Beginning Leg Kicks: A Pictorial

[MrGalt]

So I spent 14 years doing krotty, TKD, ke?po, and other above-the-belt tappiness before I found Seidokaikan where we spar according to Kyokushin rules. As a result I have very little concept of throwing low kicks as a worthwhile strike. For me I throw maybe three or four in a two minute round, and they're almost a trick. One of the reasons I'm shy about doing it is it seems like it hurts me worse than it could possibly hurt my opponent. Here is the result of one of probably the first five low roundhouse kicks I ever threw full contact:


Of course since I spent so much time with no awareness of the existence of low kicks I didn't have a great idea of how to defend against them when I started. This color is brought to you by a guy they call "leg kick monster" at my dojo. I'm not convinced that blocking his kicks with my shin would feel much better than getting hit by them, but apparently the choice wasn't mine anyway:




Oh, and just to show that I'm probably not as good as I think above the belt either:


I am beginning to think that if I had just walked in off the street with no prior MA training that I'd be better at defending my legs just because I wouldn't have 14 years of bad habits to try to compensate for.

At the moment my biggest problem is that after eating so many people's kneecaps with my shins I'm really hesitant to throw a kick that I know I'm going to come out on the losing end of. That hesitation slows me down just enough that I get blocked every single time.

So for those of you who have been doing leg kicks longer than I have, is this a common problem? If it is, what is the solution? Do I try to condition my shins on the heavy bag (which would mean time off to let them heal first I think) so that I can just sling my leg whenever I feel like it without fear? Do I learn to spot openings better? Do I give up and try to box my opponents? Oatz and Squatz until my legs are big enough nobody wants to bother with kicking them?

[vile_zoidberg]

DISCLAIMER: All of your photos were blocked by work; I may be missing a critical piece. So I'll focus on the last paragraph.

First off, heavy bag work should be a part of everyone's routine, and provides an excellent way to focus on specific techniques when partnerless. Simply working more kicks in your workout will get you used to the impact.

Live sparring is the best way to refine your technique; when you throw anything with the intent to hit, MAKE SURE YOU ARE GOING TO HIT WITH AUTHORITY. I'm not talking about pawing jabs or teeps, but if you are throwing something to hit, commit to it fully. Don't worry about their checking the kick; if you timed it properly, it should be a non-issue. The best way to get better timing/opening? Sparring.

For myself, I like to start a match with higher kicks, usually rib-seeking roundhouses. Yes, I can usually hit, but it's more for the long term plan of getting the opponent to expect those strikes. After a handful of rib shots, I like to go for the legs, alternating with front and rear leg kick and using my hands as a distance creator after the kick.

How are you throwing the leg kicks? If you use the tappy TKD method, don't expect them to respect your kicks. Hips and toe pivot should be providing the awesomeness.

As far as getting meaty thighs, it can't hurt, I guess. All of the males in my clan have freakishly thick legs from birth (I think it's due to mountain breeding), so I have no comparitive experience between skinny/normal thighs to monster varieties. I do know a well placed kick will still numb my leg and make me cry.

[MrGalt]

For myself, I like to start a match with higher kicks, usually rib-seeking roundhouses. Yes, I can usually hit, but it's more for the long term plan of getting the opponent to expect those strikes. After a handful of rib shots, I like to go for the legs, alternating with front and rear leg kick and using my hands as a distance creator after the kick.

How are you throwing the leg kicks? If you use the tappy TKD method, don't expect them to respect your kicks. Hips and toe pivot should be providing the awesomeness.

The pics were more for entertainment value than anything. If you want to see a leg that looks like it got hit by a fastball then wait and see otherwise you aren't missing anything.

One problem for me is the way we do class (kihon for 20 minutes, sparring drills for the other 70) is a lot of times we'll have wacky rulesets like, "Each of you choose one kick and one punch. Tell your partner and that's what you got. Two minutes. Go!" Even if it's not that crazy we routinely spar the first half hour with just low kicks and then add middle kicks and finally high kicks, which means most of the kicks I was good at in krotty are verboten for most of the night.

And no, I'm not going with tappy TKD style kicks. The first six months of grueling kihon and analysis by Nakamoto Naoki (the system's chairman behind Ishii and an infuriating perfectionist) killed any temptation I might have had to snap from the knee or plant my supporting leg, among other things. My high kicks get respect, at least verbally. I just have no game below the belt. Maybe that wasn't the best way to say it.

Thanks for a serious response though. Your idea of starting high, then going low will probably serve me well in situations where that is an option.

