Essential Anatomy: For Healing and Martial Arts

This book is hands down the best reference book I've found for Eastern energetic theory that's not a straight up acupuncture school text. The title has been called misleading...considering that it's called "Essential ANATOMY..." I think it's pretty straightforward. It is an excellent resource for why certain pressure points work and their local Eastern and Western anatomy. It has excellent comparisons between Eastern and Western thought and theory. It is not a book of martial arts techniques. Tedeschi has plenty of those, and this one is a cross-reference, not a direct technical manual. So if you're at all interested in "meta-martial arts", this book is amazing; if you're looking to actively learn new strikes or blocks or anything like that, better go with one of his other books (the "Art of..." series seems to be good, although I don't have any of them myself.)

This book is a rare gem! Interestingly, as a black belt myself, I have known of Mark Tedeschi through the martial arts circuits. Little did I realize that he had put together such a wonderful book about healing, also. Perhaps most people don't think of black belts as being healers, but I've always believed that black belts have an obligation to give back to their communities. I have not personally participated in any dramatic, life-saving emergencies, but I have used many of the ideas and concepts provided in this book to help and assist others with a variety of small injuries. I'm hoping to expand my awareness of these important Oriental concepts with this book to assist more people as often as I can.

This book is simple, clear, concise and easy to carry. It outlines the basics of channels and points and adds some different elements in that help shape it into a great eclectic reference

My son loves this book!

If you study pressure point defense, and have a good understanding this book is a great add on. If you are a beginner wait till you have a good basic understanding or you’ll be lost.

This is a wonderful book: it has many helpful and beautiful illustrations for both Western and Eastern perspective, is to the point and without new-agey posturing and chest-thumping that is so endemic in the discussion of Internal Martial Arts. The book is at exactly the right level for people like me: semi-serious Bagua Zhang practitioners with a lay interest in TCM. Tedeschi also gives personal insights and experience as a martial artist, but this is done quietly and unassumingly. You will return to this book often.....

Has everything for the martial artist relating anatomy. Basically one stop shopping. Great photos and info. Well done. If your a martial artist looking for one book to get regarding the human body that you do not have to have a medical degree to read then this is it. Also Bruce Everett Miller has a booklet titled the Essential Anatomy for Martial Artist which I recomend highly.

I have not started to read the book yet, but from what I've leafed through I really liked it.

Gutes Lehrbuch für Kyusho Anwendungen und für das Training. Die Vitalpunkte werden übersichtlich dargestellt. Alles bestens

Il libro è come me lo aspettavo, anche se speravo che la parte del kyusho fosse un po' più ampia, ma non importa, la parte figurativa è già buona per le mie modeste valutazioni.

The information given is concise and comprehensive. However, a simultaneous comparative description would make it easy for the readers. Book is intact without any damage. Prompt delivery ang good customer service.

This is a paperback, quite glossy, 143 pages. and sets out to cover the elements of anatomy that we need in MA and also healing (shiatsu, accupressure, accuncture, etc.). 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

Schön gestaltet und von guter Qualität. Auch der Inhalt ist sehr ausführlich zu den einzelnen Accupoints. Leider ist der Bereich "Anwendung" etwas zu kurz geraten.