I will here attempt to be non style specific in discussing fight strategy. Simply remember to train your reflexes for the proper use of body mechanics. Prepare your mind for a self defense mindset, rather than hostility. Remember “zanshin” – remaining mind. This is your most powerful weapon. Prevention is better than cure!

When faced with a heavy handed puncher, his or her hand speed and upper body defenses may be hard to match or get past. In this case, timing and creativity are of high priority. In a street situation, you do not have time to memorize his or her habits. Neither do you get the benefit of watching fight tapes beforehand. Watch for openings in the attacks, and draw out your opponent for a timed hit. Don’t forget use of body shifting; especially to the outside of the opponent, which will present you with a strategic advantage. This reduces his / her options by 50%. This will be easier or harder to do depending on the attacker’s training; such is hard to judge immediately, so it is instead better to take the initiative and/or counter-hit as quickly and efficiently as possible. Untrained punchers, however, tend to have a large amount of telegraphing (movements that signal a certain attack, not unlike “tells” in poker).

Against a kicker, remember that people are already on the brink of disaster on two feet, and taking another foot off the ground ruins balance even more. Also, a kick generally takes longer than a punch to reach its destination. Use this in conjunction with “stop hits” when you are at or just outside of the attacker’s kicking range. Essentially, you will want to react to the opponent’s starting movement as quickly as possible with a jamming technique or combination. Be extra careful when the attacker does manage to raise a kick. A well trained kicker can often change a kick’s height or target before putting his or her foot down.

You must maintain a strong cover from which you can counter swiftly, and off-balance your opponent while their kicking foot is still traveling. Make an opportunity to close with the kicker, and reduce his or her options. Elbows and knees are particularly effective for striking away kicks, and use in close-up fighting. Use caution, however, if your attacker appears trained in a heavily body-conditioning oriented flavor of Muay Thai / Thaiboxing, Kyokushin karate, or the like. Counter striking to vital areas that cannot be conditioned (solar plexus and so forth) will be even more important in these cases.

Many fights end up hitting the ground. If you are not comfortable working from the ground, then maintain a solid fighting distance and avoid in-close fighting as much as possible. Adding to the danger of ground fighting is the possibility of more attackers arriving, glass on the ground, weapons, and your most immediate attacker being much heavier, as well as numerous other factors. A grappler will have methods of closing the fighting distance with you, and taking you out of the range from which many types of strikes can be thrown solidly. In this case, make well-timed use of elbows, knees, standing submissions, reversals, makeshift weapons, and other such anti-grappling maneuvers. Be especially careful not to over-extend your strikes, or leave them extended for long after delivery, against a seasoned grappler.

When faced with an attacker who you suspect has a weapon, you will, of course, have even more reason to seek means of escaping the situation other than hand to hand combat. It is possible that if you comply with your attacker, they will let you alone afterwards. However, do not always be quick to believe that he or she shares your belief system; they could very well harm or even kill you after getting what he / she wanted.

The attacker may also be on drugs such as PCP, which would make him or her very dangerous to deal with. Pain compliance may not work as well against such an assailant; move defensively while doing as much damage as possible. Use the environment even more so, such as getting free to run and throwing things in his / her path. Also be extra careful of weapons the attacker is wielding. If at close range, attempt to stop the weapon from even being drawn. If this is not possible, dodge an attack or jam it as your opponent comes at you. Control the wielding arm, and strike at your opponent with your free limbs, head butts, etc. until you can disarm or subdue. It’s also very important not to get caught off guard with a handgun, which would put you at a severe disadvantage. In this case, use distraction or other methods to diffuse the situation, and disarm if necessary.

Overall, many attackers will concentrate on their “weapon” (striking, grappling, a weapon, sheer strength or numbers, etc). Your attacker may believe that he / she has something that guarantees success. There is no way anyone can plan ahead for all situations, however. You must instead constantly learn, as well as use strategy, adaptability, and heart to your advantage, in a fight or life itself.

