I have been training Shotokan Karate for 6 or 7 years now... We kick heavy bags. Not every class, but a lot. We also kick focus mitts, shields, and each other. Sometimes we kick each other, while one guy is just taking it... learning to take a kick, while the other guy is working on accuracy. Other times we kick each other while sparring. We kick each other in those useless one steps... on both sides. If you don't block or get offline, you get kicked, for real. If you do block, you are blocking a real kick... and many times we return a real kick after the block, as the counter attack. (one that makes contact, according to the experience of the guy getting kicked) We have cross trained with many other local dojos, and all the ones we cross train with, kick things quite a bit too. Just my experience...