Effectiveness of fast and continuous attack?

Question

Let's say, if I am mostly untrained (with strength below-average) and I have a hypothetical strategy involving delivering fast and continuous attacks to the vital (weak) points of the body (not 100% effective, and includes a few accidental useless strikes / slaps), used in a self-defense situation.

Is it likely that the opponent will become temporary baffled so that I can have the chance of delivering a few injury-inducing critical blows among the partly-effective strikes, given that the opponent has no realistic sparring / combat experience? Some resources say it is possible that this strategy will work by forcing the opponent to continuously bounce between the Observe and Orientation phase of the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), and therefore unable to proceed. In other words, this raises a psychological barrier, temporarily preventing the opponent from using his physical advantages.

And if this does not work, are there other tactics that might partially compensate for the inability of delivering completely effective strikes caused by lack of training and strength?

Answer 1

This is unlikely to be successful.

Most vital areas (which in my mind are literally the same as vital points/kyusho) are really hard to hit. You don't need strength to hit them but you do need good technique and that only comes through training.

Let's be absolutely clear about the parts of the body we are talking about though.

There's the eyes, the neck, the jaw the solar plexus, the liver and kidneys (floating rib area) the groin the thighs and the knees. These all need to be attacked in slightly different ways and at different angles. You can't just flail wildly and expect to hit one of them effectively.

Most people can't even throw a punch safely without training. What you're suggesting is a step beyond that, you want to punch quickly and hit some part of a person accurately enough to do them damage.

Quick attacks are hard to pull off. Again it requires training. Accurate attacks are also hard to pull off for the same reason.

In Shorinji Kempo

(a martial art I practise that specialises in hitting vital areas) We talk about the five elements of atemi (hitting a body)

These are:

1. Target (the part of the body you are going to hit)
2. Angle (some points eg floating ribs and solar plexus only work if you hit them at say and upwards angle)
3. Speed (as fast as possible)
4. Distance (punches and other strikes have very limited range as they have a minimum and a maximum range)
5. Kyo-Jitsu (This one is a bit hard to explain but basically you need a good punching structure in your stance and a way to get past opponent's dodges and blocks)

Other martial arts have slightly different ways of looking at this, but what I am trying to explain is that even from a vital point/vital areas perspective you still need a good physical technique.