by Phillip Starr
Numerous martial artists claim to practice the technique in reality, beginning in the 1960s, when the term was advertised alongside the English translation "The Death Touch" by American eccentric Count Dante. In 1985, an article in the leading martial arts magazine speculated that the death of Bruce Lee in 1973 might have been caused by "a delayed reaction to a Dim-Mak strike he received several weeks prior to his collapse". Other authors have also said Lee's death may have been due to a "quivering palm technique" (alongside an article about Choy Li Fut instructor Doc Fai-Wong who said that "dim mak does actually exist and is still taught to a few select kung-fu practitioners”).
Also, during the late 1980's, an Australian named Erle Montaigue (1949–2011) published a number of books and instruction videos on dim mak with Paladin Press. Montaigue claimed to be "the first Westerner to be granted the degree of 'Master' in taijiquan ", awarded by Master Wang Xin-Wu in 1985 (in reality, there are no “degrees” of anything in taijiquan). According to Montaigue's own account, dim mak is an aspect of traditional old Yang style tajiquan, which he claims he began learning in 1978 from a master called Chiang Yiu-Chun. Montaigue stated this man was an illegal immigrant, making his existence difficult to verify. Erle subsequently claimed to have learned the remaining "qi-disruptive" forms of wudang shan from Liang Shih-Kan in 1995. This claim couldn't be verified, either. The hard truth is that NO Chinese teacher who had any knowledge of this technique would even discuss - let alone actually teach - a laowai (foreigner) anything about this subject unless they were extremely close or family members of some kind.
So does it exist or not? I believe that it does. My teacher, who had “adopted” me as a sort of a surrogate son because he never had any children, told me this. There are those who refute its existence because they've never seen it. That's akin to an inhabitant of the Amazon rain forest denying that large metal tubes with wings can actually fly because he's personally never seen such a thing... In the Chinese martial arts community, it is probably the best-kept secret along with the “poison hand.” There have been several books written on the subject (usually by people who claim to possess skill with it) but they're all just so much garbage.
The theory behind the technique is sound. There's no “magic” to it, as some seem to believe. The training for it is rather different from the norm and it requires some considerable time to acquire enough skill to make it effective. As in the arts of “kyusho” (Japanese, the art of striking special nerve points), one must not only know the points, but also develop a special kind of striking power that is different from the types of power that are normally applied.
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