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One of the more interesting strikes we practiced and learned in Kali-Silat was an armpit strike. It is a nasty little thing where you duck past your opponent (remember that footwork thing I mentioned earlier?), and give him a short, sharp thrust to the armpit. It is surprisingly easy to hit once you practice, as the arm helps guide the blow in. There is a solid nerve cluster there, and it hurts like holy hell. It also tends to numb the arm a bit, and thus makes a follow-up disarm a lot easier.
Sounds like an odd thing until you get the history behind it. The strike was developed when fighting the Spaniards. They wore these beautiful Morion style breastplates (and Morion helms, bracers, leg guards, etc) that the Filipinos couldn't penetrate with their parangs (machete, sort of), but the Filipino fighters realized that the Spaniards wore nothing to protect their armpits. Many a Spaniard was quickly bled out by these thrusts, as that nerve cluster is also accompanied by a major artery.
I did mention that it's a bloody-minded form, right? =)
(Oh, and just to be nitpicky, Shakran said it is practiced with bamboo sticks waaay earlier in the thread. The sticks are actually rattan, MUCH better for fighting than bamboo as it does not plinter and crack like bamboo would, and has significantly more mass)
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