mook jong man
Senior Master
A lot of W.C / WT people spend a lot of time training against high kicking attacks but some neglect to train against low leg attacks . What would you do if someone stood right in front of you and low heel kicked you in the knee or shin , even an untrained person might try and kick you in the shins with their toes if they have steel caps or other heavy boots on.
They might even try to stamp on your toes , one of my instructors lost a fight when he worked as a bouncer in New Zealand , this was years before he started Wing Chun , but anyway he got into a fight with a Maori and the bloke stamped on his foot and it was all over red rover.
But here is the exercise , there are other things you can do , kicks that jam and strike at the same time etc , but I think this is the easiest and fastest way.
They might even try to stamp on your toes , one of my instructors lost a fight when he worked as a bouncer in New Zealand , this was years before he started Wing Chun , but anyway he got into a fight with a Maori and the bloke stamped on his foot and it was all over red rover.
But here is the exercise , there are other things you can do , kicks that jam and strike at the same time etc , but I think this is the easiest and fastest way.
- Both partners face each other , guards up and in your stance
- People who's lineage have two stances use the SLT stance
- Get close enough to each other so that you can reach your partners shin or knee with your heel.
- Partner A tells Partner B what leg he is going to attack with .
- Partner A fires a low heel kick at Partner B aiming for the knee cap or shin
- Partner B defends by shifting the leg that is targeted a couple of inches back so it is just out of the range of the kick , and then without hesitation Partner B using the same leg that he has just shifted back , fires a hook kick at Partner A's attacking leg .
- Partner B aims the hook kick at the middle of the outside thigh between hip and knee , the shin is used as the impact weapon
- Start off very slowly , make sure you do both legs , make sure you change roles as it is also an exercise for the person doing the low heel kick
- Gradually speed it up with random timing of the attacks and then attacking with random leg
- The person defending make sure you only shift your leg back as far as necessary to make the attacker miss , no more , remember economy of movement , you will know how much, the more you practice this exercise.
- The person defending , watch the other partners shoulders and see if you can notice any sign of weight transference this is the signal that he is going to kick
- After you do your technique go straight back to your stance
- Might be an idea to wear shin pads so that you can go close to realistic speed and power
- Don't worry if you are not any good at first , it is a hard reflex exercise and you will quickly find out why Wing Chun uses low kicks , it is because the buggers are hard to stop.