Let’s have a practical thread. The question is how to defend against the low Thai roundhouse kick to the leg. A few months ago someone posted a video where the guy defending raised his knee up in the standard way and the kicker broke his leg in half. It could easily have been the other way around. That’s the problem with light sparring. a simple leg lift is sometimes used but against the right kicker, it will get your leg broken for sure. Other methods are to do a front kick or to move and kick the kickers support leg or just try to avoid the thing which usually is not possible. To use the Thai defenses you better have conditioned limbs.
nothing wrong with a leg block - you gotta have the technique right. when you lift the leg, make sure the foot is flexed and not pointed downward - pointing it downward can result in your ankle being broken. also, angle the leg outward 45 degrees or so, making sure that you block with the shin bone and not the muscle on the side of the leg.
another counter is a good ole fashioned cross - as he does the kick, step in and punch. the punch will stop his momentum, ruining the kick.
you can also teep to his midsection, having the same effect - ruining the kicks momentum.
you may kick the supporting leg as you stated.this is called a cut kick. takes pretty good timing to pull them off against a low kick though.
you can shuffle backwards and allow the kick to pass you by.
sevenstar
if you block with your shin bone is it not going to be very painful?the shin bone is very sensitive.
Make friends with a real Thai boxer. Have them kick you slowly and low powered. Figure out what to do. Then have them increase speed and power step by step and see if your solution holds up under increased pressure. Adjust as needed. Then try it on other real Thai boxers.
Although Bruce Lee is over deified, his point of Jeet Kune Do existing only in the moment of successful application is a good and often overlooked one.
If you can stop a Thai kick, or a wrestling shoot, or a Hung Ga punch or whatever is a question only answered in the moment.
Oh boy! Another “how do I defend against the -fill in the blank-?” thread. I’ll give you the definitive answer: it depends (on the opponent, on you, on what’s going on in the moment, i.e., position, movement, etc., and so on). Questions such as these are individual and can only be found from application. FWIW, these types of threads aren’t “practical” but are theoretical.
Regards,
Terence
shut the kick down out of the gate. use a hitting kick or whatever, hit his thigh/knee, anything to throw off his balance before the kick accelerates or anything, as soon as the leg comes up while he’s in striking
we have footwork like paak gerk, gum gerk, etc. why not use them?
Originally posted by t_niehoff
[B]Oh boy! Another “how do I defend against the -fill in the blank-?” thread. I’ll give you the definitive answer: it depends (on the opponent, on you, on what’s going on in the moment, i.e., position, movement, etc., and so on). Questions such as these are individual and can only be found from application. FWIW, these types of threads aren’t “practical” but are theoretical.
Regards,
Terence [/B]
What’s wrong with these threads. I wonder why anyone bothers to put out any tapes and books or discusses anything for that matter. Why even teach students. Just put on the protection and let them fight. I guess you agree with Moy Yat. Everything is OK, it’s up to you. You start with a theory and then you test it. THai boxing articles talk about methods and so do BJJ articles. Then you go and try these methods. The forms are examples of ideas to try. Don’t be so arrogant. THere are many kinds of people on this forum. How much help is your post to the beginners?
Re: sevenstar
Originally posted by stonecrusher69
if you block with your shin bone is it not going to be very painful?the shin bone is very sensitive.
conditioning is a beautiful thing. the shin is a blocking and kicking surface. when you first begin training, wear shin guards - nothing wrong with that. as time goes on and you kick the thai pads, heavy bag, etc. you will be able to take the shin guards off and not experience pain while blocking.
Originally posted by YongChun
What’s wrong with these threads. I wonder why anyone bothers to put out any tapes and books or discusses anything for that matter. Why even teach students. Just put on the protection and let them fight. I guess you agree with Moy Yat. Everything is OK, it’s up to you. You start with a theory and then you test it. THai boxing articles talk about methods and so do BJJ articles. Then you go and try these methods. The forms are examples of ideas to try. Don’t be so arrogant. THere are many kinds of people on this forum. How much help is your post to the beginners?
threads like this tend to degenerate into “What if” scenarios. That’s probably what he’s getting at.
Originally posted by KFD
[B]shut the kick down out of the gate. use a hitting kick or whatever, hit his thigh/knee, anything to throw off his balance before the kick accelerates or anything, as soon as the leg comes up while he’s in striking
we have footwork like paak gerk, gum gerk, etc. why not use them? [/B]
here’s an example of how they can degenerate into “what if” threads:
I personally don’t like kicking and the leg in an attempt to stop it - that is to small a target to rely on. What happens if you miss the leg? you get hit. Even if you are kicking his upper thigh, which is a bigger area than the knee, if you hit the bottm as opposed to hitting squarely, your foot rolls off and you may still get hit. Notice, when I posted a similar technique, I advocated hitting the midsection - it’s a much wider target area and much harder to miss.
“…make sure that you block with the shin bone and not the muscle on the side of the leg.”
