Tips for poor kickers

[kataman]

Once upon a time, I was riding my mountain bike when a car hit me. My left leg was messed up good and it took years for all the pain to go away. As a result I’m not a good kicker and realistically I never will be. Most know the dangers associated with kicking high and that goes double for me. I’m also slow to get a kick off, I telegraph my kicks so badly that you could go for coffee and come back in time to block it.

 

To keep kicks in my bag of tricks, I have adopted these tactics.

 

kicks, the roundhouse which is my main kick and the push kick that I use 1) I believe it’s better to be good at one thing than to be poor at many. So I practice only two as a counter to kicks thrown at me or as a feint. 2) I never kick high, almost always to the legs, mostly to the knees. 3) Because low kicks can be thrown from punching range I throw my roundhouse kicks at the end of a punching combination. This helps immensely with my telegraph problem.

 

I’ve actually managed to make the roundhouse kick to the knee a high percentage technique for me.

 

I’d sure like to read other peoples tips to help the poor kickers like me.

You have to wiser and faster with your hands

[ShirKhan]

There are many traditional styles where kicks are strategically limited, many will not kick above the waist and consider the kick as a finishing move or a "putaway" or a weapon of opportunity and never an opening attack...

 

Given all that, a person should recognize their weaknesses and over come them as best they can, but also recognize that there are certain techniques, weapons and ways of fighting that they are most comfortable with and which contribute more heavily to their own personal style. All of us have a way or path we learn from and which we have to conform to, but having done that, if you cannot find how to conform that way or path to serve your own personal style of fighting, you become the servant continually chasing their tail and not a master of yourself and your environment...

 

I once saw a Taiwanese policeman who was holding a plastic shield doing riot control, who was suddenly rushed by a crowd breaking through a sudden gap in a barricade. Holding the large plastic shield, he had only one hand free and could not use his legs. Literally in seconds he had four people who broke through the barricade lying at his feet, he had hit each one with his one free hand precisely on the point of the chin as they broke through the gap...the pile of bodies got in the way of other people breaking through the gap until the other officers could assist him...you could say with one hand he had contained over a thousand people. I have no idea what style he practices (or if he practices ANY "style") but I was definitely impressed that I had witnessed a true "master" at work...not very fancy, perhaps, but undeniably effective with what he had available to him...

[1kickKO]

Hmm..for effective kicks just kick them in the nuts and run, if they're a girl...umm...kick them in the nuts too