Learn how to kick: the most common errors

Master Kongling All, 6DKF techniques, Fighting strategy kick, lower limbs, striking 3

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Kicks: the reasons behind their “fallibility”

In terms of striking, the lower limbs have excellent reach and can unleash great power but their functional use implies a type of control that is beyond the capabilities of today’s civilized human beings.

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

The problem (from which almost all the others follow) is the fact that being bipeds, kicking forces us:

To remain stable on a single limb
To unbalance our structure to release a force

If we add to this that our opponents:

Will do everything to frustrate our attacks
Will indeed try to exploit our temporary instability in every way

We easily come to a complete picture of why kicks (especially if toward targets higher than the knee) are not suitable for beginners (worse, they have more contraindications than benefits, read Use of legs in a street fight).

Should we therefore avoid using our legs in a real fight?

No, if we intend to develop real fighting skills, kicks remain a fundamental tool to master: it’s just a matter of understanding how to adopt them and building good conditioning.

Let’s start with the knowledge (read How to kick (simple explanation)) and with some of the most common errors.

Kicks: the most common mistakes and how to prevent them

10 of the most common errors

A note by Master Kongling – In selecting this (inevitably incomplete) list we did not focus only on mistakes that beginners make but we considered it more useful to also include problems related to more advanced levels.

The list (in random order):

Wrong positioning of the leaning foot
Loss of ground power
Wrong distance from the target
Poor tactics in choosing trajectories
Abusing the use of kicks without precise targets
Don’t give importance to what happens after the kick
Do not truly exploit all the forces at our disposal
To (irrationally) lower the guard during the attack
Abusing of turning kicks in the wrong contexts
To be too predictable

The solutions: how to avoid kicking ineffectively

Here are some simple tips on how to kick efficiently:

Leaning foot positioning – No matter the type of technique, the foot that does not kick must be positioned so that any eventual necessary twisting or sliding of the body will not be impeded; in most cases if we cannot reach the target or if we lose power / speed, it is due to an incorrect position of the (last) leaning foot that hinders the elongation or disperses the force; the good news is that the most common correction is just to direct our foot in such a way to follow the direction of our strike
Exploit the ground – While kicking the leg that remains on the ground must be stable / well pointed and it has to press in the opposite direction of the target; this way we will kick stronger, faster and with much more balance; the idea (every time possible) is to “push away the entire earth”
Touching something does not mean hitting it – We should always imagine kicking something behind our target and not the target itself (this will lead to always entering in contact with it at sufficient energy, read also Martial arts, combat range: control time & space)
Have a safety B plan – If we are not sure that we will reach our primary target, we should try to point, as much as possible, in the direction of the opponent’s body (better to miss the initial objective and hit another part than not hit anything); in particular, in our school, we teach to maintain the leg relaxed (liquid, read The secrets of tactical combat interactions) until the impact moment, this way it is possible to make small corrections to the trajectory even when the strike is already thrown
Misuse of kicks – Kicks are very powerful but expose us to fast energy loss, easy counters and unbalance; outside specific voluntary tactical choices or professional level of training (4 hours per day, read Martial arts training organization [MINI-GUIDE]), let’s kick only when we have a real opportunity and never to skirmish (the legs are long, heavy and relatively slow in withdrawing)
Do not forget what happens next – In tactical terms, it is much more important to learn to withdraw a kick or choose how / where to land than to strike powerfully (because if we miss a good target we are completely at the mercy of our adversary); the attacking leg must always return instantly to position or land where and how we want
Truly use the full power that we can express – The power of a good kick (read The characteristics of a good kick) does not come only from the leg but from the entire body muscle chain (read Use the body power: the muscle chain); the perfect execution (even if it is not always possible) is the one that involves all the muscles, the gravity force and the inertia of our ( and / or our opponent’s) body
Do not lower the guard – Each time we kick from a position where the adversary could have the realistic possibility to react, the guard must remain active (no matter if this costs us power); this means covering any potentially achievable weak target that, in our present context, could be exposed (eg. genitals, ribs, neck, etc.); when we strike our mind alert should be higher than normal to prevent an eventual reaction of the opponent (let’s never forget that if we are good fighters those are the only real occasions that he / she can exploit to penetrate our defense, read also How to rapidly learn Kung Fu: guard stance)
Avoid out-of-context turning kicks – Executed by an advanced practitioner, a perfect turning kick can be unpredictable, hard to avoid and extremely powerful but for everyone else, it is only dangerous and should be absolutely avoided; their execution requires in fact a high level of conditioning in terms of spatial intelligence, precision, timing, speed (etc., in 1 word, precision control, read Introduction to the idea of Precision Control); in most cases, it does not happen what we see in the movies, we just end in the worst possible position, unbalanced, with our backs turned and in front of an unharmed opponent ready to knock us out
Be unpredictable – We must avoid telegraphing our moves to our opponents; this basically means not loading the strikes (when the opponent can react), not preparing attack positions (we attack from where we are), not looking at our targets (read Stop looking: begin to see), creating diversions (feints, etc.), compressing as much as possible space and duration of the blows (even to the detriment of the quality of execution; let’s not forget that we never have to opt for the maximum force but always for the minimum sufficient to reach our goal)

In the next article of this series, we will see the conditioning path toward good-quality kicks (read How to prepare legs to kick effectively).

In-depth video courses

Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu exercises – All our core conditioning methods to build real martial skills
Advanced speed and reflexes training – How to build real combat speed and improve it day by day
The basic kicks: how to – A visual explanation of the fundamental kicks of 6 Dragons Kung Fu
How to develop a good timing – A video course that explains how to split the second and hit
How to use feints in combat – The instant deception within the rapid exchanges of combat
Basic free hand fighting techniques – All the fundamental fighting techniques of our school
Worst combat errors to avoid – Combat, a selection of the most dangerous mistakes to avoid

In-depth articles

The use of legs in a real fight – A check to know if we can safely implement our legs for striking
Self-defense: do not use the wrong kicks – The type of kicks to avoid in a self-defense scenario

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

Do you feel stable when you kick?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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