Savate for MMA - A couple techniques

BJJ Savate posted this cool video over at the Underground Forum.


Prof. Armando Basulto shows a couple techniques to get you thinking about how to use Savate in MMA (or in any situation, really).


Shown are the chasse lateral (side kick) and the chasse italiano (outside side kick).




A couple things to note when drilling these techniques:

• Make sure you land with the heel - The tremendous power of these strikes comes from the hard shin onto relatively soft muscles as well as the extension which is like hitting your opponent with a spear (possible with the chasse lateral if not necessarily the chasse italiano). 
  
  Hitting with the ball of the foot or the arch is effectively hitting your opponent after running your technique and hard work though a shock absorber and can potentially injure yourself. Think Jack Dempsey's "power line"but applied to your kicks.

• Chamber the kick back when you're done - This will help you keep your balance, make you more mindful of where the kick is going, keep you in good range to continue attacking/moving and make a miss less disastrous. That said...

• Be ready with a counter - There's always the possibility that you will overcommit to your strike and/or end up missing (this is surprisingly common with bare feet on sweaty skin), so keep a contingency in mind - depending on how you land relative to your opponent it might be your best bet to throw a spinning backlist while you get out of the way or clinch up. 

• Drop your weight into the kick - These kicks don't look like much - but review the video a couple times and watch the way he drops his weight into the kicks - they're small movements, but anything you can let your weight and gravity do instead of muscles if energy you've saved. If you've never been on the end of one of these, believe me, they hurt. And they have a much more immediate and physical and psychological effect on your opponent than a Thai kick.