Kicking is one of the things that set the martial arts apart from other practices like boxing or wrestling. Kicking is what got me into the martial arts in the first place all those years ago. I distinctly remember watching Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon” as he spectacularly kicked his way through hordes of Han’s minions, dispatching them with lighting fast round-house kicks, powerful side-kicks and devastating spinning back kicks and thinking to myself, “I want to be able to do that”. Now, after years of practice, I can do that, I can kick with the best of them, though taking on hordes of angry henchmen might still be a little out of my league; maybe, if they all formed an orderly queue!

What I soon noticed after I started training was that I had a talent for kicking, more so than punching. Kicking has always come naturally to me and I feel more comfortable doing it than punching. What I have noticed over the years is that most martial artists tend to favour one or the other and indeed it has been my experience that more people are comfortable punching rather than kicking. Occasionally you will come across someone who is comfortable switching between both, with no preference either way, which I suppose is how it should be. Regardless, I remain an unashamed kicker and always will. It’s my first love and you never forget your first love, do you?

I believe that all martial artists should be able to kick well, especially for self defence purposes. Kicks are great for street confrontations because they are fast, devastatingly effective and you can control the distance more easily than you can with punches. They are therefore a valuable addition to anyone’s armoury.

In that spirit then, I present to you seven different ways in which you can improve your kicking technique. All of the methods that follow are proven to work because I and others I have trained with have used them to improve over the years, so I hope you get some value from what follows.

1. Practice, practice, practice! I know I run the risk of stating the obvious here, but it still amazes me how many people bemoan the fact that they cannot kick properly and when you ask them how often they practice their kicking they just look at you with blank faces and mumble something like, “Now and again.” If you want to get good at anything you have to practice on a regular basis and the same is true of kicking. For years now I have been spending about twenty minutes or so on the heavy bag, before class actually starts, just kicking and kicking, over and over, hitting the bag with as many different kicks as I can in the allotted time. Really, if I didn’t write anything else here, you could vastly improve your kicking just by following this one recommendation: practice! Hang a bag up at home and use it in your spare time, even if it’s only for a few minutes at a time, it all counts. Or go to the dojo early, before class starts, and get in a few rounds on the bag there. It has been said that in order to master a technique a person must perform it ten thousand times (and probably more). That’s a lot of kicks – so get practicing!

2. Stretch. Good flexibility is paramount to good kicking performance. Trying to perform kicks effectively with tight hamstrings and tense leg muscles is almost impossible, and that applies to any kick, not just high kicks. The more flexible you are the more easily you will be able to kick, so if you don’t already do so, start stretching. There are many good stretching exercises you can do, either alone or with a partner. It does not really matter which exercises you do, as long as you do them and do them regularly, trying to extend the elasticity of your muscles each time you do the exercises. Doing them every day is ideal if you really want to improve your flexibility, but just incorporating a routine into your regular training sessions is fine as well. Whatever time you spend stretching is time well spent in terms of making you a better kicker.

3. Relax. Cultivating the ability to relax while kicking will vastly improve your technique. Too often I see people trying to kick while their whole body is tense, with the result that their kicks are stiff and uncontrolled. Some people, especially beginners, think that in order to generate power in their technique they must tense up first as if they are gathering up all that power and then trying to hurl it all at the bag or their opponent. This is totally the wrong approach to good kicking and is counter-productive to any notions of speed or power that you may have. I am forever telling people to relax before they kick, especially the shoulders. Keep the shoulders and arms relaxed. The power of your kick is directly dependent on how fast it is and the speed of your kick is directly dependent on how relaxed you are. Speed=power. You will have more success if you develop your speed first than if you try to kick the bag of its bracket all the time. So stay nice and loose and limber, be light on your feet and aim for speed. The power will follow naturally.

4. Kick of the front foot. Kicking of the front foot is more effective I believe, than stepping forward and kicking of the back foot. I often see people sparring and throwing kicks of the back foot and being really slow about it, to the point were their kick is just blocked or side-stepped, rendering it ineffectual. The reason for this is the distance the kick has to travel before it reaches its target and the resulting telegraphing to your opponent- they can see it coming. Kicks of the back foot, especially in kick-boxing or any kind of sparring, are just too slow and can be seen coming way before they ever arrive. The only time I would really use kicks of the back foot is when I have already connected with a kick or punch and I’m following it up. The initial strike serves as a good enough distraction that I don’t have to worry so much about the kick being blocked, especially since I’m stepping in that way anyway.

