There are points on a man that, if poked, kill. There are energies that, if harnessed, turn any dainty kitty cat slap into a murder weapon. You are about to learn the secrets of Dim-Mak, a technique known only to ancient tai chi warriors, any acupuncture hobbyist, and everyone who saw the international smash hit Bloodsport. We’re watching Secrets of Dim-Mak: An Instructional Video with Erle Montaigue, shown here and here respectively:
Secrets of Dim-Mak was produced in 1994 by Paladin Press, who made knife fighting books and ninja videos exclusively for maniacs. Most people know them as the publisher who got in trouble for selling a contract killing instruction manual someone fucking used. So if you were wondering who would be irresponsible enough to publish information on how to end any life with a single touch, yes, it was actual murderers. I’m not as careless, though. I’ve encoded all this article’s potentially dangerous gifs so they can only be viewed by licensed holders of a Death Touch Security Card. To get one for yourself, simply press CTRL-P now on any IBM-compatible PC.
Secrets of Dim-Mak: An Instructional Video starts with a threat more dire than any FBI warning. Not only will the strikes in this video kill your heart, brain, and life, they might do it years from now from seemingly unrelated events. It didn’t say “check with your physician before beginning this or any light exercise program,” it said “all you touch will forever be haunted by the specter of our death.” Readers, please whisper the activation command to your Death Touch Security Card now.
The warning also wants to make it clear that this video, Secrets of Dim-Mak: An Instructional Video, is not an instructional video. It’s up to you to seek out proper Dim-Mak instructors beyond this realm at your local time lost temple. I mean, yes, you might infect your training partners with time bombs of death energy. But on the other hand, don’t be ridiculous, future attorneys. This is more like a public service announcement for finding wizards. Speaking of, gently swat your Death Touch Security Card to meet the instructor who will not be instructing us.
The narrator tells us “Erle Montaigue was awarded the degree of master in 1985 at the All-China National Warshu Tournament. He is one of the very few westerners who have received such an honor.” It’s quite impressive, but even after I corrected it for spelling, this tournament and honor seem to only exist in references to Erle Montaigue books. I’m not saying he’s a liar, I’m just saying it’d be a weird combination of personality traits if this man could kill you with death touch energy and was also honest about his achievements.
He begins by explaining, “Dim-Mak means death point striking. Literally.” It is the art of hitting points along the acupuncture meridians. He clarifies, “It’s not a magical, mystical thing. It’s not a thing where you touch them and they die five years later, it’s not that.” Yes it fucking is, Erle! Your own warning just warned us that’s exactly what this is, Erle! God damn it, what a betrayal. Place your Death Touch Security Card between your toes and axe kick through a human skull to see Erle mock us for ever thinking his Oriental energy powers were “magical.”
The first chapter of the video is about locating the Dim-Mak points. He is adamant this is not mumbo jumbo. These aren’t mystical techniques. For instance, one of the points is just the carotid artery, and, I mean, sure. If you have an enemy, go ahead and hit them in that.
Another non-magical point known to all of Western science is called Stomach 9, somewhere above the carotid sinus. This spot is in charge of stopping your heart when it gets hit by a karate chop, which is awesome, but Erle is about to disappoint us again. He’s not going to do knockouts today. “Not even light knockouts,” he adds. So he’s sharing the secret of punching a man in the neck until he passes out, assures you it’s not as impossible as it sounds, and then decides against showing us. But I guess he thinks better of this and says, “I don’t want to hurt my students, so I’m going to cause a partial knockout.” I’m so lost. Erle thinks unconsciousness is a wide spectrum of neck trauma, and we are all using the same measurement system. So quick, before he suffers a scantily to piecemeal knockout, let’s meet his assistant. Locate the groin on your Death Touch Security Card and panther strike it now:
Michael Babin is a credulous Canadian man without the deception skills to pull off even the most partial of knockout. “Argh, the unthinkable pain,” he overacts as Erle thwaps and slaps him. He’s performing like he thinks this is a kid’s show. He stands there making Cosby faces while Erle fiddles around on his neck to find his murder points. At one point Erle finds a little bump he likes and tells us, and I quote, “This point right here? You could die up to seven years later from internal carotid artery disintegration. You die from a stroke seven years later no one relates it back to when you were struck on the neck through some idiot striking you.” So what the shit is it, Erle!? Is this actual science or a karate bomb set to go off only after an enemy’s second wife has given them a child old enough to vow revenge? Is that what you think science is, Erle? Because that rules.
