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In The Arena Blog

Defending and Countering High and Low Kicks

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Striking Coach Vince Salvador discusses how to defend both high and low kicks in Kickboxing, and also how to counter after defending them. A quick rule of thumb is if the kick is below the waist, block it with your leg, and if the kick is above the waist, block it with your hands.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Coach Vince Salvador:

I’m Coach Vince. This is your kickboxing tip of the day. When defending kicks, a good rule of thumb is if the kick is below my waist, I don’t block with my hands. So if he kicks my leg, I do not want to block with my hands. If I do that and he fakes a low kick, he might kick me in the head or the body and it might knock me out, right? So anything below my waist, I block with my legs. So if he kicks to my legs, I block with my leg. If he kicks to the inside, I can block with my leg or I can counter leg kicks with punches, right? In kickboxing, it’s a lot safer sometimes to take the kick and add some punches behind them so you can counter that. Get punches in and finish with your own kick.

 

Another good way to defend kicks, is when he kicks is to throw a kick right back. Defending a kick above the waist, I want to block with my arms. I don’t want to leave my… Open my arm out to get caught. A lot of times in kickboxing, even if I do that, he’s still going to punch me in the face, right? So I need to keep my hands at home. So to defend a kick above my waist, I blocked with my arms. I’ll rotate my hips, so when he kicks, then I can counter with my hands. Again. So above the waist, arms. Below the waist, legs. And that’s your kickboxing tip of the day. Thanks.

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