Question for MAs that use kicks!

[J-kid]

Hello Fellow Martial artist , I am planning to become a ufc fighter when i grow fully up, as some of you already know from some of my other threads.

My question
I need to join a MA that has practical Kicks that i could use. my kicking is my weak point in fighting at the moment and need to join a art on the side that helps with that. WHAT MARTIAL art SHOULD I choose , More of a self defense kicking.

If you could help that would be great all i ask is 2 reasons why your art is good for kicking. P.S. there are no kick boxing schools near by but there is every other MA. Give me your input.

YOUR FRIEND Judo-KID

 

[arnisador]

Muay Thai is the obvious choice (and they consider themselves 'not kickboxing'). The kicks are powerful and ring-tested. There are many variants or very similar arts--Bando, Yaw Yan, etc. Savate/Boxe Francaise also has ring-tested, boxing-friendly kicks.

 

[AvPKenpo]

Kicking: you don't have to kick above the waist. If you kick above the waist only go as high as the floating ribs. Keep your kicks low, you will find if you do this you will have a better range. If you try to kick a person in the head you have to be closer to him than if you had of kicked him in the lower ribs, groin or knees. Remember kicks don't have to be kicks they can also act as checks, or pushes to keep your oppenent away, so you can buy time or to set up for a follow up combination.

Michael

 

[lvwhitebir]

My philosophy is, any time I want to learn something, go to the people that do it the best. If you want to learn how to kick, then you go to the kickers, Tae Kwon Do. Although I don't personally like the entire art, they do have a wide variety of kicks that they teach. Learn what you can from then, and learn what works for you. You may be able to set up a roundhouse kick that will knock teeth out, or an axe kick that will knock 'em to the mat! You'll never know until you try.

For the ring, especially MMA matches, I would kick low. But, kicking to the head can be useful (think about Bill Wallace's roundhouse kicks) and if you get *very* good at a few different kicks, you can work them into almost any situation (think about Joe Lewis' side kicks).

WhiteBirch

 

[tonbo]

I gotta throw my vote in with AvPKenpo. You don't *need* to kick above the waist to be really effective. High kicks are nice and can be very devastating, but so can a groin shot or lower leg shots.

Say you want to kick someone in the head. Shoot a good front kick to the groin, and guess what? The head comes down measurably! Now you can still kick at roughly waist level and get a head shot in without exposing your own jewels for attack.

Also, you can see the effectiveness of lower leg kicks in Muay Thai, Savate, and even Vale Tudo. Essentially, you knock out the person's base, and it will be pretty hard for them to be mounting much of an offense. Trust me, last night in sparring, I found myself blocking with my shins a lot. By the end of the night, I was very wary of lifting my legs up--each new bash just added to the circus of pain I was feeling. Take out the calf muscles, and you just add to the fun...

I would recommend Muay Thai for kicks, as well as Savate (French kickboxing), Vale Tudo, and TKD. All have good things to offer. However, if you are not going to concentrate on kicks, I would work on getting some of the simpler kicks (front kick, roundhouse, side kick) down, and being able to use those from any angle possible.

Once again, just my 2 yen worth......your mileage may vary....

Peace--

 

[Danny]

I'd go to a good TKD instructor amd ask them to teach you how to kick.

And I'm not going into the high kick debate again except to say that you don't NEED to know any particular technic, but you'll wish you did when the other guy DQ's himself with a technic you'd never have though of.

 

[hand2handCombat]

arnsiador, im glad that you mentioned that Muay Thai is NOT kickboxing.

Judo-Kid, you want a great art with power kicks, Muay Thai is soo damn good. it toughens your shins and by 2months, you'll be breakin ribs with 2 kicks(exaggeration). yesterday, at my muay thai class, i held a pad for a fellow classmate, sh*t, when he kicked the pads.....there was sooo much power that i felt my arm was going to break.

 

[Danny]

You need two kicks to break ribs?