(SevenStar)
I’ve got to differ with this…
What I’m about to describe is something I’ve come up with lately after many years of simply lifting the leg up to absorb the kick. Admittedly - I haven’t tried this yet against someone trained in Muay-Thai…but some of my most advanced students have been in the arts for 15-18 years…coming from karate, TKD, and kickboxing backgrounds. Some of these guys do have a serious and powerful low roundhouse kick to the legs. (Have been on the receiving end during sparring enough times through the years to testify to this).
First of all…I don’t like going shin-to-shin…because if he’s bigger, stronger, and has spent more time toughening his shins than I have - that 5hit’s going to really hurt!
So I prefer absorbing the kick at the side of the calf muscle - but that hurts like hell too! If that’s all you do. Not to mention the fact that this move doesn’t put him on the defensive - it simply saves you from taking an even harder kick to the very vulnerable thigh muscle and/or the back of your knee-joint. So lately I’ve been working with the following move with good success almost all of the time.
And in fact, I’ve found that the harder he tries to kick you - the easier it is to pull this off - because he’s more committed to the kick than otherwise and therefore will find it much harder to counter the move I’m about to describe.
Let’s say we’re both in a left front stance and he throws the low rear roundhouse with his right leg at my left thigh…
I receive the kick with the side of my calf muscle near the shin…so the 45 degree angle in this case means that my calf muscle area near the shin is directly facing the kick’s point-of-contact - while simultaneously throwing a downward hammerfist-type blow with my left fist/forearm at his leg - which immediately turns into a grab of his leg (wrap from underneath - in other words - overhook his leg)…and then immediately follow this by taking your left leg and his trapped right leg backwards (while still in the air) - so that you wind up in a right front stance (with both feet back down on the floor) and his right leg is trapped and up in the air.
Also…your right arm/hand is now doing a stiff, straight-arm grab of his right arm (if he’s got it forward) - if not …keep the straight-arm position so as to keep his body away from you (once he’s trapped…if he’s smart…he should try to hop into you and wrap his arms close to your upper body - thereby bringing his whole body closer to you - and therefore no longer having his leg extended and very vulnerable )…
so the straight arm will stop him from doing this…
there’s more to come from this new position - so that you put him down on the floor…but I’ll let it go at this for now.
One note of caution: On the initial move - don’t have your raised left knee too close to your body - otherwise your balance is jeopardized and a powerful kicker might come through your defense put you right down on the floor…and the 45 degree angle is also very important not only for the proper balance and facing - but to also make sure that the kick doesn’t come around your leg to the point that his toes might actually find your groin. (Your calf muscle - which will receive the kick - must face the point-of-contact directly).
One final note: The downward hammerfist strike also serves the purpose of mitigating the power on his kick - by striking his kicking leg you are therefore moving it downward - so that no one point of your calf muscle is taking the shot…and by spreading out the area of contact…you are taking less pain at any one given spot on your leg (similar to dissolving his force)…which is also what you’re doing with the full step backward move…you’re kind of going with the force and riding out it’s impact.
The excellent posts in reply to the question proves to me that this question was not a waste of everyone’s time. Maybe someone else on this forum has wondered about these things so then when they read these posts they can go and try some of the suggestions. Perhaps its something they have not tried before. In my mind there are no stupid questions to be asked. I know in school lots of guys are afraid to ask a question in case everyone else in the class laughs at them and thinks them stupid. even the dumbest question can lead to something. To what, nobody knows until we get going with a few opinions. The roundhouse kick to the lower leg is probably the first thing you face when fighting a good Thai stylist. The straight kick and straight punch don’t have the same scare factor. However there was an Okanawan master who gave a seminar once and when sparring he would only use the front snap kick. No one was able to stop it because he was a master at its setup.
Natural for me is the leg lift but against a very hard kicker I don’t like the technique because my leg might break unless it was really conditioned. Against poor kickers or in light sparring it always works OK. Kicking straight isn’t bad I find and trying to use footwork to not be there but not anyone thing will constantly work and as Terence said depends on a lot of things. The most common thing I see in Thai photos seems to be the leg lift but they have the conditioning for it too.
UWC, sounds interesting, got a clip of that one?
The posts I’ve read on this thread , I’ve generally liked.
The thread assumes a low round house on the outside of the lead leg.
What modifications / suggestions would you put up for checking / evading the same low roundhouse kick targeting the inside of the lead leg?
Lookin forward to learning something new.
There are a couple things that I learned from my thai boxing coach that I don’t think were mentioned here…they deal mostly with shui jiao or throwing counters.
One method we employ is to counter with an elbow just above the knee of the kicker as you move in to take up the space, once that stops the force we grab the kicking leg and sweep out the foundation leg. Upon proper application this happens almost simultaneously mind you. I guess in wing chun terms you would use sip ma (circle advance) to tai jong, wrapping the leg and performing a soo gurk? I suppose it depends on the terminology of your lineage.
To me this technique transposes from shui jiao, to muay thai to wing chun pretty seamlessly. Fighting is fighting after all right?
Just another thing for you all to chew on.
namron:
Have it on video tape…but I’m a real low level computer guy. Have no clue about how to post it on this forum.
As to the roundhouse coming at the inside part of the leg - much harder to deal with. I use a move that is just slightly similar to the other one I described - but without the grab and trap of his kicking leg.