For the most part though, I believe shooting of the front foot to be much more effective. One of my idols when I was growing up was Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, an American kickboxing champion (and later actor as well). Bill was famous for his devastatingly fast side-kicks and hook kicks, both of which he did of his leading left leg. They were so fast, his opponents never seen them coming and that is why he always beat them. Ever since I realised this fact, I have been performing most of my kicks of the front foot, shooting the leg out more or less from were it is with little or no telegraphing to my opponent. The result of this has been that I have developed a highly effective side-kick that I use all the time when sparring. It’s a kick that never lets me down, offensively and defensively and people very rarely see it coming when I’m on form, simply because I can throw it from were it is with no need to cock it in any way. I just shoot it out like a bullet from a gun.

So where ever possible, kick with your leading leg (if you don’t already do so) and see how much effective it is than kicking of the back leg.

5. Work on your balance. Good balance is essential to the effectiveness of any kicking technique. A lack of balance will upset the whole rhythm and motion of your kick, rendering it practically useless and worse, it will leave you vulnerable after it has been performed because you won’t be able to regain your position again, leaving yourself open to counter-attack. The reason why balance is usually lost, especially with beginners, is from trying to kick too high. I often see people trying to run before they can walk. Unless you are unusually agile, do not try to kick above your own waist until you are actually able to maintain your balance at that level. It is fine wanting to do head kicks right away, but if your almost falling over or leaving yourself dangerously open to counter-attack, then what is the point? Kick to whatever height that you can comfortably maintain your balance and then work from there, building upon the height gradually. Again, this will only come through constant practice on the bags and in sparring.

6. Understand the mechanics of the technique. When I say understand the mechanics of the technique, I mean you must understand exactly what positions your body has to be in order for you to perform the technique properly and with strict form. The best way to do this is to break the kick down into stages in the beginning. So if we take a front snap kick as an example: step forward and raise the knee as high as possible, snap the kick out (being careful not to hyper-extend the leg) and then draw it back into position again, settling back into fighting stance. If you break all your kicks down into stages in this way, at least in the beginning while you are learning them, then you will find it much easier to perform them correctly at full speed because you understand exactly what positions your body has to be in to do the kick properly.

A common mistake I often see inexperienced kickers make, especially when it comes to round-house kicks, is not turning into the kick enough. The hips and shoulders are not fully turned and the kicking leg is prevented from making its full trajectory. The whole body has to swivel right round in order for there to be any real power in the kick, otherwise all your doing is just swinging the leg round awkwardly to no real effect. The back foot, the one that supports you while you’re kicking, has to swivel as well. I’ve seen some people try to throw round-house kicks while their back is glued motionless to the floor and they then wonder why they can’t turn themselves round enough. Everything, the shoulders, hips and back foot have to turn in unison, allowing for a smooth kicking trajectory.

So observe strict form in the beginning when you’re learning the kicks, take it slow and allow the speed and balance to come naturally. That way, you can be assured of giving yourself the best possible grounding on which to become a good and effective kicker.

7. Never drop your guard. This is the last thing I would like to mention in regards to being a good kicker. Too often I see people kicking and allowing their hands to drop down and away from them, as if this will somehow improve their technique. It won’t. All it will do is leave you open to counter-attack. What happens if your kick falls short, or it is blocked or evaded and you are caught with your hands dangling down by your sides? You are going to get hit, then aren’t you! At least if you keep your guard up at all times, keeping your body protected, if you do miss with your kick you can still cover up and defend yourself. A small point, but a most important one, and one which should be adhered to at all times.

Neal Martin is a martial artist with over twenty-five years experience. His website, http://www.urbansamurai.org.uk, is a place where martial artists of all levels and styles can come and discuss all aspects of the martial arts and also read many articles on technique, philosophy, culture and other training facets.