22. The Brainstem

After the explanation about the spinal cord in our previous blog, again you are closer to understanding the use of pressure points from a neurological point of view!

The brain stem is the a part of the spinal cord that is located at the bottom of the scull.
This little part in the brain stem is responsible for the vegetative body functions (heart, lungs, kidneys, etc.). The signals going from the spinal cord to the brains (and the other way around) are checked by it constantly, to make sure that the body is in good shape.

If any concerning signal enters this area, the autonomic nervous system responds. This can be by lowering the heart rate (if it gets a message that the blood pressure is too high) for example after correctly hitting ST-9; This could shut the body down (by passing out).

I hope you find this information interesting so far. In my next blog, I will wrap this information up and give an example.

Thanks for reading, in our next blog we proceed with techniques and video's. We will show the various pressure points followed up by a Hadaka Jime from a punch flow.

21. The spinal cord

In my previous blog, I explained in general how the various nerves systems work and what the impact of a hit on a nerve is.

This blog, I will go a little further into how the spinal cord works in relation to the pressure points and body parts. Again notice, this blog also is an extremely simplified explanation of an extremely complex system. It just explains what is interesting if you use pressure points in the martial art.

The spinal cord
As you can see, the spinal cord is fragmented in 4 parts.

• C = Cervical
• Th = Thoracic 
• L = Lumbar
• S = Sacral

These 4 parts are split in segments, called the vortices, they are all coded:

1. C5 to Th1: this is where the signals pass from the brain to the arms (and the other way around)
2. Th1 – Th4: are connected to the heart and lungs
3. Th5 – Th12: are connected to the stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, adrenal gland, small intestine and large intestine. 
4. L1-L3: are connected to the Large intestine, kidney and bladder 
5. L1 to S3: this is where the signals pass from the brain to the legs (and the other way around)

In the last part, next time I will write about the brainstem.

20. Effect of a punch on the fibres

Now that we have seen the various fibers in our previous blog and we understand what the fiber in the nerve looks like, so it is time to look at the effect of an attack on the nerve.

Let's first show the effect of a punch in a picture:

1. With a soft imact, only the red (A fibers) are effected. 
You will feel some pain. The brain will send endorphin (painkiller) to the location that hurts and it will make adrenaline (fight hormone), to prepare the body for a fight.

2. With a medium high impact, both the red (A fibers) and green (B fibers) are effected. 

The pain will be more intense and last longer. It will keep on sending impulses to the brain.

3. With high impact, the impact will be such that all fibers are affected. 

The brain will do everything possible to limit damage to the body; it will shut the body down if necessary.

It depending on where the pressure point is located what the impact of an atemi will be. So if the

I hope it makes more sense how the nerve system works. I In my next blog, I will write about how the spinal cord works high level.

Now that we know how the nervous system works, we can move on to the spinal cord.

19. Fibers in the nerves

In our previous blog, I started writing about the neurological impact of pressure points. In this blog I will take you a little further into the nervous sytem. We are going to have a closer look at the fibers:
There are 3 kinds of fibers in a nerve:

1. Type A-fiber: red

• These are the thickest and fastest fibers (2-100 meters per second). 
• They sent the sharp pain signals to the brain. 
• They are easy to activate and are easy to revive after an attack. 
• They do not influence the autonomic nervous system; they will initiate a motor response at the most.

2. Type B fiber: green

• These are smaller and slower than the A fibers (around 10 meters per second). 
• They are connected to the reflexively part of the nervous system and some of the afferent nerves of the peripheral nervous system. 
• The nerve recovers less fast and remains sending signals to the brain. 

3. Type C fiber: yellow

• These are the smallest and slowest fibers (0.5 meters per second). 
• They only react to hard attacks 
• These fibers affect the autonomic nervous system directly 
• The brain (part of the brainstem) might assume that an organ is damages. Therefore it will react severely by for example lowering the blood pressure or by passing out. 

I hope you now understand what a fiber a kind of looks like. In my next blog, I will explain wat the impact on the fibers is during and after a punch.

18. The nervous system

Hi there, in this blog I start explaining (very high level) how pressure points work neurologically.

To be able to understand why the body reacts in a certain way, it is important to understand how the nervous system works. This blog give you an extremely simplified view of an extremely complicated organism.

The nervous system exists of 3 parts:

1. The Autonomic nervous system 
2. The Central nervous system 
3. The Peripheral nervous system

The Autonomic nervous system
This is the part of the nervous system in the brainstem that controls our internal organs; like breathing, hart rate, pupils, vain, digestion, etc.

The Central nervous system
This nervous system exists of the brain and the spinal cord. It is the red part in the picture. This part of the nervous system processes the stimuli.

The Peripheral nervous system
The peripheral nervous system contains nerves that go from the spinal cord into the body. In the picture, they are colored brown. This Peripheral nervous system connects our organs and body parts with our central nervous system.

The nerve highway

There are two ways a nerve carries the information from and to the brain:
1. Via the afferent nerve fiber (sensory fiber) - transports signals from the body towards the spinal cord. Information about what the body feels, like pain when you burn your hand or step on a little stone.
2. Via the efferent nerve fiber (motoric fiber) - transports signals from the brain and spinal cord to the body. Information like, you have to move your legs to walk or if the brain want to grab something.

In my next blog I will continue with the neurological explanation by writing about the fibers.

17. How do pressure points work?

Now that is an interesting question!

It is important to understand how pressure points work. What happens within the body?

A lot of pressure points are not that dangerous, think of the nerve in your elbow. When you bump your elbow against an object it hurts immensely. So what do you do? You grab your arm and rub with your hand on the spot that is hurt. Because of the rubbing the pain will slowly disappear. You are actually reviving the pressure point.

That and many other points on the body are annoying and can be restored by rubbing them. But there are also points or combination of points that cause more severe damage to the body. You need to be aware of that! What is it that actually happens with the body and why would you want to avoid hitting certain points on people over 35 years old?

Thanks for reading this blog. In my next blogs, I will try to explain why pressure points hurt from a neurological point of view.