round house kick vs front kick

[Manny]

Okey, for your point of view wich kick is stronger, the roundhouse kick or the front kick, aimed to the gut. Some times I just think a well placed round kick to the stomach is better than a front kick however let me tell you the front kick is better suited for a streetfight.

Manny

 

[Touch Of Death]

Okey, for your point of view wich kick is stronger, the roundhouse kick or the front kick, aimed to the gut. Some times I just think a well placed round kick to the stomach is better than a front kick however let me tell you the front kick is better suited for a streetfight.

Manny

I have to disagree. Front kicks are generally more penetrating, but I would say, if done safely, the targets for a roundhouse kick still present themselves with as much or more frequency than the targets for a front kick.
Sean

 

[MaxiMe]

Also you might want to take into account who is throwing the kick. I tend to think my rounds have more power than my fronts. Just to the way my body is built I guess.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Side kick.

 

[ATC]

Round or turn kick with full hip turn and plant for pivot will out power a front kick everytime. Now if you can't perform a correct turn kick then there is no power whatsoever.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Side kick.

I agree. The only times I have ever kicked someone and had them go flying backwards and land in a heap has been with a sidekick, particularly off the front leg (and Im quite skinny, without much weight behind me). From my own personal experience however, I have found sidekick to be a kick that not many people can do very well, everyone can do them but with perfect technique they are a devastating kick.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Round or turn kick with full hip turn and plant for pivot will out power a front kick everytime. Now if you can't perform a correct turn kick then there is no power whatsoever.

Understand that if your body is in motion and you pass the point of no return with a font ball kick to the bladder, there is plenty of power, and you are pinpointing with a smaller weapon, so, I wonder, with all the power lost through counter balancing, and a larger surface area on the weapon with a round house, if the target is more damaged in the end.
Sean

 

[granfire]

I don't think they compare much:

A front kick is a straight line motion. You can get it in under the guard or when the target is not positioned to hit it with a round.

Thew round might have more power. But it comes in from the side. So while it is a fantastic kick again, it works best when the target is set up accordingly.

(Sidekick, now that one is neat....I think my short ribs still scream from collecting a couple of those....my instructor said he loves to use one to back an opponent up, and I believe it.)

 

[Cyriacus]

I prefer Front Kicks. The Roundhouse Kick is a larger striking surface, and makes a louder noise, but the sheer driving force in a Front Kick may not make a loud noise, but it hits hard. I assure You.

 

[jedtx88]

I prefer Front Kicks. The Roundhouse Kick is a larger striking surface, and makes a louder noise, but the sheer driving force in a Front Kick may not make a loud noise, but it hits hard. I assure You.

What if you use the ball of your foot instead of the instep for a roundhouse?

 

[Cyriacus]

What if you use the ball of your foot instead of the instep for a roundhouse?

That, My Good Man, is Turning Kick.
Lets not get too misconstrewed here. Being a KKW WTF Practitioner (As in, the OP is a KKW WTF Practitioner), Im pretty sure the OP was referring to the KKW WTF TKD Roundhouse with the Instep.
If We go with every definition of Roundhouse, We should throw in Twisting Kick, Hook Kick, Spinning Heel Kick, Inner and Outer Crescent Kick, and probably one or two more I cant think of offhand.

Turning Kick, or Turn Kick in KKW WTF TKD, but Turning in most others, is indeed a more Powerful Kick, however, My Answer is unchanged, since Turning Kick requires You to be at the right angle. Front Kick can be conducted from any angle at any time. As can an Instep Kick, albeit to a lesser extent.

Good First Post, Buddy.
If You Learn anything on here, Itll be Retrospect of Interpretation.
For example, We could all just say that Front Kick, Roundhouse Kick, and Turning Kick could all be thrown toward the Legs at any time at any angle. Thats True. But so can Side Kick, Back Kick, Hook Kick, and pretty much any Kick. Which I believe is why the OP specified Aiming for the Gut.

And incase Youre unaware, though if You are, for any Readers who arent; Roundhouse is not the name of the Kick, so much as the name of what it does. House refers to a Frontal Guard, defending the Front of Your Body. Thusly, a Round House is a Strike, Punch Kick Elbow Knee Forearm or whatever, which goes Around the House. It just means it comes in from the side. Theres Roundhouse Punch for example.

 

[Earl Weiss]

And incase Youre unaware, though if You are, for any Readers who arent; Roundhouse is not the name of the Kick, so much as the name of what it does. House refers to a Frontal Guard, defending the Front of Your Body. Thusly, a Round House is a Strike, Punch Kick Elbow Knee Forearm or whatever, which goes Around the House. It just means it comes in from the side. Theres Roundhouse Punch for example.

First - good point of info. Frontal guard = "House" so the Roundhouse punch got the name from going "around the House"
Second - Different systems call different kicks different things and sometimes it's just the english translation, sometimes iteral, sometimes not. So, it's good you defined it from a KKW standpoint.
Third - Most powerful may be different depending on what you are measuring. Is it a pushing force or a breaking force? In power breaking, as per the above posters, the sidekick typicaly destroys the most wood. I have seen a lot of wood smashed with a ball of the foot turning kick and a few biological anomlies smash 5 real 1x12s (Not the BS Boards some use with an instep turning kick. However, typicaly the front kick with the ball of the foot will destroy more wood than the roundhouse or turning.
4th - Most owerful is the one tha gets the job done in the given situation.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

What if you use the ball of your foot instead of the instep for a roundhouse?

Same basic kick. We practice in the dojo using heavy bags and the instep, but we also practice using the ball of the foot. In the street, since you're likely to be wearing shoes, it would be the toes, since it's hard to point the toes up inside shoes and have the shoes bend to match your foot orientation. Kicking with the instep is designed to move someone, for example, to place them where you want them for a followup. Kicking with the instep is designed to penetrate and damage.

