The front kick is nearly always the first kick taught at many martial arts schools. It is relatively easy to learn, needing only a few minutes of practice to be able to obtain the basic grasp of it. It has different ways of being applied with different areas of the foot for striking. So why is it not seen as a major kick for most fighters.
Firstly, let’s analyze the ways of executing the kick,
Snap – After chambering the kicking leg (by bringing the knee to the chest) the kicking foot is snapped towards to the target using the ball of the foot to strike. As the foot is thrust forward the hips are also thrust simultaneously slightly forward, to add power to the strike. After a full contact blow is made penetrating the target, the foot is brought back to the chambered position and dropped to the floor. The preferred targets are the knee joint (front or side), just above the hip joint or the groin using the shin or instep to strike. Thrust – Again after chambering the kicking leg, the foot is thrust towards the trunk area or thigh of the opponent with a simultaneous hip thrust to add power to the kick. Because of this kicking type being a thrust and not a snap, normally it is to difficult for the foot to be retracted to the chambered position so it is dropped to the floor with the hand held high for possible counters. It is useful as a stop hit. The striking area of the foot for the thrust, is usually the sole or heel. Above tells us that the snap kick targets (knee, groin) are to dangerous to be used for competition. Hitting these areas need little power to be effective, where the areas for the thrust kick need a lot of power to be effective (trunk, thigh). Also well trained fighters can easily see the kick coming where a sneaky roundhouse comes in from the side and is harder to block. Because the snap is aimed low, it is much harder to see and defend. So reasons why the front kick is not used by professional fighters could be that because the preferred targets are too dangerous for competition and should be left to the street, and that it is an easy to kick to defend against. Any views on this?
Marks
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Friday, 11 January 2008
The Mighty Front kick
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3 comments:
gooi
I think you’re right: front-kicks are very useful for self-defence: they’re easy to learn, easy and safe to execute and they’re tremendously effective (if aimed at the right places, namely low). The snap-frontkick is the single most used kick in our school along with being the first learned. I don’t care how big or muscled you may be but once you get hit in the groin you’re going down and the front-kick is the easiest and generally quickest way of landing a blow in that particular area. Most people, included seasoned sport-martial artists, don’t know how to defend a lowline-attack (especially not when it’s coming from the front). It’s also great in an attacking-combination: you throw a couple of punches at his face to get his attention, then you swoop in low and ring the bell. After that he’s basically yours and a most effective follow-up would be a knee to the head or maybe a come-along/controlling technique. Or you can always just walk away at your leisure, if he’s hit properly and not high on drugs he won’t be coming after you, trust me.
Now competition is another matter of course: since you’re not trying to demolish, kill or cripple the guy you are restricted to a range of relatively safe techniques (or at least ones that are unlikely to leave any permanent damage). Techniques which can be effective too (a good, solid punch to the face is a perfectly safe and acceptable solution to most self-defence situations) but generally require alot more strenght and/or agility to pull off.
A pushing front kick would be a good example: it requires a great deal of force and as you said it’s not easy to recover from. Also since most combat-athletes have abs of steel (the result of a thousand or more sit-ups a day) it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to damage them much with any type of blow (not there anyway).
A good (and legal) target for a front-kick would be the solar-plexus (knocks the air straight out and has been known to win fights) but usually the front of the chest is pretty well defended and it won’t be an easy task landing one there. The reason the roundkick is the most widely used kicking-technique is simply this: the targets are almost impossible to protect with muscle alone (neck, side-of-the-head, floating ribs, tighs) and since his attention is generally to the front it’s usually easier to land a blow on the side of his body. I once sparred a guy who did Savate (‘boxe française’ or french kickboxing): he was much better than me so I got my ass kicked but once I hit him square in the nuts with a snap front-kick (luckily he wore a cup) and it stopped him cold in his tracks. Of course he claimed I committed a foul (which wasn’t intentional: I just reverted to my training and I was getting pretty tired of eating blows) and he certainly had a point but it’s still proof of how effective such a technique can be, even against kickboxers.
One more thing: I don’t know what you think but I think in general kickboxers (including thai-boxers) adopt a stance that is a bit too wide for my taste. Of course when you don’t have to worry about groin-shots or knee-kicks it makes sense to widen your base to deliver more forceful attacks and to receive lowkicks better but I think in reality this is going to cost them.
We use a stance where the front knee is bent slightly inward (basically the JKD bai-jong or fighting stance) so it’s easier to avert groin-shots by simply redirecting the kick or by ramming the knee into the attacking leg. Always remember: if you can use groin-kicks he can too and it only takes one good shot to end the fight (either way).
Cheers,
Zara
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