The best kick for self defense

[Maybetrue]

Sensei: "NEVER KICK IN A STREET FIGHT" that will stick in my mind forever.

If a person(instructors included ever got in to multiple street fights , they will tell you the same.

If you are fighting a drunk or total goof, you can spice up the theatrics and throw some spinning wheel kicks to impress the people watching.

[Luther unleashed]

Sensei: "NEVER KICK IN A STREET FIGHT" that will stick in my mind forever.

If a person(instructors included ever got in to multiple street fights , they will tell you the same.

If you are fighting a drunk or total goof, you can spice up the theatrics and throw some spinning wheel kicks to impress the people watching.

I have to strongly disagree, I would highly recommend very much limiting high kicks, but a kick is a weapon and to not use it is a bit silly.. Very few people expect a kick also.

[Maybetrue]

Sensei: "NEVER KICK IN A STREET FIGHT" that will stick in my mind forever.

If a person(instructors included ever got in to multiple street fights , they will tell you the same.

If you are fighting a drunk or total goof, you can spice up the theatrics and throw some spinning wheel kicks to impress the people watching.

I have to strongly disagree, I would highly recommend very much limiting high kicks, but a kick is a weapon and to not use it is a bit silly.. Very few people expect a kick also.

On a perfect floor in a point tournament i still tell everyone DO NOT KICK. on the street, never kick period.

Line up 1000 MA, maybe 10 can actually kick "GREAT".

now add some everyday elements jeans, shoes/leather shoes/, polished concrete parking garage, loose gravel, grass, hills, carpet, lighting,confined space,No warming up, no stretching ,etc.... It is tough to KO someone with a kick.

A football kick to a person on all 4s works great, but that is just dirty.

[Luther unleashed]

Sensei: "NEVER KICK IN A STREET FIGHT" that will stick in my mind forever.

If a person(instructors included ever got in to multiple street fights , they will tell you the same.

If you are fighting a drunk or total goof, you can spice up the theatrics and throw some spinning wheel kicks to impress the people watching.

I have to strongly disagree, I would highly recommend very much limiting high kicks, but a kick is a weapon and to not use it is a bit silly.. Very few people expect a kick also.

On a perfect floor in a point tournament i still tell everyone DO NOT KICK. on the street, never kick period.

Line up 1000 MA, maybe 10 can actually kick "GREAT".

now add some everyday elements jeans, shoes/leather shoes/, polished concrete parking garage, loose gravel, grass, hills, carpet, lighting,confined space,No warming up, no stretching ,etc.... It is tough to KO someone with a kick.

A football kick to a person on all 4s works great, but that is just dirty.

I understand that you tell them don't kick, but it sounds like you have no faith in kicks. My last instructor used to always say "blocks don't work" in real life. I use blocks all the time, I even do something called freestyle blocking and it's very effective. In boxing and mma they use blocking as well, maybe more of a boxing cover, but it's the same concept for the most part. We are doing karate right, these things are taught to give you more weapons and ways to defend yourself!

My point is that people all have their personal beliefs and preferences. My old instructor might not have believed in blocking but I do. Watch this kick in this video, it's my wife's testing and he has a double team of me and another person, she throws a kick that ends my involvement and somebody else eventually has to jump in, so again, I disagree that kicks are not good for the streets. Using these weapons were designed to make you more effective, removing kicks is just not something I can agree with, changing the type of kicks or angles from competition to the streets is A reasonable topic to me.

Video: https://youtu.be/3bIOUfg3Vh0

[Luther unleashed]

I just had another thought and also wanted to add it to the topic of using absolutely no kicks. Even in a full contact arena such as the UFC what no particular style is required. Fighters still choose to use kicks for the most part and prove why they are very effective for long-range attacks. Machida shows how great a switching front kick it be. I respect your opinion, but again I just strongly disagree with it.

[Maybetrue]

First of all, listen to your instructor over a random person on the internet(ME).

It is just from my experience , i was the best or one of the best kickers in class. Probably a top tier kicker in open competition. BUT, never used a kick in a real street fight/situation. ever.

MY OPINION is that in a real life situation, a person needs to be as safe as possible. Kicking outside of the dojo has too much variables when executing with shoes,lose flooring,situation,NO WARM UP, etc. I never train with shoes and jeans, rarely on carpet, gravel, hills ,dirt,sand,etc.

