To kick to the head, or not to kick to the head?

[matt.m]

I am flexible and limber. I also have good quad and ham strength. I love head kicking. The thing is everyone always looks for the knee or body shot, plus I am short - all of a towering 5'6. So I have to be great at high kicking just to be able to kick someone who is 6'2 or better.

My leg reach is the same as zDom's arm reach. This means I hit his midsection with a side kick and he blasts me with a reverse punch to the face. HMMMM? This is and can be bad news indeed.

Of course front upraising and twist kicks are wonderful for the "Close up" fighting that everyone is putting into consideration.

 

[matt.m]

When I do kick, which is not frequently, I prefer to target the area around the waist. A good kick to this area will double up an opponent and then I could kick him in the head, I suppose.

This gives a perfect answer right here. When I do kick, which is not frequently......

It has always baffled me why "If your legs are stronger than your arms then you should and would do well to use them. No?"

 

[exile]

There's another point here that's worth bringing up, I think, bearing on the question of fighting range that LF included in his original post.

If you think about the geometry of a low-to-mid kick vs. a head kick by the same fighter, it's immediately obvious that your distance from your opponent is going to have to decrease as the height of your kick increases. If you stand at the same distance where your turning kick lets your instep or the ball of your foot make impact with your oppo's waist at full extension, you clearly won't make contact with if you instead aim the kick at his upper rib cage. So you have to move a bit closer to strike that target. But now, at that distance, assuming you're at full extension on the kick to side of his ribcage, you'll miss his chin cleanly if you increase the angle of your leg to kick to reach that height. So you'll have to move in further still to make contact to that target. And so on. There's no way around it: if the long side of a right triangle (your leg) is fixed in length, then the only way it can reach a given height as the angle of your leg to the floor increases is for your horizontal distance from the target to decrease. That means that a head shot with a roundhouse is going to put you in very close quarters anyway. This means that if you want to max out the distance between you and the oppo, you don't want to kick high; you want your kick to come in parallel to the floor—it's at that height that you get full contact with the attacker's body at the maximum distance from him.

So a head shot commits you to a CQ fighting strategy anyway. And you have to ask: given that you're at H2H range in any case, which gives you a better advantage in terms of balance, speed, and the chance to switch to alternative tactics if your first tech goes sideways: a high-kicking strategy, or a strategy involving aggressive hand techs with kicks reserved for the finish?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Umm... because heads ask me to kick them, too. I have nothing against kicking knees, but ya gotta be fair to the heads, too

YMMV, oh Chinese Stylist

hmmm good point.... hand not thought of that....

OK Head kicks it is.

Speaking as a Chinese Stylist there is one transition in Xingyi 5 elements where I am fairly certain at least on application of the kick is directly to the jaw with the heal. But it comes from a cross legged squat at close range and like all things Xingyi your entire body is behind it. Although I have not tried it done right it is going to hurt whatever head gets in the way. But I still like them knees

 

[zDom]

Yea, if you are going for range, hip height is the best height.

I've always thought a kick into the hip joint would be a great self-defense option.

 

[Adept]

Yea, if you are going for range, hip height is the best height.

I've always thought a kick into the hip joint would be a great self-defense option.

It's certainly worked wonders for me.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

Yea, if you are going for range, hip height is the best height.

I've always thought a kick into the hip joint would be a great self-defense option.

worked well for me when bouncing. it buckles the hip and stops forward momentum without risking serious injury. and when the guy's drunk to begin with they tend to fall down rather spectacularly.

 

[Drac]

Why kick to the head when the knee is right there are just asking to be kicked?

That's a good target too...I still perfer shins..So when the scumbag comes into court with his law suit for "Police Brutality" all he his sporting is a wicked bruise on his shin and not a shattered kneecap..

 

[Drac]

worked well for me when bouncing. it buckles the hip and stops forward momentum without risking serious injury. and when the guy's drunk to begin with they tend to fall down rather spectacularly.

Yep...I like insteps too...

 

[Xue Sheng]

That's a good target too...I still perfer shins..So when the scumbag comes into court with his law suit for "Police Brutality" all he his sporting is a wicked bruise on his shin and not a shattered kneecap..

A good stomp on the foot works too