By leg kick, I mean slamming your shin bone into the opponent’s thigh. By blocking a leg kick, I mean your opponent tries to slam his shin into your thigh, and you raise your knee to block that kick with your shin. I have recently noticed two different schools of thought on blocking leg kicks, as to what direction your blocking leg’s toes should be pointed in.
One school of thought is that your toes should be pointed down towards the floor. This was the belief I was raised with, and I have assumed anything else was sloppy technique. Example of blocking with the toes down:
The other school of thought is that instead your toes should be pulled up so that your foot at about a 90 degree angle with your leg. I recently worked out with a Muay Thai sympathizer who had very convincing arguments for blocking leg kicks this way. Example of blocking with the toes up:
Q3: Historically, why are there two different ways of doing this? Is this an ongoing debate within Muay Thai gyms in Thailand? Is this a this a some-other-type-of-kickboxing (san shou, savate, kyokushin, etc.) vs Muay Thai difference? What?
Your foot doesn’t really block a kick it just presents a taget. I smash your pointed foot or toes with my shin. You are going to have a bad day. So I am for feet flexed.
[QUOTE=gregaquaman;2922441]Feet flexed or pointed.
Your foot doesn’t really block a kick it just presents a target. I smash your pointed foot or toes with my shin. You are going to have a bad day. So I am for feet flexed.[/QUOTE]
So for clarification, you prefer what I referred to as “toes up”. The top of the foot is indeed a sensitive target. One vote for toes up.
The muscle on the lateral side of the Shin tense when you flex your foot “up”, providing more protection for the shin, so I vote “toes up”. The foot shouldn’t be a target in either case. IMO the foot position isn’t nearly as important as the relative body positions and angles of everything else.
[QUOTE=Permalost;2922821]The muscle on the lateral side of the Shin tense when you flex your foot “up”, providing more protection for the shin, so I vote “toes up”. The foot shouldn’t be a target in either case. IMO the foot position isn’t nearly as important as the relative body positions and angles of everything else.[/QUOTE]
This is my reasoning for “toes up” over “toes down”. The last thing I’d want is bone on bone (lol) contact; especially if the kick was fired full force.
[QUOTE=Permalost;2922821]The muscle on the lateral side of the Shin tense when you flex your foot “up”, providing more protection for the shin, so I vote “toes up”. The foot shouldn’t be a target in either case. IMO the foot position isn’t nearly as important as the relative body positions and angles of everything else.[/QUOTE]
This sounds like what he MT person I was working out with was trying to get at. Thanks for the specifics.
With that said, I am seeing a high level of consensus here on Bullshido about toes-up being preferable.
Toes up: 4
Toes down: 0
A high priority for me personally is ergonomics, and the toes up position seems to hurt less when you are using it to block, and it feels less awkward to do than toes-down.
If anyone has insight on the history two different techniques (toes up vs. toes down) that would be interesting. [All I have so far is the difference between the Golden Rooster moves in Chen (older, toes up) vs. Yang (newer, toes down) styles of Tai Chi, irrelevant to the history of striking in MMA.]
[QUOTE=Permalost;2922821]The muscle on the lateral side of the Shin tense when you flex your foot “up”, providing more protection for the shin, so I vote “toes up”.[/QUOTE]
Most of the muscles in that area (tibialis ant. being the biggest) do indeed dorsiflex the ankle.
Interesting exception is peroneus longus which assists in plantarflexion and is also where the large peroneal nerve is running.
I’m not sure if that favors a technique.
It also bears noting that you can also tighten muscles at full length, so toes down doesn’t mean “soft” tibialis ant.
A shortened muscle is fatter too.
More questions than answers.
You can see their relationship here.
The meaty part of the gastrocnemius and soleus are deeper than peroneus laterally, and also plantarflex.
[QUOTE=Raycetpfl;2923749]To weidman is to not block with the shin so much as the lower knee portion of the leg.[/QUOTE]
I don’t think he is trying to block the shin with his knee cap, I think he is using the high part of his shin, though yes, compared to other types of blocking leg kicks, he is relatively blocking with the front/lowest part of what is popularly described as part of the knee:
I got to spar tonight using this toes up leg block, it didn’t take much to convert to toes up, feels natural. I was able to throw front kicks off the “toes up” block with my lead leg just as easily as the toes down I was used to.
[QUOTE=ChenPengFi;2923757]Most of the muscles in that area (tibialis ant. being the biggest) do indeed dorsiflex the ankle.
Interesting exception is peroneus longus which assists in plantarflexion and is also where the large peroneal nerve is running.
I’m not sure if that favors a technique.
It also bears noting that you can also tighten muscles at full length, so toes down doesn’t mean “soft” tibialis ant.
A shortened muscle is fatter too.
More questions than answers.
You can see their relationship here.
The meaty part of the gastrocnemius and soleus are deeper than peroneus laterally, and also plantarflex. [/QUOTE]
OK, now I have to ask. Has anyone heard of a low round kick while pulling the toes up, instead of pointing the toes down (away from the bag)?
ChengPengFi I recall a CLF low sweep connecting with the the shin in certain CLF forms, but the toes are not pointed away from the knee, they are pulled towards the knee… for an example of this see 48 seconds of the following video:
[QUOTE=ChenPengFi;2924015]Sweeping a shin is less than ideal.
There are a lot of hooking movements but I’ve never seen a sweep directly to the shin taught.[/QUOTE]
Harai Tsurikomi Ashi hits lower shin. Definitely a foot sweep. Not Shin to Shin though if that’s what you mean.
[QUOTE=BKR;2924031]Harai Tsurikomi Ashi hits lower shin. Definitely a foot sweep. Not Shin to Shin though if that’s what you mean.[/QUOTE]
Shin contact in that case is kind of more like a rudder though isn’t it?
The one guy I know that hits that throw rather savagely really drives his belly button into it,
and I almost think that he is making an entire displacing plane of his leg against uke’s leg that is being swept back, and then he rotates people over the resulting wedge while they are forced on to one leg.
If he does it to his lapel grip side even other Judo black belts find it hard not to try and post out on the free hand on the way down.
I’m always more nervous than he is when he demonstrates that throw or hits that throw on my mats on his lapel grip side.
