Opponent grabs your leg...

[DWx]

Worst case senario for those who like to kick (either for self defense or a tournament situation):

What happens when the other person grabs your leg? What can you do to free yourself from that senario?

Obviously your balance is compromised and you want to free yourself as soon as possible. However the attacker is also at a disadvantage because they are having to hold your leg somehow.

A couple of options I can think of are to go in closer and attempt to use a punch/strike but then that brings you closer to the attacker and you can't really put that much mass (and power) behind the attack. If it fails you are then in an even worse position.

The other thing I thought was a scarificial type of kick where you use the other leg in something like a scissor kick or if all else fails you take a fall and hope to disrupt their momentum.

Any suggestions?

[joesteph]

Worst case senario for those who like to kick (either for self defense or a tournament situation):

What happens when the other person grabs your leg? What can you do to free yourself from that senario? . . .

A couple of options I can think of are to go in closer and attempt to use a punch/strike but then that brings you closer to the attacker and you can't really put that much mass (and power) behind the attack. . . .

You mentioned a tournament situation, DWx, and it made me think of a friend of mine who was point-sparring. His front kick was caught at the ankle by his opponent, but my friend hopped forward on the free leg and delivered a punch to the face to score the point. In a street/self-defense situation, my friend would probably have had to have spearhanded the attacker's eye, or generated enough bare-knuckled force against the attacker's nose to disorient him, in order to free himself from the ankle grab.

[bushido_man96]

I think your best bet is to try to forcefully rechamber leg as he holds it, thus bringing both closer together. From there, you should work to clinch up with the opponent, and strike from there. That way, if he attempts to take you down, he goes down with you, and you may have some control over the landing.

The other thing I thought was a scarificial type of kick where you use the other leg in something like a scissor kick or if all else fails you take a fall and hope to disrupt their momentum.

I actually did a sacrifice kick like this once, when sparring with my brother in our front yard. He trapped my round kick, and I jumped and brought the other leg around in a hook kick to his face. It got the job done, but I wouldn't recommend such a kick in a self-defense scenario.

[tallgeese]

Lock up with him and start a clinch offensive to weaken his motor function holding your leg up. This will also help support you. Fight to get your base back first. Forcefully removing your foot, either with a rechamber as bushido man suggested or just yanking the foot to the ground should be repeated as often as needed.

Finally, be prepared to initate offensive as you get taken down. He's probibly looking to do this if he caught your foot.

[Tiger1962]

My first thought was to drop to the floor real close to where your opponent is while he's holding your foot and sweep out his leg with your free foot. Sounds strange but its the first thing that came to mind.

[bushido_man96]

Here is a question, concerning this scenario. When you hear the "don't kick high" argument in self-defense or NHB conversations, how come you never see anyone actually catch a leg like this? This is one of the big arguements. There is also the argument of shooting on the other leg while the kicking leg is in the air. I haven't seen that happen a whole lot in NHB matches either, but maybe I just haven't watched enough.

[tallgeese]

Good point.

I think you do actually see the higher kicks get caught quite a bit. You saw more of it early on when there were less skilled pratitioners throwing them. Nowdays, the only guys willing to put them up there are the ones very capable of utizing that tool. On the other hand, you will also usually see that same pratitioner complimenting that training with good scrambling skills so he is not as afraid of moving to the ground after this kind of contact initiation.

My beef has never been with an "uneffective" high kick. It has more to do with the time needed to develop the kick to a proficient level to use in a full-on confrontation. We all know there is more to successfully utilizing a head high kick than just the ability to get the foot high. There is also timing and distance to consider. To actually develop this skill far enough along to make it work under duress takes quite a bit of time.

That's time that I can use to work a more well-rounded set of skills if I'm happy with leg, groin, and maybe low body kicks. It also eliminates the need for me to worry about what will happen if it gets caught. It all boils down, for me, to time management. The time needed to master a skill to combat readiness vs. the amount of time that I have to train overall.

My only other worry with high kicks are the environmental factors that might affect it's use. Uneven ground, slick surfaces, ect. can all less the effectiveness of any movement, add the factor of balancing on one leg while the other is well off the ground can certainly add another variable to the encounter which may not work well in your favor.

For those that use and specilize in high kicking, more power to you. There is a beauty in the shin to temple moment. The problem I have seen in the past with these specialites is that too often, probilbly for the very real worry of injury, these movements are practiced with very little contact. This leads students to learn to throw these kicks with less than optimal power. Sometimes due to the fact that they are putting everything into just reaching the target and not delivering power behind it. Again, it's the realm of very skilled individuals to be throwing these things effectively.

And yes, it can be done. Probibly by lots of people here on the boards. I think there are just some signifigant concerns to be aware of while preparing to use these kinds of movements.

[bushido_man96]

Very well spoken, tallgeese. All of the concerns you list are valid. After 14 years of TKD, I am not sure that I would ever throw a head kick outside of class. I am not quite that fast. However, I do know that if I can kick high with power, then my low kicks are loaded, too.

[DWx]

My beef has never been with an "uneffective" high kick. It has more to do with the time needed to develop the kick to a proficient level to use in a full-on confrontation. We all know there is more to successfully utilizing a head high kick than just the ability to get the foot high. There is also timing and distance to consider. To actually develop this skill far enough along to make it work under duress takes quite a bit of time.

