"Kick to the head"

Gwai Lo Dan

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Sometimes when I am sparring a lower belt, for fun and to make sure the person isn't caught off guard, I will say "kick to the head" before doing a high kick that I don't finish. I never realised it, but maybe I should be saying "boot to the head"!

 

marques

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I think it can be a bad habit. Why don’t you just touch, fly over, hit the shoulder... instead. Still safe and they still learn how to defend without advise...
 
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Gwai Lo Dan

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I think it can be a bad habit. Why don’t you just touch, fly over, hit the shoulder... instead. Still safe and they still learn how to defend without advise...
Previously, I did a turning kick to the head, and I was going to pull the kick. But the guy moved INTO the kick, not AWAY from the kick, so I tried even harder to pull it back, but he moved so quickly into it. It didn't land hard, but still, he went down and then had a welt on the face. Since then I've been even more careful.
 

marques

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Previously, I did a turning kick to the head, and I was going to pull the kick. But the guy moved INTO the kick, not AWAY from the kick, so I tried even harder to pull it back, but he moved so quickly into it. It didn't land hard, but still, he went down and then had a welt on the face. Since then I've been even more careful.
I thought of this while writing.
What if it happens, one day, even with warning? :) No kicks to the head to the lower belts? Just asking. It's hard to balance safety and 'fighting' or any contact sport...
 

Xue Sheng

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sparing a TKD guy years ago and he threw a kick that went past my head and I moved in....he then reversed it without touching the ground and brought that foot back and rested it on my shoulder....at that point I stopped, looked at him and said.... I just lost...didn't I
 

Earl Weiss

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How you train is how you act. There re stories where this caused problems. Soldiers trained to pick up brass at the range get shot in battle picking up brass. Retuning weapon after training disarms and doing that after a real disarm. Letting go after a tapout. (Last one was related by an instructor who said he did that after restraining someone as a bouncer. ) Some things can't be avoided.
 
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See now the big mistake here, is not drawing your .40S&W pistol with a 22 round magazine to truly suprize them. :p
 

CB Jones

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Soldiers trained to pick up brass at the range get shot in battle picking up brass. Retuning weapon after training disarms and doing that after a real disarm

This sounds more like an urban myth or fictional anecdote
 
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This sounds more like an urban myth or fictional anecdote

I mean i dont think they are "trained" to pick up ammo off a range, they are just told to do it some circumstances. i doubt anyone will be noticing where the cases are going shooting back at somone shooting at themselves or be scrambling while getting shot at to get them*. I also dont think you are "trained" to return them, you might return a weapon post disarm or you might have to be told to return it. (plus then you can easily rectify that by having the person who just lost it, get it back by doing a disarm) So even if it was a problem, its easy to fix.

*Maybe the instruction team is trained to pick them up post range use after the unit using it has left.

Apologies orginally was itnented to support your claim but turned into a rant and a worthy response to quote the roginal post. @Earl Weiss
 

CB Jones

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I mean i dont think they are "trained" to pick up ammo off a range, they are just told to do it some circumstances. i doubt anyone will be noticing where the cases are going shooting back at somone shooting at themselves or be scrambling while getting shot at to get them*. I also dont think you are "trained" to return them, you might return a weapon post disarm or you might have to be told to return it. (plus then you can easily rectify that by having the person who just lost it, get it back by doing a disarm) So even if it was a problem, its easy to fix.

*Maybe the instruction team is trained to pick them up post range use after the unit using it has left.

Apologies orginally was itnented to support your claim but turned into a rant and a worthy response to quote the roginal post. @Earl Weiss

There are anecdotal stories out there.

One of them is a California Highway Patrolman being killed while putting the empty cartridges in his pocket while reloading during a gun fight....but that was false.

And I have heard the exact same story by numerous SD instructors about disarming a gunman and then handing the gun back to them only to realize what they did and disarm them again. Pretty sure it’s just an anecdotal story to add humor to training and keep students interested.
 

skribs

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If you pull the kick and they walk into it, then it sucks...but it is a teaching moment. I barely remember much from my 4-year stint in Taekwondo when I was kid, but one thing I remember well is when I was sparring the instructor and I run full-speed at her. She just put up her foot (didn't even to a pushing kick) and basically clothes-lined me with the ball of her foot.

We had one student walk into a punch. I mean that literally. We were doing one-step drills in the white belt class, the punch was already done and sitting there, and he stepped straight forward into it. It's a bit of a learning moment.
 

wab25

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I always preferred "Ain't that a kick in the head?" Depending on your timing and delivery, you can use that one before the kick, after the kick or both... Either way, its pretty smooth.

 

Earl Weiss

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See now the big mistake here, is not drawing your .40S&W pistol with a 22 round magazine to truly suprize them. :p

If that is what was needed. Not doing it was a mistake. And drawing t without using it may have been another misake.
 
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Gwai Lo Dan

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t one thing I remember well is when I was sparring the instructor and I run full-speed at her.

You too, eh?

I was sparring the young Korean master who had recently graduated from TKD in university. He was good.

As a red belt, I thought I'd move hard in and he would back up, live everyone else did, and I'd be setting up my real kick perfectly. Instead he just picked up his front foot for a light turning kick that I ran into. Learning lesson indeed!
 

skribs

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You too, eh?

I was sparring the young Korean master who had recently graduated from TKD in university. He was good.

As a red belt, I thought I'd move hard in and he would back up, live everyone else did, and I'd be setting up my real kick perfectly. Instead he just picked up his front foot for a light turning kick that I ran into. Learning lesson indeed!

This was a 2nd degree black belt. Wife of the Master.

I was about 9 years old, all of 4 feet tall and 50 pounds (or somewhere around there). It wasn't hard for her to stop my momentum!
 

Mitlov

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This sounds more like an urban myth or fictional anecdote
I've heard it in the context of police reloading revolvers in the 60s and 70s, back when police trained with and used revolvers. It was not uncommon do discard spent casings into your palm and then pocket them during a reload at the range instead of ejecting then onto the ground. But it slowed down the process of reloading the revolver and allegedly some police realized they realised that way during firefights too because that's how they always emptied their revolver cylinder at the range.

I can't prove it happened, but at least with that context, it seemsa lot more likely to me than soldiers picking up brass. Soldiers picking up brass is an activity you do after shooting is done, instead of part of reloading-process muscle memory (at least this is true with autoloaders instead of revolvers, and our soldiers haven't used revolvers in a very long time).
 

CB Jones

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I've heard it in the context of police reloading revolvers in the 60s and 70s, back when police trained with and used revolvers. It was not uncommon do discard spent casings into your palm and then pocket them during a reload at the range instead of ejecting then onto the ground. But it slowed down the process of reloading the revolver and allegedly some police realized they realised that way during firefights too because that's how they always emptied their revolver cylinder at the range.

That comes from a incident in California.

From memory...3 California highway patrolmen were killed in a shootout.

One of the CHP was shot and killed while in the process of reloading. Years later a CHP firearms instructor started the rumor that the Slain CHP was killed while dumping his spent brass in his jacket pocket.....but that was untrue.

The instructor created the rumor to try and stop CHPmen from doing that in training so that they would train how they were actually going to fight in real life.

The problem wasn’t them picking up brass during gunfights but the fact that they were not training like they were in a gunfight
 

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