Essential Anatomy for Martial and Healing Arts

After a broad introduction, the first main section of the book covers the basic body model in each of the Western and Eastern medical theories - it's clearly all fairly basic, but a reasonable overview, with some very clear diagrams. Unsurprisingly, although the western medical descriptions aren't all that brief, the eastern section is much thicker, covering all of the meridians (both the main and extraordinary - although surprisingly it treats Conception and Governor as extraordinary, adding in a further six to those). It also has a thorough listing of the main extra points. Very usefully, against the description to each point, it shows the location, names in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, as well as the Meridian and number - there is also a clear description in terms of Western medicine.

For example, St9, I now know, is also called Ren Ying, Man's prognosis, In Yong (K), Jin Gei (J), and is simultanously the cutaneous cervical nerve, cervical branch of the facial nerve, a branch of the hypoglossal and vagus nerves, a point where the carotid artery branches, the thyroid artery, and the anterior jugular vein (phew, no wonder it's a good KO point!). It also describes and shows where it is.

That, unsurprisingly is the main bulk of the book, but there are two further main sections. The first, "healing applications", describes the main healing methods used with meridian theory - including a very thorough and clear collection of standard treatments (headache release, neck release, etc.) and a couple of pages on recovery techniques - five different techniques are covered, all clearly valid (and three of them new to me).

Then finally (apart from the index) is a section on martial arts applications. This covers the main principles of PP use in fighting (individual point attacks, multiple grouped points, bilateral, points along a meridian, related meridians, flow timing, destructive cycle - called "conquest cycle" in this book) and also shows diagrams of the main martial arts points.

Throughout the theory is reasonably basic but clear, with pretty much all of the basic principles of meridian therapy and fighting included.

Overall, I think that it was a very worthwhile expenditure of a tenner, the author (who claims a 5th dan in Hapkido according to the back cover) knows his stuff, explains it well, and did some superb drawings to go with it. I can see my using this a lot both as a teaching aid, and a regular source of learning and personal reference


Very clear, highly organised, a labour of love and wisdom   February 12, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I am a new acupuncture student and practising therapist (reflexology, massage, reiki) who is very glad indeed to have found this supremely useful book. I am not a martial artist and want to let others know that I believe this book is genuinely as useful to healers as martial artists. Those studying level 3 holistic therapies who want to understand energy systems in greater depth should buy this book (it won't break the bank).

The author is clearly a genuinely knowledgeable man and also understands what students need. The book appears to be a distillation of an immense amount of accumulated information and experience and I have a great feeling of gratitude in finding it.

Thank you very much for this most useful book at an extremely reasonable price.


Required reading for any martial artist.   April 18, 2002
17 out of 22 found this review helpful

Covering the subject matter in a clear and detailed manner, this book, while not being the first of it's kind is definately among the best.

The Illustrations are extremely good, and unlike many others is not an 'A to Z', rather an ordanance survey of the Human anatomy.

If you are serious about your study, this is as it's title suggests truly essential reading.