I’m sure this sounds easy so far, and it is, but there’s a little bit more to it. Readers, please turn around to find your Death Touch Security Card has somehow circled behind you.
The key to ending a man neck-first is in the wrist, but not your wrist– his wrist. There are two points on the wrist called Heart 5 and Lung 8, and you need to erotically tug these at the same time you stroke their carotid sinus nerve. The wrist is encircled by “energy drainage points” because, again, none of this is magic. Any traditional medical doctor could tell you this, seven years after you ask them, when your bowels explode without explanation.
When done right, this removes all of the energy a human body would have used to not stop its own heart after the off-button on its neck was massaged. You get it. Erle does it on Mike and bam: DEAD. Lightly, partially DEAD. Merge souls with your Death Touch Security Card to witness it!
Erle shows a few other moves like the Triple Warmer 23, which is a chop to the eyeball. He only does it once because he “doesn’t want Mike in a spasmodic state.” It’s thoughtful, but unnecessary. Mike is a fully grown Half-Grimace whose neck would win a fight against any of Erle’s fingers. He genuinely almost flattens Erle during several random lumberings. Despite this, he restores Mike’s power after every blow with his, once again, very scientific healing powers. They never even mention these; they figure you already know a man who can kill with acupuncture could obviously unkill with mime. Partially knock out your Death Touch Security Card then feed it your healing energy now:
After doing both to him (partially), Erle lets Mike explain the difference between getting energy-drain knocked out versus knocked the fuck out. He doesn’t seem ready for this and improvises something about how one of them hurts and the other doesn’t. So save the eyeball chops for someone who deserves suffering and the neck chops for a loved one having trouble sleeping. But it really doesn’t matter. If you fuck something up, the district attorney seven years from now will never be able to pin it on you.
There’s been a lot of talk of science so far in the video, and here is more. Erle has a theory on brains. He says, “We thought we had one brain. We now know, science now tells us, that we have three brains up there.” The first one is the human one, Human Brain, like you’d expect. The second one is Reptile. As Erle explains, God thought “let’s try out this brain,” and added Human Brain to the Reptile Brain, so now there are two brains in there. I apologize for the scientific jargon. These concepts are easier to explain in their original Reptile.
I’m going to paraphrase, but I promise to be faithful to Erle’s description. The Reptile Brain doesn’t see well, and it’s like a crocodile eating. One minute he’s not, the next minute he is. A snake knows when something is coming to hurt it. He doesn’t think, “Here comes John.” He doesn’t think, “I’m going to do a leg sweep and then follow up with a pressure point strike.” No, they simply kill, then go back to what they were doing. For five minutes he describes “adrenaline” for any glandless viewers born yesterday. It’s, you know, similar to how dogs had their dog brains put on top of their reptile brains. I know this all sounds very smart, but you should also know Erle forgets to tell us what the third brain is. He might have no goddamn idea what he’s talking about. But if that were true, how would you explain this? Death Touch Security Card, master control remote command: “SHOW UNTHINKABLY HILARIOUS FIGHTING TECHNIQUE.”
Erle asks Mike to punch him and gets the most generous punches from the most generous scene partner. He gently paws at him between naps, and with the fury of a fucking idiot, Erle blocks each one with a short story told in nautical hand signals. I’m not saying this wouldn’t work, I’m saying a TikTok dance done from a car is better self defense. This is how the slowest bluebird would dress Cinderella for the ball if she was a grizzly bear. Erle blocks one of Mike’s punches with a double grab arm throw, puts it three different places, uses it as a jump rope, and gives his tummy a backhand slap. If you showed this choreography to Steven Seagal, he’d say, “I don’t get what the joke is; this move only needs a comfortable chair and two birthday cakes to be perfect.”