[kwan_dao]

Judging from the marks on your first picture I would say you have the distance/hitting area wrong on your roundhouses and lowkicks. A problem I hurtfully encountered when changing to MT training after years of TKD as well.

If you run your fingers downwards along your shin to the foot, you should feel that the region where those bruises are is soft and has a lot of tendons/bloodvessels going through right beneath the skin.

Simply put: Try to hit with the bone above. Not with your squishy parts. The magic recipe is to hit your opponents muscles (or other soft areas) with your shinbone. "Try to cut right through" as my teacher put it once.

[Kambei Shimada]

Just from looking at the photos it appears that you are striking with the wrong part of your shin.

If you can find time to post a video of your low kicks I'm sure there's plenty of people on here that can give you some help with improving your technique.

[MrGalt]

Judging from the marks on your first picture I would say you have the distance/hitting area wrong on your roundhouses and lowkicks. A problem I hurtfully encountered when changing to MT training after years of TKD as well.

If you run your fingers downwards along your shin to the foot, you should feel that the region where those bruises are is soft and has a lot of tendons/bloodvessels going through right beneath the skin.

Simply put: Try to hit with the bone above. Not with your squishy parts. The magic recipe is to hit your opponents muscles (or other soft areas) with your shinbone. "Try to cut right through" as my teacher put it once.

Thanks. That part is something I have been working on a little. The ankle actually a result of trying an INSTEP kick to the leg and getting blocked. I'm not quite that bad anymore I think. I also went through a short phase when the skin over my tibia was bruised enough I over-rotated my hip until I was kicking with my fibula. That wasn't a very photogenic injury but the outside of my right shin sort of felt like rotten fruit for about three weeks.

[vile_zoidberg]

Ooooh, you just reminded me of my early retraining of kicks, and my first few attempts at balls-to-the-wall kicking with my instep. Not pretty.

[JP]

So for those of you who have been doing leg kicks longer than I have, is this a common problem? If it is, what is the solution? Do I try to condition my shins on the heavy bag (which would mean time off to let them heal first I think) so that I can just sling my leg whenever I feel like it without fear? Do I learn to spot openings better? Do I give up and try to box my opponents? Oatz and Squatz until my legs are big enough nobody wants to bother with kicking them?

You're not doing that badly. Give it a few months and you won't bruise as much anymore.

Kick the low part of the heavy bag a lot. If your shins are really fucked up and you still want to train, ask your coach if you can wear a thin, padded shin guard until the worst of the bruises heal.

Unless you think the other guys in the gym are going to clown you for this.

Then, after every session where you've had your shins battered, take some tiger balm and arnica gel and rub those bruises out. Yes, this is going to hurt like a sonuvabitch. But it will shorten the healing time. Particularly if you sprout a knot.

The size of your legs are not going to deter leg-kicks.

As for your request on what you should do technically, the best I can answer is yes to all of your questions above. It's going to take time and eventually if you stick it out you're going to get better at it.

But somebody who's a better Thai boxer than I should probably chime in here with specific techniques.

[MrGalt]

The size of your legs are not going to deter leg-kicks.

Man, everybody's going to rag on me for the oatz and squatz comment. I should be mostly saddened that nobody caught the reference, which makes me the biggest geek.

Thanks for the Tiger Balm suggestion. I might try it out, although I'll have to wait until I get back to the US to find it maybe.

I get enough questions when I put a mouthpiece in. I don't want to add more padding. Standard issue for students is that light maybe 1/2" cotton shinpad and matching kneepads you see in the catalogs for like 8 bucks, so that's the kind of bruises I get WITH pads already.

There are already a bunch of guys who add little requests for their partners, so I don't want to be that guy. I had some little guy about two weeks ago who had a sprained finger so he didn't want me to throw high kicks because he couldn't block them, so I said okay, and he started throwing high kicks at me that I had agreed not to answer, then when I hit him with a round kick to the leg he stopped and asked me not to kick him there because it was a "weak point" (the only English in the exchange). Of course he threw all the leg kicks he wanted. Long story short, I don't want to annoy anybody else. If I'm not in shape to spar, I would rather stay home or go do some roadwork or something I CAN do instead.

[Torakaka]

Your problem, besides having poor kicking technique, is that you're not kicking strategically. When you kick, you should be within range to land your jab and your kicks should be masked by something you do or something they do (like kicking as they cover up, kicking as they take a step). If your kicks are getting checked a lot or your kicking people's knees, you simply aren't kicking at the proper moments. Throw a leg kick when you know it's going to land flush.

