Probably like a lot people who are into the martial arts one of the first things that really made me think martial arts was cool, was watching a karate flick and seeing some guy kick some bad guy in the side of the head and the bad guy getting knocked cold.

In reality however head kicks are probably the absolute worst thing you can ever do in a street fight. The simple fact is that the majority of people are not built to kick to the head.  You may argue that you can strengthen your hips and stretch and achieve a head kick.

Very true, but it doesn’t last.  If you can’t do it cold as easily as you can deliver a quick jab then it’s very unlikely you will be able to deliver a head kick in a fight.

I’ve been in martial arts for years.  Even people who I would consider good kickers would be putting themselves in serious jeopardy were they to attempt a head kick.  I’ve watched numerous people of all the way up to black belt, have would be head kicks caught in sparring matches, or even cause themselves to go to the ground.  A missed high kick also leaves you on one leg while your opponenent closes or prepares for another attack.

In a serious fight head kicks are fantasy that belong in the movies.

When someone strikes at someone else the usual reaction of the defender is to flinch backward away from the attack.  With a head-kick even someone flinching an inch can mean the difference between the kick landing and the kicker standing on one leg in front of his opponent.

Add to the fact that most people who do have the stretch to head kick can’t kick with enough power to do any real damage.   Trust me if someone is charging at you and you do a head kick it’s more likely that you will end up on the ground then the opponent ending up knocked down.  Most people just don’t have very much snap and power in their kicks. And by most I mean just about every martial artist I’ve even met or watched.

It takes a lot of training to be a powerful and accurate enough kicker to consistently deliver head kicks that have any real effect.  In over 20 years in the martial arts I’ve have seen very very few people who were really good enough at kicking to the head to make it viable in a fight. It is a very physical thing to try to do.

Even kicking at waist level with any real power is hard to do.  Just because you can land a light touch in a padded sparring match does not mean your kick would be any good for you in a fight.

In a fight if something is not easy to do, chances are that you are not going to do it, or if you try to do it you will fail badly.

A little test I like to use is this….. If you can’t kick twice as fast and at least as hard as you punch, then you should not be kicking above the shins. Otherwise it’s like saying, “here grab this and do what you want with it.” Nothing is worse in a fight then having someone grab your kicking foot and then proceed to dance you around.

Then there is the logical aspect of only kicking low.  If you even sparred or trained more than ten minutes you would find that:

• The lower a kick is the easier it is to land.
• Kicks to the knees and shins are hard to block and avoid even by experienced fighters.
• Low kicks are better set ups for quick hand combinations.
• Low kicks have more power as you are not exerting a lot of energy to get your leg up to head level.
• Low kicks are quicker
• Low kicks are harder to see and harder to avoid
• Low kicks are easier to recover from and return to a defensive stance
• If you miss your target on a low kick it’s more likely you may hit somthing else close to your original target.
• Almost anyone can do low kicks with minimal training and stretch. 

That being said, in a real fight when would it be a good time to kick above the knee or shins? 

I can only think of one good time to kick above the knee or shins.  And that is when you already have control of an opponent.  That is say perhaps when in the middle of a technique you have blocked and grabbed an arm and then follow up with a kick to the ribs.   And in this instance only because the high kick to the ribs was the closest weapon you had. 

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