The Karate Front Kick - My Real Life Experience

Remember the first Karate kick you learned when you first started Karate? Usually it was the front-kick we were first taught among all other karate kicks before other kicks like turning-kick Side-kick, and so on.

Once we learned how to deliver a front kick we couldn’t wait to learn the next kicking technique and the next cool karate moves. To most beginners, this very first Karate kick, the front kick we learned became the easiest kicking technique, the most boring ‘unfancy’ Karate kick.

However, the front kick is like a straight punch. It is also the most instinctual karate move that a human can and will use with or without learning how to deliver it. It is like a flinch reaction, whenever you see people fighting in a bar, or on the street, when kicks are deployed, it is always the front kicks.

In Karate, it is also the least telegraph (without changing body angle), the easiest (if you can kick a soccer ball), the most devastating (frontal vital points are a straight line from the tip of the head to the groin), and the fastest (delivered in a straight line). It is therefore the most effective Karate kick.

This is the reason why there was no other kicks in any of the Karate kata. Not in any Okinawa karate kata or Japanese karate kata. The only Karate kick in all Karate kata is the Front kick.

Other Karate kicks like Turning-kick and Spinning Back Kick were brought into Karate system along with the evolution of Sports karate. Kata were created for self defense purpose, and front kick is the most effective Karate kick.

This is also why we should spend thousands of hours perfecting this kick. The personal story below tells me how important and effective the front kick is among all the karate kicks.

This happened a few years back. One night at around 11 pm my wife and I heard noises outside our apartment, noises that sounded like the door was being blown by strong winds that shook it. Then the sound got louder. It sounded like someone was shaking the door knob.

I went out to the living area to check. And to my surprise the door and the door knob were indeed shaking.

I walked slowly and saw through the birdview hole on the door. I saw this guy only wearing his underwear trying to open my door!

Adrenaline rushed through my whole body. I crept back to the room to tell my wife to intercom the security and immediately grabbed the baton under the bed and walked back out. When I peeped through the door the nude man was walking back and forth alone, yes he was alone.

The second time I saw him turn around walking back I opened the door. I stepped out, he turned back. I let out a loud kiai that stun him.

I raised my right leg and gave him a front kick right up into his solar plexus (that was probably the best Karate kick I ever delivered in my life).

He literally flew up backwards (honestly, I am NOT bragging). I heard a loud 'thud' and he landed head first. I thought blood was going to flow out from the back of his head but it didn't.

At this moment I took a good look at him, he was the Korean neighbor living few floors up! His eyes were wide open staring up at the ceiling for a few seconds, then they closed slowly.

I was thinking "Oh shit! Don't die here man." I checked his breathing and thank God he was still alive.

Then the lift door opened, there came two inefficient security guards, one carried a big iron rod that probably weighed 70kg that he had difficulty holding, let alone using it.

They recognized him as one of the residents here and told me he just came back heavily drunk. As we were talking our neighbor on the floor opened his eyes, the guard picked him up together with his clothes on the floor and carried him up to his own apartment.

When this nude man was walking towards me, in milliseconds my brain was processing all the karate moves I learned in my entire life. Instinctively I chose to kick him away.

What happened to my other favorite Karate kicks like Mawashi geri and Ushiro-Mawashi geri (reverse turning kick) I used all the time while sparring?

Like I said, Front kick is like a flinch whenever you want to kick. And I can say the deadliest karate moves in self defense are the ones we execute without even thinking. Like this most basic Karate kick – The Front kick.

By Sensei Dan Loh

www.myshotokan.blogspot.com


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