Assume you’re in a left front stance - he’s in a right front - and he throws the roundhouse at the inside of your left leg with his left.
Lift the lead leg up, turn and point the shin at his shin (so you probably will go shin-to-shin on this one)…but the mitigating factor is to hammerfist down on his kicking leg with your left fist and forearm. (It’s very important to use the hammerfist at the exact moment of leg-to-leg contact). And as I explained earlier - this will diffuse the shock and force of the kick because you’re spreading the area of impact to be wider than it would have been.
Note: Try to raise you’re knee high enough so that the shin-to-shin contact might work to your advantage - because you might wind up actually dropping your leg/shin down on his kick from above it…and this angle (and the force of gravity) might result in actually kicking his kick with more force than what he’s doing to you…and might even result in dropping your shinbone down on his leg slightly past his shinbone and onto a fleshier part of his leg…which means you have a stronger weapon hitting a weaker one. By the way - this move does require lifting and bringing your knee close to your body.
Note of caution:
Keep your rear hand (wu sao) high and near your left ear as you do this move - so as to protect that side of your face/head against him trying to follow with a punch to this area…and similarly - immediately return your left arm up to it’s natural guarding position after the hammerfist.
What do you guys think about using a straight front snap-kick (as I guess it would be called), into the mid-rif/hip area? (not sure if anyone has mentioned that option). If the kick was coming from your opponents back leg, then a quick and timed front kick would (in my mind), send him backwards and rob the majority of the power out of his kick.
The major draw back is that if you kick with your left (to counter his right kick), you might risk him reaching your rear leg (right leg in this case), if you don’t nail him hard enough. Though that might be down to a matter of your opponents reach (if he’s aimed for your left leg and you kick him with it, then theres no leg there to kick).
Thoughts?
I know a few ways to defend against a low leg kick. I’ll attempt to make a video of the concept Victor is talking about. I’ll post it here in a couple of days.
PR
Originally posted by RaNGeR.GaV
[B]What do you guys think about using a straight front snap-kick (as I guess it would be called), into the mid-rif/hip area? (not sure if anyone has mentioned that option). If the kick was coming from your opponents back leg, then a quick and timed front kick would (in my mind), send him backwards and rob the majority of the power out of his kick.
The major draw back is that if you kick with your left (to counter his right kick), you might risk him reaching your rear leg (right leg in this case), if you don’t nail him hard enough. Though that might be down to a matter of your opponents reach (if he’s aimed for your left leg and you kick him with it, then theres no leg there to kick).
Thoughts? [/B]
The “teep” that Seven Star refers to is the same idea.
Some good responses here.
The main thing is to practice.
The Thai’s wear shinpads to spar.
The reason being they don’t want to injure their shins. They’ve got to look after them and save it for real matches. They aren’t dumb. They use bags and pads to condition their shins.
I’d suggest everyone do the same.
The second thing is to understand the theory in Muay Thai.
Defending doesn’t score points in Muay Thai so it’s important to be able to strike them back when they are kicking at you.
If your opponent kicks, he’s vulnerable after the kick is delivered or sometimes before he even kicks. Every time the opponent makes a move there’s opportunities and openings especially with kicks due to the amount of body movement involved. This leads to the really counterattacking style that you see in good Muay Thai.
So in practice, after you defend (using whatever method you prefer), get used to counter attacking straight away before they even put their leg down.
Originally posted by RaNGeR.GaV
[B]What do you guys think about using a straight front snap-kick (as I guess it would be called), into the mid-rif/hip area? (not sure if anyone has mentioned that option). If the kick was coming from your opponents back leg, then a quick and timed front kick would (in my mind), send him backwards and rob the majority of the power out of his kick.
The major draw back is that if you kick with your left (to counter his right kick), you might risk him reaching your rear leg (right leg in this case), if you don’t nail him hard enough. Though that might be down to a matter of your opponents reach (if he’s aimed for your left leg and you kick him with it, then theres no leg there to kick).
Thoughts? [/B]
yeah, that was the teep I was talking about. However, I wouldn’t recommend using a snap kick - the teep is more of a push kick. the push will break his balance and may knock him backward in addition to stopping the kick. A snap kick may not. Use your lead leg - your rear, while more powerful, is slower.
Originally posted by Edmund
[B]The second thing is to understand the theory in Muay Thai.
Defending doesn’t score points in Muay Thai so it’s important to be able to strike them back when they are kicking at you.
If your opponent kicks, he’s vulnerable after the kick is delivered or sometimes before he even kicks. Every time the opponent makes a move there’s opportunities and openings especially with kicks due to the amount of body movement involved. This leads to the really counterattacking style that you see in good Muay Thai.
So in practice, after you defend (using whatever method you prefer), get used to counter attacking straight away before they even put their leg down. [/B]
Agreed. When teaching kicking defenses I always stress the you should counter before the kickers leg hits the ground, when applying a deflection of some sort, or just stop kicking before the kick gets off. When deflecting you have to off balance him/her by attacking the knee on their kick, whether it is with the palm, or for low kicks the shin on knee, and while that is happening you attack simultaneously.
James