Some will say why learn to kick barefooted? Some will say you don’t kick someone in a street fight with no shoes on? Well yes that is very true. But the thing is, learning to kick effectively does require doing so in bare feet. And there are other practical reasons involved also.
Looking at the technical side of it all first, if you always do a front kick with shoes on then you will become idle minded regarding kicking with the toes. A bad habit when it comes to striking into the target in the correct way. If you study a so-called street fighter, then you may have noticed that your average street thug will often kick using a swing like action of the leg, and the toes/pointed part of the shoes, become the impact area? And yes for sure I do know it hurts the person you are kicking doing it that way. However a lot of power is also lost as a result. Being barefooted when learning to kick means that you are forced to strike with the ball of the foot, or break your toes when in bare feet, and in addition it will also make you far more aware that a good kick needs to go directly into the target area and not travel upwards. Try doing a front kick using both methods on a hanging kick bag to see what I mean. As for the other practical reasons, attending a training session and walking on a mat, or a nice clean floor, with shoes on makes for a dirty floor and it also treads in grit and maybe even broken bits of glass. And of course training in bare feet stops students attending classes and training in all sorts of footwear like Doc Martin boots, sandals and even Wellington boots for example. Well you never know with some people? And let’s not forget that shoes can and do come off and go flying across the room when kicking at times, more so if kicking using a leg swing type of action. For a feature size related article on the subject of kicking click >HERE< Comments are closed.
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