes
4. The Medical Risks Associated with Acupoint Strikes
5. The Three Ways of Dim-Mak
6. Introduction to the 36-Chamber Training Sequence
7. Overview of the Classical Acupoint System
8. An Introduction to Herbalism
9. Herbal Formula Preparation and Pharmacology

The section covering the classical acupoint system covers all the points on the 12 major meridians, including both medical and martial information, and health and restoration information. This information is derived from Mr. Walker's extensive martial arts training and professional background, under the direct study of Matsuetsu Kushubi. The coverage of the points will hopefully serve to augment / complement the high quality information previously published on this subject: most notably, the extensive catalog of material of Mr. Erle Montaigue, as well as Dr. Michael Kelly. The book also includes general anatomical drawings and TCM charts of the main meridian acupoints.

As a notation: the two midline collaterals are NOT covered in this book. There are some specific reasons for this. Most importantly, the physiological processes of striking the midline channels (the Governing Vessel and the Conception Vessel) are different than the triggering mechanisms of the main meridian points. The centerline points will be covered in the follow-up book, which Mr. Walker and I are currently in the process of writing."
~ Written on 2004-06-13

"Most people who buy this will be interested in the 36 chambers. This is the core of the book. It works through each of the meridians in turn indicating briefly the medical importance of each point, the dim mak (killing) possibilities with each point, set up points (for increasing the effect), as well as utilising the point for sub-lethal effects (knockout or incapacitation). Also details recovery methods for each point strike. The locations on the diagrams are OK, but not great, and the location descriptions are a bit overly medical. The detail is quite terse but the list of striking points is comprehensive i.e. broad coverage, low detail

I particularly liked the long introduction describing the origins of Dim Mak and the 'science' behind the meridians. The best intro. I've ever read. Also the appendix with combination strikes is useful.

BUY this if: you are currently a martial artist with a moderate knowledge of meridians and vital points and can see how these may work within your own current techniques OR If you have a good knowledge of vital points and want a reference manual.

Don't buy this if: you are looking to utilise some effective striking techniques to vital points and have little knowledge in this area (it is far too broad in coverage and lacking in detail) OR if you are interested specifically in the medical aspects. (I don't know why they bothered with the herbalism stuff at the end, it seemed a bit half hearted)"
~ Written on 2003-10-01