Are high kicks at all useful?
In many cases while fighting, the answer is “probably not”. They can be slow and difficult, certainly compared with low kicks against the thigh.
And even if you can throw a beautifully-formed kick in the training hall, wearing a gi cut for ease of movement, with bare feet or just minimal shoes, can you still throw such a kick when wearing jeans or other trousers, and when your feet are in trainers or boots? This adds yet another amount of difficulty that might make high kicks seem like a pointless thing to practice if you have an interest in self-defence.
Is there anything to redeem the practice of high kicks? Absolutely.
Developing flexibility is one thing, but more importantly is the mobility that you can develop: how well you can control the movement of your legs and hips and your body in general. Many people sit too much in everyday life and develop stiff hips and lower back pain, and this can be countered to at least some extent by improving your hip mobility.
Developing your balance and stability will help in other ways, such as when grappling or when changing direction swiftly. And also having more balance means that you are less likely to fall over in everyday life, which can be quite important as you get older.
And if you are able to perform fast, functional, flexible kicks during light-contact or low-intensity “playtime”, while keeping your body balanced and stable, then it will become considerably easier to deploy low kicks or sweeps in a more realistic or higher-intensity situation.
At our club, we want to enjoy ourselves learning karate, but we also want our choice of karate exercises to help improve our everyday life when we aren’t fighting. Improving balance, stability, and mobility of the joints can have a huge impact on our daily quality of life.
The club opens on Tuesday the 1st of July at the St Mary’s Millennium Centre in West Derby. (And the opening session will be free of charge to everyone.)
We would love to see you there! Please suggest this to any of your friends who might be interested. You would be welcome to give it a go.