Essential Anatomy: For Healing and Martial Arts Paperback – April 4, 2000

very important information for anyone who is interested in their health and knowing the opponents weaknesses when having to overcome a miscreant.

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.

Thank you

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.

The charts presented in this book are very clear. They are nice and large, color-coded, very easy to see. And there are lots of them in both simpler and more complex layouts. For those concerned about whether the martial applications discussed in the book are valid or not, that section of the book is very short and whether you like that section or not, it doesn't detract at all from the value of the many, many large and clear charts that are presented throughout the rest of the book. Nicely done.

Excellent resource for pressure point fighting and… healing. This book consists of both Western Style Medicine's Anatomy and Eastern Medicine's Anatomy ( acupuncture/acupressure points) and explanations. I was delighted when I found the two in this one, concise yet comprehensive book.

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

Really just a point reference book and not much about martial arts. Good reference book on acupuncture points although better off with the Chris Jarmey.'Practical Guide to Acu-points'.

For someone who is heavily involved in the martial arts this book comes highly recommended in those circles. Therefore there was a need to own a personal copy of it.

This books informs well about healing and peoples`s anatomy and diagrams of the body's internal systems and explain ll the accup points.

Brilliant book