 

[arnisador]

Originally posted by hand2handCombat

i held a pad for a fellow classmate, sh*t, when he kicked the pads.....there was sooo much power that i felt my arm was going to break.

I've been there (in JKD). I thought he was going to break some ribs, through the pad.

 

[Eraser]

Hey there...


Well, I would recommend either TKD or Hapkido, there are lots of different styles of kicks in either of those styles...
Now im not knocking Muay Thai, Ive just seen enough video of guys Snapping their legs in half over a hard kick... it was cool.. but looked very painful!! OUCh!!

 

[white dragon]

I'd suggest getting your lead leg side kick down to a fine art, it can be used as a defensive kick and can aimed at any height on the body and be effective. Also I'd suggest learning jump front kicks and jump sidekicks, I say this simply because I've been up against BJJ people who all used the same technique to try and get me to the floor, namily diving at my waist, which I've seen people use effectively on UFC tapes. I found that I could jump backwards kicking and catch them in the face or on the head every time. I knocked one guy out doing a jump front kick, he was faster than I expected and he actually smacked into my knee as I extended the leg. He dropped like a brick

I would just like to say that these guys were all from the same club, and none of us had been training an amazingly long amount of time, so please don't take this as my opinon of how every BJJ guy is going to act or how to defend. I have VERY high opinions of BJJ fighters overall and want to make clear I'm not saying anything bad about the art in anyway. did that cover my ****?

 

[Shinzu]

like TKD, tang soo do is also a very powerful leg using art. it required alot of kicking techiques and strengthening stances.

 

[sweeper]

http://www.nwkali.com/

that's in federal way, close enough to kent for ya?

I don't know the school or the instructor, but he teaches both mauy thai and JKD and those are my top two picks, JKD kicks might not work out because some of it assumes you are wearing shoes, maybe 33% - 50% wouldn't be all to great without shoes.

Mauy Thai has had alot of votes so I don't realy nead to go into it all to much

JKD uses ALOT of lowline kicks, for street fighting I would recamend JKD just because alot of the kicking assumes you have shoes so you kick diffrent to take advantage of that, side kicks and stomps are real popular in JKD.

 

[hand2handCombat]

Now im not knocking Muay Thai, Ive just seen enough video of guys Snapping their legs in half over a hard kick... it was cool.. but looked very painful!! OUCh!!

ive seen one of those too, when i was eating. ALMOST BARFED.

pproves that muay thai kicked are hard BUT YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL.

one of my instructors, i was training with him. he threw a SOFT kick at me and told me to block. so i did and the impact of his shin to mine was real painful. only because his shins are harder than mine. WAY HARDER.

so dont go around kicking other fighters unless your shin is really though.

suggestions for toughening shin: 1)run in shallow water(like old fashiioned MT fighers used to do it)
2) after 2 months of kicking a bag, move on to something harder like a chair.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Most mma people train in Muay Thai for the kicking.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[sweeper]

I disagree about moving to a harder surface after the bag, I realy don't think that will help much.

(edit) Almost forgot, regarding high kicks, they do have their advantages and their risks just like any other technique, just three aspects that I have seen as usefull, 1: feint, having someone's foot shooting twards your face tends to draw atention, I have used it quite a few times to draw the arms up than turned intoa side kick to the mid section. 2: in closer boxing range you can use it as a third arm for a quick shot right to the jaw, kinda like an upper cut, you can execute high kicks with more effectiveness than mid body kicks when in close, it isn't realy any slower than an upercut and it doesn't realy leave you any more open when you are up close. 3: if you or your opponant doens't train with it they don't expect it. I practice JKD and most people there aren't big on kciks to the head, but as a side effect some of them don't expect it and don't see them comming, same goes for me, there was actualy a day where my instructor had my sparring partner throw a bunch of hugh kicks because my guard against them was kinda shabby.. so I think it's important to train with them just so they don't take you off guard.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Sweeper, why do you feel you dont have to move onto something harder than a punching bag to toughen shins?

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD