Man can't walk without legs-how my kicks changed with age

[Kyonovice]

So the other night I was training with my young son at our Shotokan Dojo, my son has literally just started out at aged 6 (so proud). Sensei was getting us practising kicks, we went through several of the basics, mae geri, mawashi geri and yoko geri. My son, being such a newbie (and quite small) was struggling to get his kicks up to chudan height and was getting annoyed with himself when Sensei took him to one side and said something like:

"Don't worry about height of kick, if you can only kick the leg then kick the leg, man can't walk without leg"

This got me thinking about how true that quote is and how my training has changed as I've inevitably got older.

When I was a young whipper snapper of a brown belt (early teens), I was more than happy throwing a mawashi geri to an opponents head, being only 5ft 4 inches in height, this shocked opponents taller than me, that I was that flexible that I could kick them tot he head with power, it was one of my show pieces (I used to watch Van Damme movies and try to replicate his style of kicking - I know!)

Anyway, now in my 40's and having a fair amount of practical self defence experience behind me, I just can't bring myself to kick jodan height anymore, my hips don't want to without complaining and, well in all honesty I can't see a need for it, flashy kicks look great in the movies, but in a real life self defence situation, they are next to useless (unless you can kick to the head at incredibly close range that is - think it was Terry O'Neil who was the master of this).

Having taken some months of Kyokushin training and learnt their lower kicks with the shin (much like Muay Thai), I now use that as my go to technique if I have to kick someone, it puts a person on the floor in a flash and due to it being low, can be delivered from incredibly close range and is hard to see coming as the the body hardly moves.

This is so much better for me as my body doesn't complain about it either, my kicking leg is quicker to the ground and I am able to follow up with something else (put the person in cuffs, use a control technique etc).

So yes, Sensei is entirely correct, man can't walk without legs, man can't walk man can't fight.

[shortyafter]

That's a great post. I'm only 26 and have only been at this for 3 years. I can get head height some of the time but not all of the time. For me it's an issue of, overcoming oneself. Instead of just saying - "I can't do it", I want to work my way up slowly and slowly get better and better. I posted about this recently. It's not about fighting against my body and doing damage, but rather working with it to get the most out of it. Since you're a little older maybe it's different - what you mentioned about straining and doing damage makes sense to me. I agree that that is not a good thing.

My Kyokushin sensei told me on day 1 "make it a choice to hit the opponent's head". And it's funny, when I'm just training the kick with a bag I won't get so high. But when we're doing kumite waza and I just forget my technique and make a choice to go for the head I tend to get it. Not always but I get more height out of it than I normally do. I chalk it up to getting out of my own head, and just executing. Maybe poor technique too? I prefer to think it's more of the former, lol.

But anyway, all that said. I really liked your post. It's kind of like, at the end of the day, what are we really doing this for? Is it about being flashy or about being able to contort our body in possibly unnatural ways? Or is it something so simple as- "Man can't walk without leg". Really cool stuff. I like it. Thanks for sharing.

(PS - is your teacher Japanese or something? Maybe it was just a typo but I saw "man can't walk without leg" and that little error made it so much more epic than totally correct English, lol)

[Kyonovice]

Thanks for the reply. My Sensei is Hungarian (really cool guy) although i have trained with Japanese sensei before (Enoeda and Ohta)

[singularity6]

I've been working at getting my kicks higher. Starting martial arts at an older age has definitely provided me with many challenges!

I agree 100% that not being able to kick to the head isn't so bad. It probably isn't practical in self-defense situations, and I do not plan to participate in tournaments. My master instructor even said that he doesn't really expect me to kick super high, considering my starting-age. I do want to get my round and hook kicks to about head level simply for personal reasons (and not to prove anyone wrong... just prove it to myself.) That being said, I do realize that there may be some unforeseen physical limitations that I'll have to deal with. As I always say, I'll burn that bridge while I'm on it.