Bunkai, Kyusho, and the Death Touch – Part IX

There’s an interesting theory that kyusho points were kept secret throughout history by high level martial artists because knowledge of vital points gave them an edge in their senior years against challenges from much younger (and generally much faster and stronger) students.

The story has it that kyusho (or at least the most dangerous points) would only be taught to an instructor’s most trusted and most senior student, his uchi deshi, generally near the end of the instructor’s life. I don’t know if this is true or not but we do have some evidence that would indicate it could be.

We know, for example, that students weren’t taught anything beyond the omote (or surface or public) techniques until they had proven themselves trustworthy. Then, they were taught the lower level okudan (secret teachings). This has been well documented. We also know that only very select students were ever taught an instructor’s most secret information or techniques or allowed to read or copy a high ranking instructor’s extremely secret and treasured copies of works like the Bubishi.

Also, I have unfortunately had a couple of black belt students over my 55 years in the martial arts whose egos, after becoming black belts, began to soar astronomically, reaching far higher than their IQs, their loyalty, or their integrity (forcing me to boot them). So I can understand the appeal of something like this as I get older. People are people and I doubt if mentally/spiritually weak people have only appeared on the scene during our time. As such, I’d image many others had similar experiences through the centuries. But what do you think?