Kicking - What's Your Angle?

**Dr. Sleepless** · Posted On: 2/03/2006 3:17am

My roundhouses vary. If they're blocking very loosely and leaving their elbows hang a little freely from their body, I'll angle straight in kind of like this dash ----> \

If they keep their arms tight agains the body and I can't got up into it, I like to kick people's forearms and hands so they can't effectively use them to block anymore. It's a good tactic with a sort of risk, but worth it. These roundhouses will usually start out and slam in. Like this ----> 7

Sidekicks are tricky, I can either go down and up or straight out. Down and up usually means that I'm using it to push them away to set them up for something else. Straight out is to stop or set up for a combonation.

Spinning heel kicks I set up with a few spinning back kicks. Throws em off and really pisses people off.

My push/front kicks are either snappy to hit someone's hand and make it less usable or to set up for a combonation of some kind. If not, then I bring my knee up to my chest and thanks to my ungodly flexibility I have the many options of going straight out and aiming for the chest, going up and hitting the face or turning it into a sidekick/roundhouse.

Those are my angles.

**Honey Badger** · Posted On: 2/03/2006 8:48am

Thinking about arcs vs. angles. I'm at work right now so I can't flesh out my thoughts fully but I'm leaving this post as a place-holder.

**Mjelva** · Posted On: 2/17/2006 1:22pm

Originally Posted by Ikken Hisatsu

feedback- youll feel it when he steps back a bit and you hit with your ankle or foot.

Ow. That **** is evil.

Anyway, I'm not much of a kicker, and what little I do tends to be lowkicks. They're pretty flat trajectory. Tried going up in an arc and then come in on a downward trajectory to the thigh, but I got countered on it all the time. Now I kick pretty flat, but twist my thigh in so it hits more or less at a downward angle. Not sure if that's smart, or even makes sense.

**PizDoff** · Posted On: 3/18/2006 12:28pm

Just wanted to randomly post this somewhere.

**VikingPower** · Posted On: 3/21/2006 11:50am

Originally Posted by Astrosmurf

Did you guys see the K1-tournament last year (Las Vegas I think) that Glaube Feitosa won. His high kicks are really nice to watch, first they come up and then cut down onto the head. Sweet.

My instructor likes teaching like that, we bend our supporting knee a little bit on impact so we get our whole bodyweight dropping into it.

The highest I can kick right now comfortably is maybe someone's shoulder so I usually just stick to low roundhouse kicks. For the inner thigh, I typically go in at an upwards angle, and for outer thigh at a downward angle. Having been hit with both, I can say it sucks a lot for both.

**ac_dropout** · Posted On: 3/21/2006 12:00pm

Depends in TKD competition kicks are 45 degrees mostly.

It really depends on how much hip rotation you're able to accomplish to turn you leg over.

**Wounded Ronin** · Posted On: 3/22/2006 5:43pm

I use only front kicks and side kicks (which come head on) and thai kicks to the thigh seriously. So it's pretty much head on all the way.

**TehDeadlyDimMak** · Posted On: 3/25/2006 8:44pm

Originally Posted by ac_dropout

Depends in TKD competition kicks are 45 degrees mostly.

It really depends on how much hip rotation you're able to accomplish to turn you leg over.

You're talking about point sparring right?

**Mneme** · Posted On: 4/04/2006 11:22am

Originally Posted by Astrosmurf

Did you guys see the K1-tournament last year (Las Vegas I think) that Glaube Feitosa won. His high kicks are really nice to watch, first they come up and then cut down onto the head. Sweet.

One of my Thai instructors prefers to kick at that angle to. Low-kicks to the lower thigh at a downward angle. He likes doing it on higher kicks to when his opponents shin-checks are a bit low: lifting his leg over the blocking knee and slamming it down on the side. Have seen him doing it in head-height against a heavy bag to (combined with dropping his supporting leg a bit to generate some extra power)

My own roundhouse kicks tend to go at a flat angle straight in, low kicks go in slightly from above, waistkicks straight in and kicks to the head (the few times I actually try that) at an upward angle (due to me not being flexible enough for anything else)