Function vs. Flash

"It's not about winning or losing; it's about looking good while winning or losing!"

The above quote was a phrase I created when I was about seventeen years old. At that time, I was your average college student who spent his time working out and trying to pick up girls. My version of working out was training seven nights a week in both ITF and WTF style Tae Kwon Do, with a sprinkling of Kickboxing. For me, at that age, high kicks were the be-all and end-all of martial arts. I had the naive opinion that if you couldn't kick above your head, you weren't a real martial artist. I believed the only way to truly defend yourself on the street was with a sharp roundhouse kick to your opponent's face.

How foolish I was.

I came crashing back down to planet Earth after I got into a fight with another guy. The argument was, typically, over some girl whose name I can't even remember now. My opponent was a rather stocky fellow who towered over me at six-feet three-inches. (I'm not sure how tall - or short - I was, but suffice to say I didn't reach my peak height of five-feet four-inches until I was nineteen.) Considering I spent all my time in the dojang doing nothing but stretching, kicking pads and sparring (95% of the techniques I used were high kicks), it is probably easy to understand why I thought I could teach my opponent a lesson by slapping him up the side of the head with my foot. I discovered the hard way that he actually trained five times a week at a local boxing gym. After dodging my kick (which didn't even come close to his face, even though it went well above my own head height), he pushed me to the floor and broke my nose with a single punch.

Sitting on the ground with blood pouring from my nose and the feeling I'd just been run over by a bus, I struggled to understand how the kicks that worked so well in the dojang failed me in this encounter. I skipped college and training for the next fortnight to recover. I had my nose reset at the local hospital and spent six weeks with panda eyes. I also bruised my shoulder, back and butt in the fall, which took another month to recover. But it was my ego that took the worst beating; I had been humbled for the first time in my life.

During my time off I spent many hours thinking back to the fight and the reasons why my technique didn't work. My Tae Kwon Do instructor had told me that high kicks were the most effective technique, and they worked in every situation. Reflecting back I feel like a complete tit for believing such BS. Needless to say I never went back to those instructors. I researched videos, books and magazine articles by the likes of Dan Inosanto, Bob Breen, Rick Young, Larry Hartsell, Paul Vunak, Jerry Poteet, Ron Balicki and others. I came to the [slow and painful] realisation that while high kicks can and do work, the importance should be placed on functionality and not how good they look.

After my bruises [and ego] healed I paid a visit to every other striking-based martial arts training hall, gym, dojo and dojang within a 15-mile radius of my house. I was surprised, and somewhat disturbed, to see that more than 95% of them emphasised the importance of height over effectiveness in kicking techniques. Even the Muay Thai and Kyokushin practitioners, arts which specialise in devastating low kicks, were making a fuss about kicking above their heads.

On several occasions I approached students at the end of a lesson to ask them if they ever used high kicks effectively on the street. Not surprisingly, most said that clothing and being "cold" (not warming up beforehand) made it much more difficult for them to kick high. They found high kicks easy to do in the training hall, but near impossible on the street. Several students who, like me, had been brainwashed into thinking high kicks were the ultimate self-defence weapon. And, like me, they had ended up on their backsides as a result of trying to kick their opponent's head off.

In my research I found that a lot of instructors who implanted these false beliefs in their students used a lot of psuedo-science to support their reasons for advocating high kicks in every situation. A common theme was the belief that high kicks will keep an opponent further away than a lower-level kick. This belief is flawed. A kick provides the most range when the leg is extended at 90 degrees parallel to the floor. When the angle is increased [raising the leg] or decreased [lowering the leg], the range decreases.

Another belief was that high kicks develop a greater sense of balance. While maintaining balance is more challenging in a high kick, that is not to say a person will be more balanced doing a high kick than when compared to doing a low kick. While this will seem obvious to many of the experienced individuals on this forum, I found during my research [and surprisingly still find today) instructors who believed the opposite to be true. The higher your foot is off the ground, the more likely you can lose your balance and end up on the ground yourself. To an individual who spends most of his/her time kicking, the ground is the last place you want to be. I have also found that the higher the kick is, the easier it is for the opponent to block or grab the leg. I found that this is because most decent fighters have their hands up in a guard position to protect the face and head; in effect, the hands are already in a position to jam or grab the kick.

