Keep your kicks on the level

by Mike

I generally try to advise my partners/students to use Thai-style shin kicks when kicking to the body or the legs, rather than snapping-type roundhouses (unless of course, they're savateurs and have the benefit of reinforced toes). Two reasons for this, namely

• The body and legs are big and generally don't have much give. Even if you snap your kick properly, there's a lot of force going into a relatively small ankle and that force is being applied in a way that the ankle isn't meant to go. The knee a lot bigger also bends into the kick, so it's more likely to bend rather than break if things go poorly.
  
  For my money, an all-out Thai kick is going to to a lot more damage to the legs or body than a TKD-style snapping kick.
  
  
• You can easily damage your foot when you kick knees and elbows. Hitting your shin isn't much fun either, but at least the possibility of damage is significantly less. Throwing a foot into a shielding shin is also a great way to break your foot.

Heads are hard too, but I recommend using the foot to kick to the head for a couple reasons, including: not being off balance so much should the kick miss (and if you are, you can always spin through) and buying yourself an extra six-inches of distance to protect yourself if the other guy tries punching into the kick or keeping you from being overextended if you're kicking at someone backing up.

The most important thing to remember for any roundhouse kick though is to make sure that you turn your hips over properly. The best description of this that I ever heard was in a Maurice Smith seminar, where he said, "pretend there's a pretty girl sitting at the other side of the ring and you're trying to impress her. Show her your junk."* Doing this also ensures that your kick is coming in level, where it's going to have the most force behind it when it hits your opponent, as well as avoiding his elbows, should you go for a body shot.

Same thing applies to leg kicks - your foot/shin needs to go get past his knee on its way to the target. You can still hit the knee if you go in level, but in this case I'd say it's because either your aim was off or he moved - these things happen, but you're still less likely to hit the knee than if you came straight in.

Now, this isn't to say that upward angle kicks have no place in your skillset, but they should be a distinct technique and not a result of sloppy kicking.

* To be sure, Mr. Smith also taught the snapping roundhouse to the inside lead leg....