Hi,
I have recently done a small article on counters for kicks and would appreciate your feedback.
http://www.wing-chun-training.com/articles/counters-for-kicks.htm
Thanks
Splodge
Thanks its a Nice Article… 
My first post, and i would like to say hi to everyone, i been lurking on this forum for some time and it looks great.
Good Job
Good article. Lots of common sence advise (that is sometimes not so common, lol) and what to do and when to do it. Practice, practice and more practice to get familar with the lines and methods of attacks are critical for real self defense. I believe in building a great defense and structure, because IMO offense is easier.
Kicks are slower than punches but output more power and punishment at one time, so people get scared of them. Plus, kicks start from a lower reference point than punches, and I have found out through experience and investigation that we as human beings have a harder time tracking attacks from that lower reference points. Watch the slowest points on the attacking limbs, elbows and knees to pick up on what they are attacking with.
James
Nice job.
Minor nitpicking:
Targeting the inside of the hips to stop a kick is not “unique to the Wing Chun system”. Nor is kicking the supporting leg, e.g. MT cut kick.
You correctly advise against not blocking an MT roundhouse to a high gate target with your arms as they might get broken, but you don’t really define a better strategy if you weren’t able to get inside the kick or catch it early enough to avoid blocking, other than deflecting and using an angle rather than catching it straight on. What shapes DO work if tan sao doesn’t?
If your close enough to turn and tan a round house kick then you are close enough to take a half step into the attack and tan the round house kick. You will/might break your arm if the contact point of the tan is around the shin to foot area. Anything inside the shin will not break your arm because the velocity of the kick at those points is significantly less than trying to absorb the full brunt of the kick at the lower part of the leg/foot.
You can use a tan and pak to counter a round kick, regardless if it’s Thai or TKD. The idea is to use the pak primarily against the knee, and use the tan as a backup if you miss. Step side ways into the kick to dissolve his force before it reaches it’s apex. The knee has less power and is moving slower than the foot or shin. It’s easier to pick up with the eyes also. We also use a pak/gaun combo with T-step away from the kick, with the Pak/Gaun making contact around the knee again. Side step and Biu Sau and front kicks works also (especially against rear leg kicks). Try not to accept the full force of the round kick is key. Lots of options available depending on your positioning and your opponents skill with kicks.
Not getting hit is the most important, lol.
James
Good, straightforward article.
My points:
I believe that if a kick isn’t above the abdomen, there is no way I’m going to use my hands to block it. It’s too risky to place my hands and arms of a powerful kick.
I think the best thing to do is drive forward and attack the centre either with my legs or arms. Some of those thai kicks are fast, tight and powerful. Blocking the leg itself can still get you to eat some. In my kwoon, we have a somewhat experience Muay Thai ring fighter. Some of those kicks hurt when blocked. Forget blocking them, get out of the way…either back up, or drive drive drive forward.
I was actually talking with Ernie regarding some of this stuff and after testing it out a little, I think that driving straight in with a Choi Ma step or angling off…but still driving in is the best way to defend.
IMO,
Kenton Sefcik
If your close enough to turn and tan a round house kick then you are close enough to take a half step into the attack and tan the round house kick.
I was making suggestions for the article rather than asking for advice, but thanks. I’d try to use James’ strategy myself, a double block with most of the energy going to block at the knee, with the the other arm just providing an auxiliary shield against any of the kick that still got through after you stopped or slowed down the arc of the kick at the knee. Stepping inside the arc of a blow to reduce the angular speed of the blow at point of impact is a sound strategy for any circular attack.
All of this presupposes that you are on the mark and the guy isn’t too **** fast or hasn’t offpositioned you badly enough that you can’t do your half step into the kick and block at or above the knee. You’d still want to have your hands up and may be try and take the shot on our shoulder or with a crazy monkey or shield type defense. A broken forearm is probably better than a fractured skull.
As James said, getting hit is better. Not getting into the fight in the first place better still.
Yes of course anerlich, how dare I give YOU any advice and not the thousand or so others who might be curious as to someone elses POV.
Your blocking knee is useless if the kick is going for your head because its range is mid level and the attack is high level so the energy that you absorb will be 95% in your tan arm which is why some people do hurt themselves when they stand in one spot and raise there knee and tan. It is good practice to raise your knee and tan at the same time to block a kick however, steping into a roundhouse kick and blocking, is a much easier and safer way to handle that type of attack.
Of course the blocking knee is very effective if you are blocking a round house kick to the mid-lower sections.
Couch made some good points, either get out of the way or charge forward. But if you do attempt to block, its better to block above the shin with a angled tan with a pak sau applied behind the tan arm for reinforcement if nessisarry.
