The next thing is to experience taking kicks onto the body. By either moving into or away from the kick it’s power can be greatly reduced. When you close down a kick by rolling into it you catch it before it develops it’s full momentum.

Rolling away from the kick as it hits you reduces the impact of it and often causes the attacker to draw support from your body. By this I mean that they start to put weight onto the foot that is in contact with you. Stamping kicks draw the most support and can cause the attacker to fall as if they have trod on ice. Once the kick is committed in this manner it is impossible to lift the foot which then moves away from them riding on their victims body.

When taking a kick to the body it is important to breath out sharply otherwise you are causing extra pressure on your internal organs caused by the air in your lungs. In short they have no where to move to and are unable to absorb the impact.

Another thing to understand about kicks is that the attackers footwear can reduce the injury you suffer. Since the development of the modern training shoe favours the qualities of being able to reduce shock whilst being light weight our chances of surviving being kicked have greatly increased. Despite this there are ways of kicking in trainers that maximise there damage causing potential.

When studying it is possible to break down the kicks into various types of directions. Some examples are stamps, straight kicks, round house kicks, Kicks from the front, rear or side etc. However at some point it is important to put them all together and work against random attacks.

It is also possible to break down your own work into many areas such as working without hands or arms, using your legs, using movement and your body only, rolling offensively, working on the spot because your movement is restricted, etc.

It is important that we do not put up a guard between our attackers and ourselves. They will either kick through it or move around it. By presenting an open target we are offering an open target that the attacker is likely to commit to. The more they commit to the kick the easier we are going to find it to defend against. Start your training at a slow speed and simply move out of the may of the kick. For slow drills it is important the attacker commits to the kicks as if he was doing it for real.