Front Kick Touching Game and Theory (Patreon)

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The front kick touching game is very specific and small-sided. Small-sided means limited to a small box of possibilities rather than an open world. The only legal target area is the stomach. The only legal attack is the pushing front kick. Attacks are turn-based. You cannot dodge, and contact is mandatory. You are allowed to move about your space.

Despite being limited, for new practitioners, the world feels vaster than it is. New practitioners feel overwhelmed, over-sensitive to new sensory stimuli, and overstimulated by newness. Overstimulation affects perception, and this game calibrates perception in a safe, transparent, informed, and consensual way.

From lots of practice, boxers develop an ability to take a punch. Even if we are doing light contact sparring, it may feel heavier than light if the person receiving the hit is not used to being hit. By allowing yourself to get touched by the front kick, you learn to absorb that shot. That can only come from practice and dwelling in this new sensory world.

Properly taking a hit is idiosyncratic to each practitioner but includes things like body positioning, tension and relaxation, breathing, bracing, and what you do at the moment of impact. Every new technique will feel heavier than it is until you learn to absorb that impact. The first light turning kick to the thigh will feel worse than it is until you're used to it and have learned to absorb it.

At first, even a light touch with the front kick seems stiff, but after a while, it'll feel appropriate. Intensity is mutual; the person delivering the hit has to know how to modulate intensity, and the person receiving the hit must know how to absorb that intensity. Consider stunt work or pro wrestling: a safe worker still needs a partner who knows how to take a bump.

The front kick is often called "the boot" in pro wrestling and is one of the most common set-ups for high-scoring offensive movements or interruptions of the opponent's offense, just as in sparring. How you do one thing is how you do all things. It just makes sense.

Pro wrestling theory is cooperative theory, making it useful for LMA. Even the term "worker" places both participants in the role of mutual creators. Workers need a safe workspace, and a safe workspace needs safe workers. Just as we orient to our environments, our environments must orient to us.

The first light knee to the stomach may feel heavy because you might duck into it, increasing the impact. It'll only feel light once you learn to reduce the impact, or at least not unintentionally increase it. The person executing the strike must know how to deliver it lightly, and the person receiving the impact must know how to receive it the way it was delivered, if not even lighter. Again, it's a mutually shared effort. If I get into a fight with my spouse, reconciliation can't be driven by just one partner; it has to be mutual. A safe worker must know how to take a boot just as well as they can give a proper boot. What is autonomy without mutuality? Literally giving and taking.

A blind spot for radical spaces can be solely focusing on how something is given without considering how we receive it. It's still monodirectional rather than bidirectional, which only reproduces preexisting societal and interpersonal problems, just in a different way. Trust means trusting your partner to deliver and trusting yourself to receive.

Since you will also touch your partner with the front kick, your execution must be deliberate, not careless. You can't kick up, which might accidentally hit your partner's chin, you have to make sure it's a push. After a while, you'll learn to do it mostly with hip and ankle extensions. Making the knee extension the primary driver is dangerous to both the giver and the receiver. Overextending the knee can hurt your knee.

If you only kick into the air or purposely miss your partner, the kick can become careless over time. If the goal of a sparring game is only negation, where both parties never land anything, not only can the movements become careless, but the practitioners won't get habituated to contact and defense. Play is give-and-take, not the negation of play for both parties.

If you learn to make contact from the beginning, your kick becomes deliberate and safe. You become a safe sparring partner (a safe worker). Never making contact only makes it more dangerous when you eventually make contact. Constantly avoiding contact makes contact more dangerous to receive. Imagine a pro wrestler giving you a bump, having never practiced on a live partner. Imagine taking a bump from a safe worker, having never taken a bump. Making contact through a safe, controlled, small-sided, give-and-take game is best.

Since you are both making contact, you're developing an accurate sense of proximity, but also how to orient your partner to your kick's flight path. You also develop a sense for when your vertical center line is exposed to your partner's attack path.

When you play a game with lead kicks and then move onto rear kicks, you will recognize they have different zones of proximity. To land the lead kick, you must orient your lead leg to your opponent's vertical center line and be close enough to land the kick without taking a step. For the rear, your zone of proximity starts further away, and you must orient your opponent's vertical center line to your rear foot.

Once you alternate lead and rear kicks, you must quickly adapt to new orientations and distances. It's constant reorientation and dynamic wayfinding. Developing your senses is always bidirectional. It's more than just a sense for what you can do to your partner but also what your partner can do to you.

Before you begin, get a groin protector, not only to protect your groin but also your hip and pelvis. Proper equipment makes you and your partner less hesitant to kick. The equipment gives you one less thing to worry about, which is critical to being in the moment. In our in-person sessions, everyone uses the RDX groin protector.

Start with lead kicks, then rear kicks, then alternating. Make sure to train from both sides. Training both sides is essential for safety, injury prevention, and dynamic wayfinding.

– Sam