When I was fighting lots of tournaments, fighting on the door, and sparring in the school – fighting was fighting was fighting. I did not vary very much from the way I trained and fought. Sure in a real fight I would end up knocking out my opponent instead of holding back a bit in sparring or racking up points in a tournament but I fought the same.

One of my favorite kicks in all venues was the hip and thigh kicks from my side fighting stance. Ok I am dating myself as everyone knows that side stances don’t work right? I mean MMA, boxing, Muay Thai all use forward fighting stances in their sport.

Well let me just say that forward stances can only work in today’s world where groin kicks are not legal and most schools have stopped teaching groin kicks for sport. People have gotten out of practice using groin kicks so forward stances that would not work against any competent karate fighter – flourish (front stances) in today’s sport fighting disciplines.

In this post I will talk about the wonderful low kicks that work in any situation and why you should use them in your fighting, sparring, and tournaments.

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There have been many great fighters and fighting arts that use similar moves but throw them differently. Kung Fu kicks look different than Tae Kwon Do and Muay Thai kicks look different than Karate kicks. Which way of throwing a kick is best?

What am I talking about? Well one example I am going to talk about is a wheel kick, also known as a round house kick. There are significant differences from style to style on how to throw this kick. I’ll talk about some of the rationals and what you have to consider when throwing a wheel kick. Here is one way to throw the round house kick from Bas Rutten.

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