BTW- what the H3LL is a “crazy monkey type defense” LOL
BTW- what the H3LL is a “crazy monkey type defense” LOL
I wouldn’t dare to presume to give advice to you either.
Hint: SBGi.
Crazy monkey type defense
OH yes. The elusive crazy monkey type defense, how could I have forgotten…
Hint: SBGi.
I would like to buy a vowel for $200.00
A different perspective
Hi everyone,
SiFu Lee tells all his students, “no one can teach you how to fight, you have to learn yourself.” He insists that experience is the only teacher and an Instructor’s purpose is to guide the student down that path where that switch will go on and you ‘get’ it. You have to earn it. There are no secrets, just hard work.
In our school, we have many drills that have to be performed over and over and over and then a few more times. This method of training helps students to gain the coordination, reflex and feeling to instinctively recognize where they’re under attack and to respond with the appropriate technique to cover the exposed gate in the manner and ways of Wing Chun’s simultaneous offense and defense. The exercises that were linked to are only drills. Fighting comes later, once the students can handle these drills
Here are two links of SiFu Lee explaining Kwan Sau and Bong Gerk Coverage against roundhouse kicks. These ideas are only the starting point for the student to understand how to approach their training. Video 1 and Video 2.
Disagree on this. If
- A MT guy’s round house kick can break my arm, or
- A boxer’s hook punch can knock me down, or
- A TKD’s skip in side kick can send me flying,
then I’m not in good body shape to fight him.
If a MT guy spend 6 hours on his heavy bag for his round house kick and I also spend 6 hours on my “round house kick catching” then my chance to catch that kick will be high. It’s all relative and not absolute. It’s all depending on individual Kung Fu.
Round house kicks are the easiest one to catch. It come in a curve line instead of a straight line. It may be harder to catch a low front kick but you have plenty of time to catch a round house kick. That kick will come to you and all you need to do is to allow it to come in. You can either catch it when it comes toward you or retreats away from you after contact. It may hurt a bit (depend on your body condition) but as long as it won’t kill you and if you can catch that kick then the fight is over and you can “finish” him right at that moment. So comparing the price that you have to pay and the reward that you may gain may be a good trade off.
Disagree on this. If
- A MT guy’s round house kick can break my arm, or
- A boxer’s hook punch can knock me down, or
- A TKD’s skip in side kick can send me flying,
then I’m not in good body shape to fight him.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, then. All of these things can happen even to well conditioned athletes. I was present when Stan Longinidis broke Dennis Alexio’s shin with a round kick in a WKA match, when Alexio was in about the best shape of his life.
If a boxer’s hook punch connects with your head and you do not shed it or somehow cushion the blow, your chimes WILL get rung. The brain is not among the tissues you can condition for impact. Supremely fit boxers with lots more ring time than you keep getting knocked out.
If a MT guy spend 6 hours on his heavy bag for his round house kick and I also spend 6 hours on my “round house kick catching” then my chance to catch that kick will be high.
There are perhaps highly committed guys in Thailand that do the first, but NOBODY dies the latter. Muay Thai guys face more often and have more to fear (in every bout) from those kicks than anyone, and they don’t do this. The MT coaches I speak to recommend ducking under head kicks.
Conditioned shin vis conditioned forearm - I’ll bet on the shin every time. Thickness and mass are in the kickers favour. in the long run, the odds are against your forearms. Certain PARTS of the forearm against certain PARTS of the leg might have better odds, but the accuracy required might be a bit much in the frenzied chaos of an assault.
You can catch kicks with “soft hands” and shock absorption. That’s what the two handed blocks in bil jee are for. The article and earlier posts were talking about trying to block with a tan sao.
I disagree that it will always be as simple as you make out. A proficient kicker will set you up with punches or combination kicks. It’s not like you will always have “plenty of time”. Straight punches are faster than hooks and front kicks faster thean straight punches, but WC guys all over the planet keep, and will keep, getting nailed with these “inferior” techniques. If you’re finding it easy, you need to work out with some better kickers.
Still, you wanna go blocking with your arms, more power to you.
If a boxer uses a right hook punch to hit your head and if you were a Wing Chun guy then what will you do? Will you use your left Tan Shou to block or your will use your right Tan Shou to block it? I believe in the old time, the rule of thumb for Wing Chun was always used your left Tan Shou to block a hook punch came from your left side plus a body rotation (counter clockwise - top view). There was a tournament in Hong Kong, a CLF guy used a right hook punched at a Wing Chun guys head. The Wing Chun guy used left Tan Shou to block it. That hook punch pushed down the Wing Chun guy’s left fore arm and still hit on the Wing Chun guy’s head. After that tournament fight, that Wing Chun guy went back and report that event to his teacher Yeh Men. After that day, Yeh Men suggested to used the right Tan Shou to block opponent’s right hook punch by adding the body rotation (counter clockwise - top view). The guide line had been modified since that day.
