How kicking forces many styles to be more linear.

This isn’t going to be as long as my usual posts.

Simply put, you see lots of martial artists discover that hitting angles and flanking makes for good fighitng. They watch boxing and see boxers constantly hitting angles or changing positions with their hands, lots of movement.

Then they watch Muay Thai or Kyokushin or kickboxing and remark how stiff everyone is, how they move with either little steps or move linearly.



And then those same martial artists puff out their chests and pontificate how these fighters are one dimensional, and if they just hit angles they could probably defeat their opponent. As if no one had ever brought this up to them ever before.

Why don’t they try to move offline!

Where are the angles!

Let me be clear, angles are good and WHEN AVAILABLE a person should take an angle to attack or move anytime they can.

The problem is, angles and flanks are not always available. From the outside in it may SEEM like someone can hit an angle. But often it can be shut down by some really simple shit.

Leg kicking can greatly reduce flanking and foot feinting.

On a personal level I learned that when I was teaching, I taught my student to hit angles and constantly shift and never face the opponent forward. When we drilled with more dynamic work and sparred, he would try this, and it would work.

But then I would low kick him…and then that shit stopped. He still tried to flank and get position when available but not nearly as often, he moved around less. I had for all accounts made him hit angles much less by threatening his legs.

When in motion, it’s hard to check the kick or lean the knee into it (Like Uriah Hall did to Chris Weidman) without having to stop or hunker in. Certainly you CAN practice checking while circling out, but the check is not nearly as powerful, and you still have to generally stop to keep the kick from knocking you off balance. You will move, but move much less.

As a result hitting angles more so happens when attacking or countering more than a constant thing. In close quarters the angles are created by head movement and hand position, outside it has more footwork. But the opening to hit angles becomes far less, and far more like combinations and counter strikes than a constant thing.

Dominick Cruz is a fighter that uses heavy movement supplemented by great slipping, bobbing, weaving. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. Many people have tried to use low kicks to stop him from moving, but he keeps his hands low to scoop legs and utilize strong wrestling to kill all incentive to low kick him. Thus Dominick Cruz is free to move around freely.

Henry Cejudo however is an Olympic Gold medalist in wrestling, more than happy to risk a wrestling match with Dominick Cruz.

So Henry Cejudo leg kicked the shit out of Cruz. Cruz sometimes slowed down and stopped his rhythm, other times he would eat the kicks and get hurt but keep moving. Either way, the leg kicking turned Cruz’s angle heavy footwork against him.

Which ultimately resulted in this:

Cejudo noticed Cruz ducking down to sleep the punch, and then instead of low kicking that one time, he turned it into a knee.

But it was the low kicks that essentially setup that knee to the head, and a strong wrestling base that made him unafraid of getting his leg hooked. The best footwork in MMA was shut down by a simple game plan.

It doesn’t even take low kicks to stop foot work, Low kicks just work the best. Often times round kicks and spinning hook kicks can be used to cut off angles. Connor McGreggor threw a wheel kick not to knock his opponents out, but to force them to sit still.

Every time he kicks he curves it to control the movement, every time there is an attempt to circle or flank, Connor throws a round kick, hook or spinning hook/wheel kick. And every time they have to move backwards rather than in a circle.

But now I want to talk about Uriah Hall.

Everytime Uriah Hall fights the commentators say he’s flat footed “Muay thai style” which yes might be true, but is informed by Uriah’s kyokushin background. And kyokushin loves lots of low kicks. Kicks in general.

Notice the guys jdon’t particularly circle before the big KO? That’s because in Kyokushin low kicks and kicks in general are a primary weapon. Many of them do actually look for angles of attack, but it’s subtle because they could always run into a kick as they move. Often when they hit angles it’s a sudden footwork for a big head kick as seen above. But otherwise they don’t circle left and right as often seen in boxing.

And in some ways this can be weaponized against the person throwing a kick. Uriah knows this, and he has used it before. Most of us watching MMA don’t realize this, and even after he broke Chris Wiedman’s shin did people miss what he was doing by using small heavy steps.

If Uriah was bouncing to his left for the angle, he would have eaten that kick. Instead he played it cool and based out, especially since his opponent was a wrestler that could take him down.

And while he did not mean to wreck Chris’s shin, he used an old kyokushin trick to defend against calf and low kicks.

Sometimes it’s the smarter thing to do by moving less. That doesn’t mean you don’t move, that doesn’t mean you don’t circle. But don’t over do it, especially when your fighting someone that can kick very well.