As far as defending leg kicks goes, make sure your legs are decently wide (if your opponent is looking between your legs, they should see plenty of daylight) with your knee always ready to be facing out wards. If your legs are in a good, mobile stance then you should be able to quickly and easily lift the leg to shin block (always with the shin facing out, never forward) or step it back and out of the way (which is something you want to try to do as much as you can to avoid excessive damage to your shin) and counter kick. Another good defensive technique against leg kickers is counter push kick as they throw the kick (either to the hip or upper body) or if you have really good timing and know how to follow through really well on your kicks, cut kick to the supporting leg. If you can get close, a shove to the shoulders or a stiff jab can take them off their feet pretty well.

[MrGalt]

Your problem, besides having poor kicking technique...

That's the candor I've come to expect from years of seeing your posts. Really cool tips. I had some luck with the inside cut kick tonight (the timing, not the followthrough), but it also meant that I still got a little of the other guy's low kick right across the bruise I already didn't want to get hit on.

That's another bad habit I'm trying to get away from; "no sweeps to the supporting leg." I catch enough of my own to get an idea that the deadly knee kick I learned in krotty frankly isn't, but I still have that feeling that I'm breaking the rules somehow if I do it.

[Torakaka]

You could always try cut kick to the outside of the leg, ala Kat Johnson

[MrGalt]

You could always try cut kick to the outside of the leg, ala Kat Johnson

I guess it's true nobody can raise a knee in my path if it's the only leg he's standing on.

[JohnnyCache]

with a proper shin check, the muscle on the outside of your shin is tense and and your thigh and his shin, seen from above, would form an angle other than right. you'll pick up leg checking without actually knocking shins after a while. The key is to do a leg check that actively meets the kick so you have some shock absorbency via the motion, vs getting set in the shield position and absorbing the force in a static position. also, don't meet his striking surface if you can help it - rob the strike by making leg-to-leg contact closer to his knee.

[honest_truth]

here is my $0.02

I too, used to be a krotty kid, and even reached brown belt with shotokan tappy flappy point sparring kicks. and then started MT and limped home everyday.

1st of all, you will limp for quite a while, your shins are still very sensitive, kick the banana bags a lot, i mean A LOT, and when you kick them, try to push and follow through with it, makes it much more painful than simply snapping your leg back after you are done, but also ups your power with the kick so you get +1 respect for it.

then start kicking the lower/lowest part of the heavy bag, the one that feels like solid rock, rib/thigh level is soft, shin/ankle level makes me cry.

try the driving kick too, while hitting the bag, because with it you are kicking with the middle of your shin instead of the lower part or instep, and this conditions your shins even more so you can block kicks, incase you arent sure what i mean by a MT driving kick, and i hope bullshido banmasters and gods forgive me for this, try Donnie B. , he is tries to sound like he is special, but thats the quickest explanation i can give.

YouTube - Donnie B. - Muay Thai Driving Kick

another thing we do on fridays, called body conditioning and pain tolerance day, is stand still with our hands on our heads, and get kicked in the thigh and ribs for 2 or 3 minutes, the more you get kicked, the less it hurts, try slow, amp up, we also do knees to the solar, and those hurt like a motherfucker.

as for sparring, practicing your defense will come with time as you develop the reflexes and your shins toughen up, as for offensive strikes, when you kick, either kick rib level so shin blocks dont kill you to much, or kick ankle /calf level, you cant get knee spiked from this. but throw it with power to try and sweep/off-balance the leg and quickly follow with a 1-2, you can try these with the instep

thigh level kick are awesome possum, if they dont get checked, so dont just throw them from a distance, do a 1-2 and then STEP IN and do something similar to a driving kick, a bad habbit from my krotty days is foot kicking, when i kick with the instep i miss or hit my toes, when i try to shin kick i hit with my instep, when i drive through with the kick as if kneeing them horizontally and whip my leg



Oh yeah baby, its awesome.

a big phobia of mine was using the kicks from a distance only, however i found out to land heavy kicks and get RESPEK, you should be within arms reach to get them in the thigh with the middle of your shin, so try to 1-2 and then stepping in to kick, or keep your cross hand, and push them backwards while you drive into them.

i also find its easier to check kicks if your heel is off the ground, in a traditional MT stance, its hard to check a kick with your foot firmly planted and your weight is on it. and sometimes i teep or stomp on the thigh (ideally knee, but dont want to seriously harm the guys i train with), if you can catch them when their leg is in the air trying to kick, you get to see a variant of chicken dancing on ice, really takes the power and balance off your opponent.

some guys rub vaseline or tiger balm, rub rub rub, rub rub rub, and then use a wooden stick to roll over and press the bumps. but this gets mixed reaction from some people, dunno.

this is my $0.02, if you can get KidSpatula on this, she probably has better advice.