I found out the hard way during a sparring match with a Muay Thai practitioner who had a vicious low kick that kicking high exposes the groin unnecessarily. Kicking at mid- or low-section reduces the odds of having a toe nail lodged into your scrotum.

Some people, due to certain physical limitations, will never be able to achieve the effectiveness with their high kicks to pull them off in a sparring match or a real fight. I currently stand at five-feet four-inches. I am twenty-five years old, so I will most likely never grow another centimetre in my life. Therefore I had to take a long, hard look at my physiological capabilities and develop a game plan according to my strengths. I've had several street fights since the "broken nose" incident at college, and all of my opponents stood over six feet tall. When considering kicks, the leg and body are more viable targets for me to aim for, rather than try and comb the other guy's hair with my foot.

The same applies to tournament sparring. I fight in the flyweight category [-58kg]. While there are some fighters who are as short as me [some shorter - poor souls ], the majority of fighters are head and shoulders above me. There is no lighter division, and going heavier is not an option because they get even bigger So I had to adapt my game plan, which resulted in kicks to the body having a greater scoring percentage than high kicks. Backing this up with a solid boxing game and I haven't done too badly

High kicks, even when practiced correctly, may expose the practitioner to an increased risk of injury to the spine and pelvis. High kicks (those above 90 degrees) produce a strong tension of the muscle on one side of the trunk when the lower back is twisted to this side and pulled forward by the psoas muscle on the same side. This, if done by someone with insufficient lower back strength or any back problem, can lead to lower back strain or intervertebral disc inflammation. Even for persons with a strong back, spasms and pain may result due to pressure being exerted on the spine. Individuals with sacro iliac joint complications can make matters worse even when performing high kicks that are technically correct. [Colt et. al. 1998.]

High kicks can be difficult to execute correctly in a street fight due to the "adrenal dump" placed on the body. Developing a high level of static-active flexibility at hip- to chest-level (e.g. holding the leg out for up to three minutes without discomfort) will produce a high motor function response in a situation of stress than developing just dynamic or static-passive flexibility. [Matveev 1994.]

An interesting observation I made over the years that it tends to be the younger folk who place an importance on high kicks, even when presented with reasons why high kicks should not be used in certain scenarios. Older martial artists place more emphasis on function over "flash", perhaps due to their greater experience. Even the legendary Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, undoubtedly one of the greatest kickers of all time, states that high kicks should be used only when lower kicks are not an option. [Best of Bill Wallace, Black Belt Communications, 2005.] Bruce Lee, considered by many to be the epitome of athletic greatness, supposedly said that "kicking someone in the head makes as much sense as punching them in the ankle". It may be interesting to note that the high kicks that appeal so much to young people were introduced into Karate by Yoshitaka Funakoshi, son of Gichin Funakoshi, without any attention to whether they made sense in combat [Draeger 1974].

Is this article an attempt to dissuade people from practising high kicks? Absolutely not. Even given my experiences I still love to kick people in the head. By all means, work on high kicks. They are a wonderful addition to your repertoire and they can have a devastating effect on the morale of your opponent when they land successfully. But first you should consider your physical make-up and work on those areas where you will excel. I am relatively short in height, so timing, distance, speed and agility will work for me more than any high kick, no matter how much I stretch.

So, no, this article is not intended to deter you from high kicks. Rather, I hope it serves as a warning for those practitioners whose first thought is to end a fight with a flashy kick a la Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ninety percent of the time that stuff only works in movies.

Don't learn the hard way, like I did. My nose and ego are still paying for it.

 

In hindsight, what a gift that moment was. Did you ever watch 'the magic flute' where a beautiful but spoilt youth has his nose broken to save him? Lol.

 

Get yourself a gun. Beats the crap out of any headkick.

Otherwise train for fun and fitness

 

That moment was a turning point in my MA career. The broken nose didn't hurt nearly as much as the realisation that I couldn't actually fight. Funnily enough, the girl my opponent and I fought over chose someone else entirely!

Fate has a twisted sense of humour!

 

Great thread! I relate your experience directly to my experience as a Capoeirista. Capoeira is known for flash, but has a lot of potent self-defense techniques. I focus on the potent stuff 90% of the time, and the flash 10% of the time (..as flash adds thrill and diversity to the game).

