The Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking, and Pressing Vital Targets” by Loren W. Christensen is a book full of what some people would call dirty fighting techniques. But, as Christensen points out, all fighting is dirty. This isn’t sport, it’s fighting. It’s attacking you.

Although this book is over 270 pages, it has fewer written words than many of Christensen’s books. There are over 400 clear photographs illustrating the techniques that Christensen provides in this text. Christensen’s criteria for the techniques included in this book were that they be simple, wound, be executable within a few inches of space, give direction to the attacker, and have psychological and physical shock value.

The book is full of images of simple tear, poke, pinch, twist, and press applications. These techniques may not be the first ones that come to mind when people think of fighting. Punches, kicks, and grapples probably top most people’s lists. Well, after reading this book, you won’t think a pinch is just a pinch anymore. Christensen’s techniques include things like pinching his attacker’s eyelid and thrusting his hand back as if ripping a bandage off a wound. Or how about putting Mike Tyson in your opponents ear by biting their ear off with prejudice? Christensen advises that you break its ear like a dog breaks a rabbit, shaking its head from side to side.

These are the kinds of techniques that this book is full of. These techniques are not pretty, they are not flashy for the movie screen, but these techniques could save your life. In real fights, you don’t know what you’re going to be able to do. Often you just take what you can get and count your blessings that you were able to get it. These techniques may be the only ones you get a chance to use, and if you read this book, add the techniques to your repertoire, and practice them so you can use them when necessary, they may be just the thing to turn the tables on your attacker and provide you with the arsenal to be the victor in an otherwise drastic situation.

This book has nothing to do with sports. However, if you are interested in practical, realistic, and sometimes extremely brutal techniques for actual self-defense, this book belongs in your self-defense library. Just be sure to read it and practice what’s in it.