 

[Grenadier]

The art of throwing a front kick seems to have been lost over the last couple of decades.

A good front kick should be driving forward, penetrating, and using the back leg to provide additional power to the front kick. With the whole body's momentum going forward, combined with a strong snapping motion of the kicking leg, a front kick will deliver more power than a round or side kick.

The main problem, is that a LOT of practitioners do not drive their bodies forward when throwing that front kick, that they're standing in place, and solely relying on the momentum generated by the kicking leg. For that matter, a lot of practitioners aren't even driving their front kicks forward, and instead letting their kicks float upwards.

 

[Cyriacus]

The art of throwing a front kick seems to have been lost over the last couple of decades.

A good front kick should be driving forward, penetrating, and using the back leg to provide additional power to the front kick. With the whole body's momentum going forward, combined with a strong snapping motion of the kicking leg, a front kick will deliver more power than a round or side kick.

The main problem, is that a LOT of practitioners do not drive their bodies forward when throwing that front kick, that they're standing in place, and solely relying on the momentum generated by the kicking leg. For that matter, a lot of practitioners aren't even driving their front kicks forward, and instead letting their kicks float upwards.

Yep.
A Front Kick isnt a pick up > snap out like alot of People make it.
I could go further into detail, but were both on the same page, and itd be unnecessary.

 

[oftheherd1]

Interesting to learn of different names for kicks. I only studied TKD breifly over 40 years ago. I think we referred to a roundhouse kick as a kick with the back leg, with the ball of the foot (I don't recall any instep kicks like we do in the Hapkido I studied), to the head, passing any attempted blocks. It was an extremely powerful kick. As we learned it, it should be more powerful than a side kick. The problem was being with the back foot, it took longer to get there, and was therefore more easily evaded. All kicks should be powerful, but certainly some will be more so than others. Some will leave the kicker more exposd than others, especially higher kicks.

Again, interesting responses to an interesting question. Thanks all.

 

[StudentCarl]

Paraphrasing from the firearm world: first rule of gunfighting is have a gun. Next is that bullet placement matters more than bullet size. Bottom line is that the best kick is the one you can get on target, on time, with power. Otherwise you're just waving your leg waiting to get hurt. If you hit anybody low in the gut with a good kick, you'll back 'em up at least, and you may put 'em down. Position and angle of kicker and opponent matter a lot in kick selection, as does the surface you're standing on. I'm not willing to take any kick low in the gut if I can help it.

 

[MaxiMe]

Interesting thread.
I always thought the weapon used depended on the target. In the case of a round kick soft tissue (bladder,kidney, gut, etc) you would use the ball of foot. Hhard surface (leg, head) you would use the instep (top of foot). Ball would give you more penetration into the softer tissue. Instep would give you more area to strike with specially if you are closer in (shin to the leg or jaw).
"Gun control is being able to hit your target"

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Yep.
A Front Kick isnt a pick up > snap out like alot of People make it.
I could go further into detail, but were both on the same page, and itd be unnecessary.

Ours (Isshin-Ryu) is a snap kick intended (as I am taught) to collapse the pelvic bone; thus it penetrates and it not intended to lightly brush the genitalia of the opponent. The fact that the wedding tackle is damaged when the kick is thrown properly is simply incidental; it is not the target, it's just in the way of the target. There are many people, including those who are drunk or stoned, who can withstand a solid kick to the snarglies. Not many can continue to walk if the pelvic bone snaps. At least, this is how we are taught to deliver the mae geri. We also have a mae konate, which is a heel thrust kick. Looks similar to some, but it is delivered with the heel rather than the ball of the foot, and it is intended more as a 'get away from me' strike (again, as I understand it). It is delivered at or above the obi.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Interesting thread.
I always thought the weapon used depended on the target. In the case of a round kick soft tissue (bladder,kidney, gut, etc) you would use the ball of foot. Hhard surface (leg, head) you would use the instep (top of foot). Ball would give you more penetration into the softer tissue. Instep would give you more area to strike with specially if you are closer in (shin to the leg or jaw).
"Gun control is being able to hit your target"

When we use the instep round house kick, we sometimes 'dead leg' it, meaning we do not retract or rechamber it, but follow through. When applied in this manner, the purpose is to relocate the opponent to where you want them. A corralling move, so to speak. When thrown like that, we put all our momentum and weight into it and follow through; the goal being our kicking leg ends up leading as opposed to being retracted back to the trailing position from where it was thrown. Not useful against a much larger opponent, but for someone like me (for whom 'larger than me' is somewhat infrequent), putting all my weight and proper axial momentum into the kick means if I land it, my opponent is going for a ride. Even if they 'catch' the kick, the momentum and weight should mean their arm is pinned to their side anyway; catching it only prevents them from peeing their pants.

One kick not mentioned here which I consider very effective, but which I am not the master of, is the reverse or back kick. When done right, I think it's a very very powerful kick, and it does not stand a lot of chance of being blocked or evaded unless you know your opponent and know his or her 'tell' when they're about to launch it. I've seen it used with great effect as a 'walking away' kick, where the opponent seems to turn their back on you, but as you advance, you suddenly eat their foot directly in your midsection (or face) with huge power and speed. Someone mentioned seeing people literally fly across the room from a side kick, and that's true, but I've been lifted off my feet by a reverse kick to the abdomen in our dojo; by someone whom I outweighed by over a hundred pounds. And some shy away from it since it means turning your back to your opponent, but in reality, it's pretty safe, since you are leaning forward when you kick backwards, thus out of range, and you have your eye on the target, so it's not like you're blind to the opponent. From that position, a spinning back-fist is a great follow up too. That kick is something I intend to work on hard in the new year.