Furiously lunge at your Death Touch Security Card to reveal this clip of advanced Reptile Defense:
What Erle says this demonstrates is how fighting is not about technique. It’s about suddenly harnessing Reptile, the part of your brain which is not Human or the Third One he forgot to tell us about. He has very literally developed a martial art for guys who might not know any of that karate shit, but could win any fight by going crazy. He thinks if you do this right, you’ll become such an animal you’ll kill your opponent and walk off unaware of what you’ve done, like the snake he mentioned earlier who ate John. So I guess this is closer to werewolf karate than pressure point karate. Readers, force your Death Touch Security Card into the belly of a dogcatcher and out his mouth now:
Now that we know where on the neck to poke, where on the wrist to tug to make that poke work, and how to go nuts and let your primal instincts do something totally different, it’s time to learn Fa-Jing, the art of using death touching as self defense. Which, yes, sort of implies we’ve been the instigator so far in this video about blacking out and killing without remorse. Ask your Death Touch Security Card if it cares… now:
Erle liquifies the heart of Mike using a scientific energy bolt he never demonstrates or mentions again. As you can see, it’s so powerful Mike is reeling in agony before Erle has even started to conjure it. For historical context, this came out 17 years after Star Wars, so nerds had given us plenty of data on how well these techniques worked. And according to police reports, despite all these attempts, there were still only 817,989 deaths related to The Force. So you can train all you want– there’s still only an 11% chance of you being a Jedi. And there is absolutely no fucking way anyone bought Secrets of Dim-Mak: An Instructional Video before first testing to see if they were a Jedi.
The video is 90 minutes long, but you’ve already seen all of it. Erle never moves on from his main three moves: Neck Chop with Wrist Masturbation, Eyeball Slap, and Dissociative Episode. He adds fun details like how poking the right part of a neck will make CPR impossible. He shares the forbidden secret of how tai chi is a 3000-year-old scheme to hide the deadly strikes of Dim-Mak in plain sight. He advises his female students to wait until deep into a kidnapping before throwing a palm strike because that’s when they’ll least expect it. It’s everything you could want from a death touch instructional video, though explicitly not an instructional one. Which means the rest of the article is only going to be Mike getting dominated by sorcery. Violently will your Death Touch Security Card to show you!
Feel the fury of an accidental tiger claw, Mike! We can fix this in editing, Mike! Readers, swallow your Death Touch Security Card and let it display the next clip directly inside your mind:
This is some real insider knowledge here, but boxers and martial artists often train with padded “mitts” designed for catching “punches.” They work great! Children hold them. People who know Mike Tyson hold them. AND YET WHAT PADDING CAN PROTECT FROM THE IMPACT OF THE DIM-MAK!? “Oh jeez, that’s a whole lot of unexplainable death power,” says Mike as his elbow ligaments unravel. Fuck your brave but inadequate arm, Mike!
Readers, digest and pass your Death Touch Security Card and look into it now:
In this clip, Erle shows how even the most oafish, immovable head can be controlled using the poking of pressure points. “Enough of this, I’ll kill you,” paws Mike clumsily. “FURIOUS REPTILE BLOCK,” argues Erle! Better luck next time, Mike!
Death Touch Security Card, Mike needs a win. Show us Mike’s Immovable Dick Technique:
I’m not sure what happened here. Secrets of Dim-Mak: An Instructional Video sometimes takes its job as NOT an instructional video too seriously. Shriek with reptile rage into your Death Touch Security Card to put Mike out of his misery.
The video ends with a slow motion sequence where Erle, using the footwork of a squirrel experts agree will never tapdance, barely holds off a series of friendly handshakes. I have spent over 6000 hours in beginner’s cardio kickboxing and I didn’t know it was possible to be this bad at martial arts. You could glance at this while failing your yellow belt test and see it sucks. If your five-year-old showed you these moves, you would buy them a tiny coffin for their first fist fight. If Steven Seagal saw this even he would say, “Very good. And they should be– I trained these Army Seals myself.”
With sincerity in your heart, thank your Death Touch Security Card in order to see one last moment of weirdness from the video’s credits.
An all new guy walks in during the last five seconds to let Erle bash him on the arm. Erle then explains how bashing hurts more if your arm isn’t so stiff and gives him a final, limp-armed bash. Enduring the pain, the man looks straight into camera and declares, “MUCH MORE PENETRATION.” Then he gives a little thumbs up and an even littler little karate bow. It’s impossible to know who he is, what happened to Mike, or why they waited until these final moments for such an important arm-bashing tip, but it’s how I’m going to end everything from now on. Much more penetration. 👍. Little karate bow.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Michael Lehr, who suffered a weird handshake seven years ago and will rest in peace… NOW.