That's time that I can use to work a more well-rounded set of skills if I'm happy with leg, groin, and maybe low body kicks. It also eliminates the need for me to worry about what will happen if it gets caught. It all boils down, for me, to time management. The time needed to master a skill to combat readiness vs. the amount of time that I have to train overall.

IMHO I don't think it takes any more time to learn to kick head height well than it does to learn to kick low well. Aside from the flexibility, head height kicks will utilise the same sort of principles as lower line kicks. Timing and distance are still going to be important factors when considering lower kicks and the time taken to learn this for a lower or middle kick will be about the same time it will take to learn this for a higher kick. To kick effectively at low sections takes a lot of work too. The centre of mass is above rather than behind the kick and a lot of the power relies on correct motion and good speed. I've seen plenty of people mess up front kicks and low roundhouses even though they can kick mid-section well.

My only other worry with high kicks are the environmental factors that might affect it's use. Uneven ground, slick surfaces, ect. can all less the effectiveness of any movement, add the factor of balancing on one leg while the other is well off the ground can certainly add another variable to the encounter which may not work well in your favor.

I think you can be equally limited by environmental factors when considering low kicks. What if there is an obstacle between you and the agressor? High kicks let you kick over it and give you more range than a punch would. Also what happens if your attacker has well built legs? A low line kick may not hurt them that much if they have a lot of muscle or fat in that area. Head kicks are more likelt to connect to bone and have the added benefit of being able to shock your opponent. Higher kicks may need a little more work with balancing but that in itself is a reason to practice them as there are going to be a lot of instances when both feet are not firmly on the ground. IMO uneven ground and slick surfaces are reasons not to kick at all, low line or high.

My experiences in street fights / self defense are non-existent but I would bet that your average attacker would be more caught off guard with a high kick than a low kick. Head height kickers are in the minority and I would think that in most cases head kicks have the potential to surprise an agressor especially if distractions such as hand techniques or verbal distractions were used. With a female victim vs male agressor senario I'm guessing something like groin shots would be expected on the attcker's part so they would be more cautious of it as opposed to head shots?

For those that use and specilize in high kicking, more power to you. There is a beauty in the shin to temple moment. The problem I have seen in the past with these specialites is that too often, probilbly for the very real worry of injury, these movements are practiced with very little contact. This leads students to learn to throw these kicks with less than optimal power. Sometimes due to the fact that they are putting everything into just reaching the target and not delivering power behind it. Again, it's the realm of very skilled individuals to be throwing these things effectively.

The beauty of the headguard.. stick it on your opponent and whack away. Obviously not with the intention of separating their head from their shoulders but I hope you wouldn't do that kind of power anyway even with other kicks for fear of breaking ribs, internal bleeding or whatever. If power is needed to be developed use a pad or boards just like you would do with any other kick. I would guess that very few people practice groin kicks fullpower on their training partners likewise I wouldn't practice a rib-cracking roundhouse on a partner, that's what training aids are for.

The way I see it, high kicks have their place and even if you don't intend to use them that often, they are great to train because they give you so much more scope for a leg technique. Another benefit of high kicks is that if you can kick head height cold there's less of a chance of pulling something kicking low.

[tallgeese]

Valid concerns about my argument DWx, here's why I think the way I do.

First off, there is a sizeable difference in mechanics of high kicks vs. low kicks. Gereneally speaking, you can better utilize body weight in lower line kicking (at least for most of us mortals its easier). This creates more skills I have to take time to practice, thus those less likely to be used have to be viewed through my time spent training vs. time available to train prisim.

Higher kicks are more complex to land by nature and complex skills take longer to get acclimated to. Not only do you have to worry about timeing and distance (and you are correct, these are concerns even with lowline kicks) but now you have to do it while your foot is in the air longer.

Which brings us to a vaild point- the longer your foot is off the ground, the longer you mobility is severly limited. This means that you are more vuneralble longer. This is a major problem since movement is key to winning a fight.

Lastly, on the time front, you have to look at the sheer amount of time it will take a normal person to be able to reach a flexability level where head high kicking is easily performed. This can be a long time in and of itself. That's time I could be pounding MT pads low and perfecting that weapon.

To the enviornmental concerns I will say that I concur. Other tactics are better suited. I was merely pointing out that the higher the kick, the more ikely it is to be affected by these factors.

As far at their availiability in a sd context it's just too hard to say. There are simply too many variables in these situations to really say anything for certain. Could be true one time and not true the next.

As for training with gear, it's way easier to put a shield by someone's ribs and have them move realistically while hammering it full tilt than it is to do this to a headgear. Bottom line is that it's just darn hard to protect the head from attacks like this, so lots of arts pull the contact greatly. This gets their people used to throwing great kicks with relitivly little power. Not everyone doing high kicks certainly, but lots of people.

Lastly, you make the argument that if one can kick high well then lower kicks will be better. This idea is not without merit. A more well rounded fighter does have more options at his disposal. However, I prefer to put a majority of my limited training time into weapons that I plan on using a bulk of the time. Why train for cross-over effectiveness when I can actually train the skill directly?

That being said, I do occassionally work on my high kicks. Usually as an afterthouht and usually during sparring sessions. Again, not without merit.