KICKS CAN Be devastating in a real life situation, i know of 2 instances locally (1 due to chest impact and the other person hitting his head on the ground when he got knocked down) when a Kick killed someone in a street fight situation. BUT the 2 people that executed the kick were very high level practitioners in there prime fighting ages.

[Luther unleashed]

Like I said I respect your opinion, just disagree. I run my own program, I teach a more "real self defense" aspect in my teachings as I always learned this way, few small amount of sport aspect in my up and coming. I teach my students to use what I teach them to protect themselves. As an example to my angle though, I would t teach (and I don't) to use high kicks excessively, I teach that the most effective kicks are low and mid level. This I just my experience and what makes us all different in life. Ykur profile style says karate, not boxing and from what you say your a good kicker, I just can't wrap my head around practicing kicking so much to never use it, just seems like you don't perceive your system to be a practical self defense system that's all, not trying to pick on you at all and I respect your opinion and it makes for a good friendly argument, just can't get my head around disposing of kicks when we teach/train is systems where kicking is so important.

I also practice boxing, and hung gar Kung fu. These systems have very little to NO kicks so you would not be the only person practicing martial arts to feel kicks or less safe, I'm just not one of them who feels that way.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Luther unleashed

[Luther unleashed]

First of all, listen to your instructor over a random person on the internet(ME).

It is just from my experience , i was the best or one of the best kickers in class. Probably a top tier kicker in open competition. BUT, never used a kick in a real street fight/situation. ever.

MY OPINION is that in a real life situation, a person needs to be as safe as possible. Kicking outside of the dojo has too much variables when executing with shoes,lose flooring,situation,NO WARM UP, etc. I never train with shoes and jeans, rarely on carpet, gravel, hills ,dirt,sand,etc.

KICKS CAN Be devastating in a real life situation, i know of 2 instances locally (1 due to chest impact and the other person hitting his head on the ground when he got knocked down) when a Kick killed someone in a street fight situation. BUT the 2 people that executed the kick were very high level practitioners in there prime fighting ages.

BTW welcome to the forum as I see your new, take care!

[Maybetrue]

Like I said I respect your opinion, just disagree. I run my own program, I teach a more "real self defense" aspect in my teachings as I always learned this way, few small amount of sport aspect in my up and coming. I teach my students to use what I teach them to protect themselves. As an example to my angle though, I would t teach (and I don't) to use high kicks excessively, I teach that the most effective kicks are low and mid level. This I just my experience and what makes us all different in life. Ykur profile style says karate, not boxing and from what you say your a good kicker, I just can't wrap my head around practicing kicking so much to never use it, just seems like you don't perceive your system to be a practical self defense system that's all, not trying to pick on you at all and I respect your opinion and it makes for a good friendly argument, just can't get my head around disposing of kicks when we teach/train is systems where kicking is so important.

I also practice boxing, and hung gar Kung fu. These systems have very little to NO kicks so you would not be the only person practicing martial arts to feel kicks or less safe, I'm just not one of them who feels that way.

Yup, if someone comes to me and says "i want to learn to fight". i tell them go box and learn judo. My friends ask about fighting and i just laugh and dont even talk about martial arts.

I explain to a lot of people that a Highly ranked martial artist "can" get smashed in a street fight by a guy that never had formal training. yada, yada.

Karate or any traditional martial is a long process.

Kicking is fine, IF you feel the person is capable of never screwing up the situation. But IN GENERAL, if i watch a 1000 average everyday students in a gym i would say 5-10 could be capable of handling themselves in a real street fight(not drunks or bullying stuff). So if i say "NEVER KICK" i am talking to the 990 people that are not up to standards or not street fighting material.

As for "MACHICA/UFC" , they are kicking on a mat in competition. I think if you put any UFC fighter in dress shoes, skinny jeans, polished marble floor,etc... kicking will be minimal.

[sensei8]

In Shindokan, we don't kick higher than the stomach, and 99% of our kicks are for set-ups and the like to the legs for our hands; which are used 85% of the time. As for blocks! What's a block? We deflect and/or receive the technique(s).

I learned TKD back when I was a JBB while I was in high school for one main reason...TO LEARN HOW TO KICK above the waist. To learn how to kick above the waist allowed me to properly deflect/receive those type of kicks at open tournaments; they were eating me up for lunch. Axe kicks particularly were the bane of my existence...hated those darn things!!