 

Excellent reading, well written.

 

I met some Capoeristas at Seni in 2005 and took part in an open workshop with them. They were fantastic athletes with plenty of "flash" stuff, but also some rather violent self-defence techniques. I had no doubt they could handle themselves very well.

Thank you

 

Definitely function over flash! I often think people get injured far more doing the flashy stuff ,silly jumps and kicks, than people do when sparring full contact! I certainly used to get more annoying injuries when doing kung fu and when trying to use flashy stuff in sparring. All that has gone now though and I feel far more confident fighting! I don't use high kicks much at the moment,but I am working on the power of them in muay thai before I unleash them

 

Awesome! Which group were they from?

 

Association of Capoeira Engenho da Rainha UK

www.capoeiraworld.org

 

so what techniques do you do now? maybe you should look into tai chi or shoulin types they make your body stronger using your chi also wing chun and qigong they focus on speed too. Alot of the combat systems like the fancy ones dont work in street fights try something like the things i said or krav maga or chombac bas krav maga is used by the military in isreal so its for real life stuff, and chombac bas looks very affective.

 

Mider1985,

I still do high kicks, but limit them to sparring in the dojo. Even though I love the flash stuff like high kicks, 540s, sideswipes etc., I throw 90% of kicks to the legs and body. Since I did that most of my techniques score. I also work on boxing and Muay Thai techniques as my core, but I'm also interested in Taekkyon (for the trips and footwork, not so much the high kicks).

 

Best with a straight blast between the eyes.. if a girl is watching and he is stunned follow up with a high jumping spinning back kick.


regards koyo

 

Get read mate! I agree high kicks dont have a place in SD but its good to have them in your arsenal.

Not good when you take one either, they hurt like hell

 

Hi,
That was a good read.
Thanks for posting.

I'd just like to make a comment on the balance point you made. It's obvious that the higher the kick is, the harder it is to keep your balance and the more vulnerable you become. However I would believe that practising high kicks and balance when performing them can also improve your balance when performing lower kicks. This is the message I get when people say that that high kicks are good for balance.

And also a question out of curiosity really. You always see people in martial arts showing off their flexibility by performing high kicks and doing the splits. Two actions that aren't the greatest assets to a self defense situation. If you are saying this, where does your love of stretching and flexibility coming from?

 

I've been doing Tae Kwon Do since the age of 4, so stretching and high kicks are part of my martial arts "psyche". As much as I love them, I need to be realistic if I want to be an effective fighter, both in the ring/mat and on the street. They're fun, and like every other technique they have their place.

 

Stretching and flexibility prevents injury, and improves range of motion. There is no question about the benefits of stretching.

 

Good article, Superfoot.

I started out in taekwondo myself. And I reached a lot of the same conclusions. I certainly don't regret taking taekwondo either. I wouldn't say it's my "base style" (i.e., the style through which my thoughts on other techniques and concepts get "filtered"). But the foundations of power generation and kicking technique certainly came from taekwondo.

A couple of other thoughts on high kicking. First, another rationale I've heard for high kicking: If you can kick well high, just imagine how much easier it is to kick low.

Nonsense. The physical experience is sufficiently different that this argument makes no sense. The position of upper body in relation to lower body is totally different. Balance, weight distribution, foot positioning, etc. All different. The people who excel at low kicking are the ones who practice low kicking. Simple as that.

Low kicks also lend themselves better to follow-up from the hands, in my view. Because the time in between your foot hitting its mark and your foot hitting the ground again, in preparation for your hands to come into play, is much shorter with low kicking.

Also, I tend not to lead with kicking of any sort now. I usually lead with the hands. Reason being that I'm not remarkably quick. And if someone sees a kick coming, most of the time they back up. And that's my longest weapon, so I'm out of options. If they back up similarly when I punch, then they're straight into kick range and nicely distracted in the bargain.


Stuart

 

I wouldn't feel too bad about it. Almost everyone studying martial arts are training complete twaddle.

trained natural fighter > excellent training > natural fighter > good training > poor training > no training.

My view is you need to find out where you are on the scale and work to push your self up the scale. The art itself is pretty irrelevant.

The Bear.

 

Great posts, thanks guys