This story was told by my friend Jeff Law and his brother Jasen Law and both were Yeh Men’s students in Hong Kong at that time (in the early 70th, 1970 - 1973?).
You don’t extend your forearm to block that powerful round house kick, instead, you attach your arm to your body and rotate your body at the same time (use your upper body to block it). After you have caught that round house kick, you may use “stealing step” and hook your opponent’s standing leg off the ground. Since you still hold on his kicking leg and you have also hook up his standing leg (both of his legs are off the ground), the back of his head will be “smashed” to the ground (it’s called air plane crashing throw). If that still doesn’t finish him, you can drop the knee of your hooking leg right into his grion with all your body weight. I have not yet heard anyone who can survive from both head smashing and nuts dropping so far.
There were a Muay Thai guy who challenged a SC guy in Taiwan in the late 70th. That SC guy went to his teacher and said, “I don’t know how to punch and kick (he was a pure sport SC guy). How can I fight that Mauy Thai guy (a foreign student from Thailand)?” His SC teacher said, “If you don’t know how to punch and kick then do you know how to take punches and kicks”. That fight ended exactly like what I have just described above and that Mauy Thai guy was sent to hospital by ambulance. That was almost 40 years ago and that SC guy was the head of the Tao Yuan jail in Taiwan (his name is Paul Han, a criminal justice PhD from a university in Huntsfield, Texas).
If that round house kick did not kill you then the rest will be all yours. A cracking skull could be worse than a broken arm. Will that be a good “trade off”?
I know and that’s why it’s still just “sport” and not “combat”.
In the following clip you can see that the contact point is the upper arm and not the fore arm.
You have some good points John, but your clip shows a not very flexible, half speed kicker skip-stepping in a telegraphed manner from a good couple of paces out in a pre-arranged drill. The ‘catcher’ is not moving at all, he’s just catching.
A reasonable thai fighter from thai-kicking distance will nail that head if you don’t have anything other than your shoulder there.
I do agree with you though that there should be many ways to practice including taking the kick on your arm, but if you don’t move while you’re doing it, your arm will not take the superior mass of the shin.
I have blocked unrehearsed roundhouse head-kicks coming as a combo set-up with tan before, stepping in at 45 to the oncoming leg and taking the knee. If I’m not already moving in when the kick starts it will get me. I would prefer to get in and hit them in the head with my deflecting arm in a tan position but nailed tight in to cover the bottom of my ribs (as hopefully I’ll be in before it gets to my head) or a tai sao. I would prefer even more to dodge it.
The biu jee double hand block is also possible, but I don’t like it personally.
Hey YouKnowWho,
Thanks for sharing the video.
But IMO, I wouldn’t drop my hand to go around the kick and try to catch it. You want to protect your melon, so dropping your hands is a no no.
Personally, I used to keep my hands close to my body/head to help absorb the kick/punch if I couldn’t move around it.
J
After viewing the clip, I absolutely agree with Mat’s point-of-view. Even a good TKD kicker would have taken the defender’s head off. Also, you must be moving so that the power of the kick is largely offset. Standing still at the most powerful range of the kick is just asking for some serious dental work. 
As Jeff said, I can’t see any reason to drop my hands to attempt to catch a kick like that. Of course, that’s just one person’s opinion, OK maybe two or three people’s opinion.
P.S. I just had a look at another clip on the same site. Sorry, but this is just a very bad idea in my opinion.. :eek:
You are absolutely right on this. That clip is only “part” of the drill. Both “body rotation” and “finish strategy” are not in it. Just to show that catching kicks are possible (not saying it’s painless). The drill is part of the “human punching bag training - allow your opponent to use your body as his heavy bag”.
Please share more detail. I would love to hear different opinion on this. Thanks in advance.
In CMA sometime you want to make your body as heavy as mountain, and sometime you want to make your body as light as feather. If your opponent deliver a low round house kick below your knee, you can either turn your shin into it and make him feel your weight, or just bend your leg and let that kick passing through (yielding) and make him feel that you don’t even exit. Force against force may be needed in life.
In CMA, there is no “right” or “wrong” but different ways to handle the same problem. Some are more aggresive and more risk, and some are less aggressive and less risk.